Following Chief Thomas’ Use of Force presentation to the Community Advisory Board on 12/07/2020 there was a question and answer session. I’m halfway through writing that up and have included that first half below.
Question: The state requires a minimum of 24 hours of continuing education training annually. Is that a sufficient amount? Do most officers only do 24 hours?
Chief Thomas: 24 is the minimum set by the state, but most officers do more than that and a vast majority do a lot more than that. Some train 8 to 12 hours a month in their specialties. APD goes well above 24.
Question: If an officer is involved in Use of Force 5 or more times in a year there’s a review process. Do you have the number on hand about the percentage of officers per year who reach or surpass that threshold?
Chief Thomas: The answer was somewhere in the 180 page Use of Force review but he couldn’t find it right then and said he would get that info later. The review of officers who reach that threshold is done by a different supervisor than the one who reviewed the incidents at the initial time that they happened. And then that supervisor will report to a different captain what his findings are.
Question: The body cam footage in 2012 dipped significantly. Why was that?
Chief Thomas: That was before Chief Thomas came to APD in 2015. He didn’t know specifically but he speculated that in 2012 was back when they had a Vievu bodycam system, and they were sharing body cameras. They didn’t even have enough for each officer, and they had to share. In 2015 they went to Axon, and every officer had a camera.
Question:: When there are multiple uses of force within one incident, does APD record the highest/strongest one that was used or every single one?
Chief Thomas: Every single one. If they decentralize somebody and then can’t get them in handcuffs and another officer uses knee or hand strikes, each of those instances is recorded–the decentralization, the hand strike, and the knee strike. There is not a hierarchy.
Question: When do officers have enough probable cause to use violence when going straight into a situation? [I took this question to mean: when do officers have enough reason to draw a weapon when approaching a situation/individual instead of later on in their interaction.]
Chief Thomas: That would be part of the approach considerations–the first step in their Disturbance Resolution Model.
He went on to explain that verbalization always comes first. Additionally, there is another technique that APD had trained in since 2012 called “Reactive Resistance”. APD wants to try to avoid havin their officers do something that would initiate/provoke resistance. He explained that if he walked up to you and got within 2 or 3 feet, your natural response will be to get tense. If he reaches out to touch you, your natural human reaction will be to push back. In light of that, when an officer has tried to negotiate with an individual and deescalate a situation but things have reached the point there officer needs to take them into custody, APD has trained their officers to make a conscious effort when they’re going to take someone into custody to take 2 steps back, verbally let them know that they’re under arrest and that they need to turn around and put their hands behind their back, and then give the suspect time to process that. This is different from what a lot of agencies do and is different from how some of the law enforcement academies used to train. There used to be the idea that the more time an officer gave a suspect to think, the more time that suspect was going to think of a way to run, resist, or attack. But that has changed now, and APD trains differently. APD wants people to be able to comprehend what just happened. Usually when an officer comes to an arrest situation, emotions are already heightened; 30% of the time, a person will be under the influence of an intoxicant or drug; frequently there will be mental health issues involved. So the officers want to make sure that a person clearly understands what’s going on. That’s the Reactive Resistance concept. Chief Thomas believes that’s why APD has such a significantly low use of force.
Question: Could you explain the term “going direct”? And is there any way to track the number of times the officers “go direct”?
Chief Thomas didn’t know what that term meant.
Question: It was explained to the questioner as drawing a weapon. Is that a term that’s used by APD?
Chief Thomas: Had never heard of that term for drawing a firearm?
Question: Meaning if the officer might be going into a situation and they might say over the intercom to another officer, “I’m going direct, right now”. Is that an actual thing?
Chief Thomas had never heard of that term in his 35 years of policing.
Question: The questioner was confused about why use of force [and possibly other police interactions] were not compared by population. 21.6% of use of force incidents and a comparable number of arrests involve Blacks but that didn’t make sense given the population of Blacks who live in Appleton [which, based on 2018 statistics was only 2,327, around 3% of the population]. The questioner also commented on 30% of use of force incidents happening with non-Appleton residents. He mentioned that when he first moved to Appleton he was harassed repeatedly by police, and he didn’t know if that was a way for the officers to indicate that he was not welcome here. He stated that it took him a year to get his drivers license switched over to Wisconsin from his previous state, but during that time he was still living and working here. He wondered if situations like that went into the 30% non-resident statistic.
