Someone on NPR this morning was making a case that “more senior” police officers are more level headed and reign this sort of behavior in, that young guys are just too “hot headed”.
I wonder where the fuck they get this warrior mentality from? Probably video games, and not their training. I highly recommend this Frontline documentary
Salt Lake Tribune reporter Paighten Harkins and FRONTLINE/Hollyhock filmmaker-in-residence Abby Ellis were allowed to observe and film scenario training sessions over several months. In the above excerpt, instructors push cadets to make life-or-death decisions.
“You’re in the wrong profession, my friend, if you can’t live with that,” a POST trainer tells a cadet who’s reluctant to make the choice to shoot in one role-play situation with an individual twirling a gun.
“We don’t want to shoot people, OK? But who makes that decision?” the trainer asks.
“They do,” a cadet responds.
“Bear with me for a minute: When you picture a criminal, what do you think?” the trainer continues. “Have you pictured somebody you love? Look in the mirror and ask yourself: ‘Can I kill a kid? Can I shoot a grandma? Can I shoot a mom? Can I shoot a dad? Can I shoot a brother?’ Because if you can’t, it’s not you that’s going to get hurt. It’s your partner.”
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As covered in the above clip, the focus on worst-case scenarios in training has become increasingly controversial among experts concerned about police shootings.
Randy Shrewsberry, who worked as a police officer in multiple departments around the country and now advocates for training reform, calls it “fear-based training,” driven by “the possibility of an action versus the probability of an action.”
Shrewsberry, the executive director of the Institute for Criminal Justice Training Reform, says the “endless exploration of what could happen … in every circumstance of their job” creates a narrative where officers are always on edge.
*“*The reality,” Shrewsberry says in the documentary, “is that policing is as safe as it’s ever been. And so it doesn’t match up to this disproportionate emphasis that we place when we’re constantly telling officers that at any moment they can be murdered, at any moment that they can be killed.”