When Atatiana Jefferson Picked Up Her Gun, Officer Dean's Requirement to Issue a Warning or Attempt to Deescalate Disappeared
nolu chan
October 28, 2019
Regarding Use-of-Force, the Fort Worth PD adopted PERF ICAT training in 2018. While it requires issuance of a warning and attempting deescalation before using lethal force, it explicitly does not apply to situations where the subject is armed with a gun.
A subject with a firearm is treated differently from all other situations. In such situation, the Fort Worth PD Use-of-Force policy does not require the officer to issue a warning, or to attempt deescalation, prior to using lethal force.
Let us review the Use of Force policy of the Fort Worth PD, beginning with PERF ICAT, adopted in January 2018, and proceeding to the general Forth Worth PD policy of 2017 as reviewed by The Use of Force Project.
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PERF ICAT TRAINING
Police Executive Research Forum
Integrating Communications, Assessment and Tactics De-escalation Training
http://fortworthtexas.gov/news/2018/01/police-perf-training/
FWPD completes training that emphasizes de-escalation tactics
Posted Jan. 31, 2018
Every officer in the Fort Worth Police Department has completed training that encourages them to use a new way of thinking when it comes to crisis intervention, communication and tactics.
The training is called PERF ICAT— Police Executive Research Forum Integrating Communications, Assessment and Tactics De-escalation Training. The nationally-recognized training educates officers on the skills, knowledge and confidence needed to manage non-firearm threats, influence behavioral changes and gain voluntary compliance whenever possible. The training is a key to the department’s mission to safeguard the lives of residents and enhance public safety through building trust with the community.
The PD has recently made changes to how officers approach use-of-force situations and amended policies to incorporate de-escalation tactics. Biannual in-service training and training for new recruits have been modified to provide more tools to resolve police encounters that emphasize the safety of residents and officers.
The PD has invited city officials and members of the Chief’s Advisory Board, Policy Advisory Committee, and the Race and Culture Task Force to an ICAT training session so they can realize what is expected of officers and have a better understanding of the situations officers face each day.
Well, that sounded impressive. However, PERF ICAT training mainly benefits Officer Dean and the defense.
https://www.policeforum.org/about-icat
About ICAT
Integrating Communications, Assessment, and Tactics, or ICAT, is a use-of-force Training Guide designed to fill a critical gap in training police officers in how to respond to volatile situations in which subjects are behaving erratically and often dangerously but do not possess a firearm. The Training Guide includes model lesson plans and support materials (including Power Point presentations, videos, and other resources) in the key areas of decision-making, crisis recognition and response, tactical communications and negotiations, and operational safety tactics. ICAT then integrates these skills and provides opportunities to practice them through video case studies and scenario-based training exercises.
Read the ICAT Mission Statement and Training Goals
Four Areas of Focus
The ICAT Training Guide focuses on four key areas:
Patrol officer response. In almost every situation where a subject is behaving erratically (often because of mental illness or behavioral crisis), it is a patrol officer—a “beat cop”—who is the first to respond. ICAT provides these officers with the skills and options needed to safely and effectively manage these encounters, especially in the critical first few moments after officers arrive. In many instances, the goal is for the first responding officers to buy enough time so that additional, specialized resources can get to the scene to support a safe and peaceful resolution.
Non-firearms incidents. ICAT focuses on those critical incidents in which the subject is unarmed or armed with a weapon other than a firearm (such as a knife, baseball bat, rocks, or other blunt instrument). Unlike situations in which the subject has a firearm and officers have few options besides lethal force, these non-firearms incidents often present officers with time and opportunity to consider a range of responses. Helping officers safely and effectively manage these types of encounters is the focus of ICAT.
Integration of crisis recognition/intervention, communications, and tactics. In recent years, a growing number of police agencies have been providing their officers with specialized training on how to interact with persons who are in crisis because of mental health issues or other factors. ICAT builds on those efforts by integrating communications and tactical skills with crisis intervention approaches. This integrated approach is presented in the context of a Critical Decision-Making Model that helps patrol officers develop and think through their options in these challenging non-firearms incidents.
Officer safety and wellness. ICAT is centered on PERF’s Guiding Principle #1: “The sanctity of human life should be at the heart of everything an agency does.” The Training Guide focuses on protecting officers from both physical threats and emotional harm. This is accomplished by equipping officers with the tools, techniques and skills needed to slow down some situations and pursue options for safely resolving them. The goal is to help officers avoid reaching the point where their lives or the lives of others become endangered and the officers have no choice but to use lethal force.