Chief Thomas: He reiterated that Use of Force incidents can’t meaningfully be compared to population. The best example of this is that 50% of the people police arrest and 50% of the people involved in Use of Force incidents aren’t female even though females make up 50% of the population. APD doesn’t use force against the general population. They use force against a percentage of the people they arrest. So if they arrest 100 people and 30% of them are hispanic and 30% are African American then if the police’s Use of Force is proportionate to their arrest rates then they should only be using force 30% of the time against Hispanics or African Americans. If 5% of their arrests were of Native Americans, but 40% of their Use of Force incidents were against Native Americans that would be dramatically disproportionate. So that is why they compare Use of Force against the number of arrests.
Chief Thomas acknowledged that African Americans are arrested at a much higher rate than their population numbers, but in Appleton those are coming down dramatically.
Question: Is that lower arrest rate because there’s been less racial profiling by APD officers?
Chief Thomas: Some of it is training in the last 10-15 years. Some of it is also that Appleton’s African American population is growing and the city’s becoming more diverse.
Question: The board member didn’t think the statistics in the Use of Force report reflected what he was hearing in the Black community. He thought it made it seem as if the department doesn’t need any work or any help–as if APD already has it completely together.
Chief Thomas: They are very proud of how they use and address force, but they also know they can do a lot better. In the years from 2015 to 2018 the percentage of arrests of African Americans in Appleton is down 46%, and it’s been decreasing steadily since 2010. Things are getting better, but the fact that they’re getting better shows that APD had improvements to make. They still have improvements to make. That’s why they’re having these discussions, are trying to grow the diversity in our department, and have increased the training that they’re having on cultural diversity. They’re working with Karen Nelson, the city’s Diversity and Inclusion Coordinator, on the Government Alliance on Racial Equity. Appleton is one of the few cities in the state that actually has a GARE program and a GARE project that they’re working on. He understands the numbers can be confusing, but when you look at Use of Force and compare them to arrest rates the two are similar. But that doesn’t mean that the arrest rates are not disproportionate to the city’s population, which he acknowledged was the case.
Question: The Board member stated that if he was a white Appleton resident and looked at those numbers, he’d think that everything was great and there were no problems, but he did not believe that aligned with how things really were.
Karen Nelson: She was proud of the fact that Chief Thomas was the first one to say, “Sign me up,” when the opportunity to join GARE arose. She drew attention to an article she wrote in Appleton Monthly magazine. (You can read a transcript of her comments on Appleton’s work with GARE here.)
Question: Is there anything written in policy about what to do for a family like that of Jimmie Sanders who was a bystander killed inadvertently? [The questioner did not mention him by name, but his shooting was clearly the situation she was referencing.]
Chief Thomas: The District Attorney’s office and the State Department of Justice have victim/witness coordinators. The Department of Justic has an Office of Crime Victim Services with resources.
Question: But from the police department’s standpoint, after something like that happens they remain hands off and uninvolved?
Chief Thomas: At that point it goes to those other providers. Appleton doesn’t have a victim witness program either through the city or through the police department. They do some victim services, but those are more related to domestic violence. Those other services mentioned above are available through the county and state. There are also civil remedies if a family chooses civil remedies. [Jimmie Sanders’ family did recently choose to seek a civil remedy and have filed suit against Officer Jay Steinke.]
Question: Is there anything the police department could do. Or does it all go to lawyers at that point?
Chief Thomas: It goes to legal services.
Karen Nelson: Wanted to know if the Board member had any ideas or suggestions along those lines.
The Board member didn’t have any thoughts right then because it had just popped into her head. She mentioned that when she sees tragedies happen in the nation she has always been disgusted by the fact that the police departments don’t say anything. She didn’t know what drove that and wondered if a tragedy like that happened in Appleton again if something could be done–even if it was just to offer words. But she understood if they couldn’t due to legal issues.
Chief Thomas: Generally when there’s an incident like that the police are put on notice of a pending claim or lawsuit and then their attorneys take over and tell them that they can’t comment or get involved. He stated that if she had ideas or suggestions of some way they could navigate that legally he’d like to hear them.
Question: Is there a way that APD can track when officers pull their weapons? He felt that there are certain situations where officers pull their weapons but should not have and wondered if there was a say to track when and why officers pull their weapons out.
