Platteville Police Department Reviews "8 Can't Wait" Use of Force Policy Recommendations

In conjunction with the recent demonstrations and protests seeking Criminal Justice and Police reform, a campaign has started to advance “8 Can’t Wait” Use of Force policy recommendations.  These policy recommendations are intended to reduce the instances when Police Officers must use force to accomplish their lawful objectives. Police Chief Doug McKinley has been asked by several members of the public to assess where the Platteville Police Department is currently in relation to these recommendations.

Recommendation #1 - Ban Choke-holds and Strangleholds.  The Platteville Police Department does not train its Officers in the use of choke-holds or strangleholds.  Any use of such a technique is “untrained or improvised.”  It would only be permissible as a last resort and considered a lethal force option.

Recommendation #2 - Require De-Escalation.  Police Officers in Wisconsin are trained how to respond to incidents in the Law Enforcement Academy as mandated by the Dept. of Justice Training & Standards Division.  Included in this training is information about how to approach a scene in a safe manner (Tactical Response) and how to make use of distance and available cover and concealment.  Additionally, Officers are trained in the use of Dialogue and Professional Communications to defuse potentially volatile situations and prevent the Officer(s) from ever having to engage in any use of force.  This training is continued at the Platteville Police Department. We view it as a victory when we are able to talk someone who initially was non-compliant into cooperating voluntarily with our commands.  In recent years we have sent Officers to Crisis Intervention Training (CIT), training focused on dealing with people with dementia, and training dealing with people in trauma.  We want our Officers to have the ability to communicate with people in their day to day activities, people in crisis, and people who may be suffering from mental illness or other issues which create a barrier to effective communication.

Recommendation #3 - Require Warning Before Shooting.  Quoting from the Platteville Police Department’s Use of Force Procedures, “Before using a firearm, police officers shall identify themselves and state their intent to shoot, if at all possible.” This is practiced on the shooting range where our Officers are taught to verbalize before discharging their firearm.

Recommendation #4 - Require Exhausting all Alternatives Before Shooting.  A further quote from the Platteville Police Department’s Use of Force Procedures, “The privilege to use force is governed by legal and ethical limits. Law enforcement officers may use force legitimately when it is needed to achieve control in five specific situations:

• To achieve and maintain control of resistive subjects
• To detain persons reasonably suspected of criminal behavior
• To make lawful arrests
• To defend themselves and others
• To prevent escape

The safety of innocent bystanders should not be risked unless their safety has already been endangered and using force is the only possible means of protecting them. The use of deadly force is absolutely the last resort to accomplish lawful objectives.”  Our goal is to use the least amount of force necessary to accomplish our objectives.

Recommendation #5 - Duty to Intervene. In our Use of Force policy this is referred to as the Duty to Intercede.  Specifically it states the following, "Any officer present and observing another officer using force that is clearly beyond that which is objectively reasonable under the circumstances shall, when in a position to do so, intercede to prevent the use of unreasonable force. An officer who observes another employee use force that exceeds the degree of force permitted by law should promptly report these observations to a supervisor.”  The mandate to intervene or intercede is instilled in Officers at the Academy level. It is referred to as an “Officer override” in which an Officer takes over control of a police contact from another Officer due to their observation that an incident is getting out of hand.

Recommendation #6 - Ban Shooting at Moving Vehicles.  Law Enforcement agencies in Wisconsin have a long-standing recognition that shooting at moving vehicles is rarely effective and it can be potentially dangerous.  Our Use of Force policy has this to say about the tactic, “Shots fired at or from a moving vehicle are rarely effective. Officers should move out of the path of an approaching vehicle instead of discharging their firearm at the vehicle or any of its occupants. An officer should only discharge a firearm at a moving vehicle or its occupants when the officer reasonably believes there are no other reasonable means available to avert the threat of the vehicle, or if deadly force other than the vehicle is directed at the officer or others (i.e. shots being fired from inside the vehicle). Officers should not shoot at any part of a vehicle in an attempt to disable the vehicle.”

Recommendation #7 - Require Comprehensive Reporting.  At the risk of citing the Use of Force policy too much, here’s what it requires of all of our Officers - "Any use of force by a member of this department shall be documented promptly, completely and accurately in an appropriate report, depending on the nature of the incident. The officer should articulate the factors perceived and why he/she believed the use of force was reasonable under the circumstances. To collect data for purposes of training, resource allocation, analysis and related purposes, the Department may require the completion of additional report forms, as specified in department policy, procedure or law.” Additionally, our policy mandates a number of supervisory notifications which must be made depending on the level of force used by Officers during an incident.

Recommendation #8 - Require A Use of Force Continuum.  The Use of Force training given to new Officers in the Academy and the on-going training our Officers receive stresses Intervention Options which basically authorize the use of certain tactics in response to specific levels of resistance.  Examples of this are that Officers can use Compliance Holds to overcome passive resistance by a subject and Officers can use Active Countermeasures to create a temporary dysfunction of an actively resistive or assaultive subject.  The criteria for Officers to use deadly force require an imminent threat of death or great bodily harm to the involved Officer or another person.

Per the Platteville Police Department’s Use of Force policy, “Officers shall use only that amount of force that reasonably appears necessary given the facts and circumstances perceived by the officer at the time of the event to accomplish a legitimate law enforcement purpose."

"The reasonableness of force will be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene at the time of the incident. Any evaluation of reasonableness must allow for the fact that officers are often forced to make split-second decisions about the amount of force that reasonably appears necessary in a particular situation, with limited information and in circumstances that are tense, uncertain and rapidly evolving."

"Given that no policy can realistically predict every possible situation an officer might encounter, officers are entrusted to use well-reasoned discretion in determining the appropriate use of force in each incident."

"It is also recognized that circumstances may arise in which officers reasonably believe that it would be impractical or ineffective to use any of the tools, weapons or methods provided by the Department. Officers may find it more effective or reasonable to improvise their response to rapidly unfolding conditions that they are confronting. In such circumstances, the use of any improvised device or method must nonetheless be reasonable and utilized only to the degree that reasonably appears necessary to accomplish a legitimate law enforcement purpose."

"While the ultimate objective of every law enforcement encounter is to avoid or minimize injury, nothing in this policy requires an officer to retreat or be exposed to possible physical injury before applying reasonable force.”

The Platteville Police Department subscribes to a service (Lexipol) which automatically updates our policies to ensure they are in line with the best practices in policing and conform to current State, Federal and case law.  As a part of using this service, all our Officers are required to complete Daily Training Bulletins (DTB’s).  These are 3-5-minute scenario-based policy tests which Officers complete on a computer.  In 2019, we totaled over 10 hours of training time per Officer. 56 of the required 328 training modules dealt specifically with our Use of Force policy and the use of deadly force. The DTB’s are daily reminders which reinforce the principles of our policies and challenge our Officers to apply them to real world situations.