Read How the ICAT Training Guide Was Created
Flexible and Adaptable
PERF encourages police agencies and academies to be creative in how they choose to use the ICAT Training Guide.
- Some may decide to present ICAT as a stand-alone training program, for recruit or in-service training, or both.
- Other agencies may choose to incorporate the ICAT training modules into existing programs on de-escalation, tactical communications or crisis intervention.
- Still other agencies may want to take elements of individual modules and create their own lesson plans that are tailored for their agencies and communities.
- And because many skills (such as tactical communications) are perishable and need to be reinforced and practiced on a regular basis, some agencies may choose to include elements of ICAT in their roll call or team training exercises.
ICAT is designed to be flexible enough to accommodate these and other approaches. However, it is critical that whatever approach is used, the agency or academy focus on the integration of skills, and not present the material in training “silos.” This focus on integration is what makes ICAT unique.
PERF ICAT training does not include subjects with a firearm. Shit, that looked so promising too. Introduce a firearm into the equation and PERF ICAT goes out the window. Introduce a firearm and PERF ICAT has no application whatever. Incidents with firearms are subject to a very different policy.
Repeated for emphasis.
Non-firearms incidents. ICAT focuses on those critical incidents in which the subject is unarmed or armed with a weapon other than a firearm (such as a knife, baseball bat, rocks, or other blunt instrument). Unlike situations in which the subject has a firearm and officers have few options besides lethal force, these non-firearms incidents often present officers with time and opportunity to consider a range of responses.
PERF ICAT redounds to the benefit of the defense of Officer Dean as it makes clear that asituation with a subject armed with a firearm is handled differently from all the other situations, and the officers have few options besides lethal force.
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FORT WORTH PD USE OF FORCE POLICY AS REVIEWED BY THE USE OF FORCE PROJECT
http://useofforceproject.org/#review
We reviewed the use of force policies of America's 100 largest city police departments to determine whether they include meaningful protections against police violence. Click the boxes below to view details for each policy.
Download the Report
Read the Full Study
[...]
Below is the use of force policy, including the use of deadly force on a subject armed with a firearm, for Forth Worth as documented by the above review of the Use of Force Project.
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Fort Worth
Year of most recent policy 2017
Requires De-Escalation:
Does the policy require officers to de-escalate situations, when possible?
• "When safely possible, an officer shall use de-escalation techniques consistent with department training whenever possible and appropriate before resorting to force and to reduce the need for force.”
Bans Chokeholds and Strangleholds:
Are chokeholds and strangleholds Gncluding carotid restraints) explicitly prohibited, except in situations where deadly force is authorized?
• "Officers are prohibited from using choke holds and other types of neck-restrain ing tech niques except when protecting them selves or others against an imminent threat of serious bodily and death."
Duty to Intervene:
Are officers required to intervene when witnessing another officer using excessive force?
• "Officers have the duty to intervene when observing another officer using force that is beyond that which is objectively reasonable under the circumstances."
Requires Warning Before Shooting:
Are officers required to give a verbal warning, when possible, before shooting someone?
• "If not already known by the subject to be detained, arrested, or searched, officers should, if reasonable, make clear their intent to detain, arrest or search the subject. When practicable, officers will identify themselves as a peace officer before using force"
Restricts Shooting at Moving Vehicles:
Are officers prohibited from shooting at people in moving vehicles unless the subject presents a separate deadly threat other than the vehicle itself?
• 4. Officers shall not fire a weapon into a moving vehicle or at its occupant(s) unless the occupant(s) are using deadly force against the officer or another person present, by means other than the vehicle.
• 5. Officers shall not place themselves in the path of a moving vehicle in a manner which may lead to the use of deadly force. If a confrontation with a moving vehicle does occur, officers shall move out of the path of the vehicle."
Requires Comprehensive Reporting:
Are all uses of force required to be reported, including the pointing of a firearm at a civilian?
Pointing a weapon at a civilian is not required to be reported.
Requires Exhaust All Other Means Before Shooting:
Are officers required to exhaust all other reasonable alternatives before resorting to deadly force?
Officers not required to exhaust other reasonable means before resorting to deadly force.
"Under no circumstances will the force used by an officer be greater than necessary to make an arrest or a detention or to protect oneself or another, nor will the force be used longer than necessary to subdue the suspect, and deadly force shall not be used except as specifically provided in this directive."
The use of deadly force is authorized only when it is necessary for officers to protect themselves or others from an immediate threat of death or serious bodily injury.”
Has Use of Force Continuum:
Is a Force Continuum or Matrix included in the Policy, defining the types of force/weapons that can be used to respond to specific types of resistance?
Yes.
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