Chief Thomas: APD has not yet started doing that. They are in discussions about steps going forward. That is something that is being tracked more frequently and was one of the discussions of the State task force. He expected to see recommendations from the state task force, and tracking the drawing of weapons may end up being something that we see happen statewide.
Question: Beyond just pulling weapons, it would be good to track the race of the person it was pulled on.
Chief Thomas: Thought that would be fairly easy for them to add, because it’s just another box to put in the database they’ve had for 20 years. He said he would talk to the people who put the database together.
Question: If an officer pulls a firearm right away do other officers know? Is that something they announce on the intercom and say “Weapon drawn”.
Chief Thomas: Sometimes they do. It depends on the situation. Usually they’ll say something like, “I have one at gunpoint” or “I have three at gunpoint”, so that other officers pulling up know.
Question: If an officer has his firearm drawn and they successfully de-escalate the situation, is that recorded as a deescalation in the database?
Chief Thomas: APD doesn’t track deescalations because deescalation happens on basically every call. Is there a way to track when they draw a gun, a taser, or pepper spray and don’t use it? He would have to discuss that with their trainers and the people who run their program to see if that’s possible.
Question: He mentioned that he has lived in Milwaukee and the Chicago area and he thinks Appleton is doing a better job than those other places. In part of the presentation, Chief Thomas had mentioned that in some situations disengagement is not an option. He wanted to understand what he meant by that.
Chief Thomas: Those would be situations in which officers are mandated to make certain arrests, such as a domestic violence situation where they can’t leave and have to make an arrest by law. Or like at the transit center when someone is being attacked and they have to take action. Or a bar fight where they can’t disengage and let someone get hurt. Or if one of their officers gets attacked. He mentioned that they had an officer just this last year who was attacked in the police department parking lot. He was walking up to the side door at 3 or 4 in the morning, and an individual walked up to him, stared at him–was staring through him–and was clearly in some type of emotional crisis. His hand was hidden behind his leg. The officer put his hands up and tried to get him to talk and started backing away from him, but the individual charged at him. The officer did not shoot him because he did not see the knife until he was already stabbed. He could have shot him, but he didn’t. Instead, he got stabbed several times and took the guy into custody. That could have been a justified shooting, and the guy could have died. Instead, the officer received some stab wounds in the shoulder and the back because he tried to disengage but couldn’t and was attacked.
There was very little news coverage of this event. It was reported on page 5 of the Post Crescent in a little blurb. [Here’s the Post Crescent article. It seems longer than what I would call a blurb but there are sometimes differences between their print and online stories.]
Chief Thoms went on to say that there are times they have weapons calls, or people that are suicidal, where they can’t disengage because there may be other people in the house with them. It happens frequently that they’ll be called to a situation where a suicidal person has children or other family members in the house with them. If they were by themselves police officers would just leave and try to talk to them through a phone or a crisis worker, but they can’t do that because of the safety of other people involved.
Question: You have shown us what your team has done for the last 10 years, so now what other areas does your team feel need to be addressed based on the study themes and numbers that you’ve received for the last 10 years?
Chief Thomas: That’s exactly what their discussions are now. At the Board’s next session they’re going to talk about APD’s mental health response team and their behavioral health officer. He believes that is an area where they can make some significant changes in arrest and use of force. They’re working right now on putting together a mental health response team with a social worker embedded at the police department, so not only law enforcement officers will be responding to mental health calls. This is a model that a couple of other agencies already have. His vision is that as law enforcement evolves you will continue seeing this philosophy of de-escalation not just being a tool or technique but being an overarching philosophy. He thinks we’re going to start seeing a lot of alternatives to arrest.
APD has made some significant changes in how they approach juvenile offenders and has reduced the number of arrests for juveniles by over 70%. They’ve always talked about how they can’t arrest their way out of problems. They can’t arrest their way out of the drug and addiction issue. They’re starting to see more people understand that that is a much better solution. But there’s also a huge cost for alternative approaches, and they need the lawmakers and policy makers to be willing to fork out the money to support the diversion programs and drug treatment courts that already exist but need to be expanded.
He mentioned that they’ve seen an increase in the Use of Force on homeless individuals and on people with mental health problems, and he thinks that’s an area where they can make some improvements and lower those Use of Force numbers.
Stay tuned for part 2 in the next day or two.
You can view the entire meeting here.
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