Ever wonder what police officers have to say about the “Defund the Police” movement? I know I did. Yes, there are definitely stories online and throughout the internet that give us some insights. But I had the chance, in preparation for this blog, to interview, in person, a high ranking officer and get his views on what’s circulating the web and happening across the United States. My goal is not to push any political agenda or persuade anyone to agree with or disagree with the defunding of police, I simply wanted to gather some information about the controversial videos, footage, and messages from someone who currently works as a Police Sargent. For the purposes of this blog, I’ll call him Tom.
The first series of questions that I asked had to do with video footage that shows police officers shooting multiple times into an assailant and why that would be necessary. Or should it not have happened at all?
In paraphrasing his response, he said” We as police officers have a split second to act when presented a situation, and training can only prepare you to a certain degree for that. However, with that being said, civilians would expect a gun shot to effect someone in the same way we would view it in a movie or on a tv show. We expect them to get hit and drop down immediately. That is almost never the case. For example, if someone has a knife and is running at me, they can cover over 30 feet before I can even remove the gun from my holster. However, even if I have my gun drawn, I could shoot them once, twice or even three times and they can still reach me and stab me before it ever has any effect on them. The reason someone would fire multiple rounds would be for the purpose of rendering a person incapable of harming someone or doing further damage. The idea is to stop an assailant and prevent them from engaging in some form of violence that could prove harmful for another civilian or the police officer themselves. While I have seen footage that shows multiple rounds being fired, it is only because a single shot would in many cases still create a very dangerous situation for those involved in the incident”.
The next series of questions had to do with police reform. For example, “What would you say to someone that thinks there needs to be ‘trained social workers’ replacing or being used as an added measure in police encounters”?
His thoughts: “I think there are always insights and additional training that can be learned and implemented for the future. I am actually a big proponent of that. The police are always learning and developing because the criminals and situations always change and develop as well. However, there is a lot of training that has already been included at the academy and within the precincts that many don’t know about. For example, when a police officer is placed in a situation, there first job is to access what’s going on and de-escalate the problem as quickly as possible. If shots are fired, the police officer is always evaluated to see if there were other actions that could have been taken that would have de-escalated the event prior to making that choice. To put it into a situation a civilian would be used to, imagine someone enters your home at night with the intent to rob you or hurt you. If you were to grab a gun, sit in a corner around the wall and wait for them to come around the corner before shooting them, you haven’t exactly given them a chance to leave or make a different choice before taking a shot. The same situation can be applied when looked at a police officer involved in an incident. They are evaluated on how they tried to prevent further problems before discharging their weapon. You have to quickly access the danger and de-escalate the situation, but you also need to keep in mind the safety of people around you, including yourself, when making that choice”.
The next question I asked was, do you feel like police are held to unachievable high standards? Or, do you think that they are given all they need to do a good job?
Tom said, “my short answer to that question would be yes. I feel like police have what they need to be good officers. But at the same time many pass judgment on police without knowing a single thing about what the job entails. How many people, including the most intelligent people we have in the U.S, like lawyers or doctors or political figures, know what its like as someone on the force? Very few actually. But I would also say that the law was created with certain amounts of leniency so that people could work within it without being hammered anytime they make a mistake. So yes, police can do a great job with the tools they are given, but they also carry a low of weight with it. I would also say that there is always two sides to a situation and when footage is taken, it is very important that full investigations be had before conclusions should be made. A loss of life is always sad, but information can create clarity and give meaning to certain actions taken by both civilians and police officers alike”.
While the interview lasted over 45 minutes, some of the details are specific to his job and can’t be discussed on this blog. But in summary, Tom sees the communications put out on the internet being tied to a lack of understanding of what Police are trained to do and the difficulty of the decisions that have to be made. In relation to police targeting certain races, his comment was this: “I have gotten very good over the years at objectively identifying people who are breaking the law or are dangerous. This expertise is not tied to race, but rather actionable cues that allow me to keep our cities as safe as I can make them”. His comments did not go beyond that point and I had to end our meeting. However, he also stated that he was sympathetic and open to those who desire reform or additional training within the police force. He does, however, and as most might assume, disagree with any type of defunding that would be based on isolated incidents filmed and projected by the media over the internet. He desires transparency, increased awareness, and education for those on and off the force for the future. His responses were simple and very heartfelt. Without revealing his race or any other details outside of his response, I hope that I was able to accurately present a single police officers views on the communications being openly discussed over the internet in connection with the “Defund the police” movement.
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