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New police use-of-force training draws interest, criticism throughout Georgia


NEWS
| May 15, 2021
By Brad Schrade, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Some called for the police chief to be fired. Others said he was endangering his officers. They accused him of pandering to activists in the national debate about police use of force.

These were just some of the comments directed at LaGrange Police Chief Lou Dekmar on social media and in emails after a story about his new “shoot to incapacitate” training program was published last week by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. But Dekmar also spurred interest and debate among police leaders interested in learning more about the course designed to lessen the chance of death in situations where an officer has to fire their gun in the line of duty.

The interest has spurred the LaGrange Police Department to schedule an orientation training seminar next Friday, which as many as two dozen Georgia police agencies are expected to attend. Though no other agencies have committed to implementing the new training and policy, the response is what Dekmar was hoping for when he went public with the program.

“None of the criticism surprised me,” Dekmar said. “None of the concerns that were communicated are ones that we hadn’t considered. This isn’t something that we came up with last week.”

The strong reaction underscores how deeply entrenched American police orthodoxy is around use of deadly force. For decades, officers have been trained to aim at the center mass of the body — typically the chest, upper torso and head area. That philosophy has contributed to the roughly 1,000 fatal police shootings annually across the country and helped plunge the police profession into a crisis unlike anything in its history.

The training emphasizes that use of deadly force still must be appropriate and necessary to employ the tactic. But it’s designed to give officers an option in cases where the suspect may have a weapon other than a gun, such as a club, knife or blunt object.

Officers are still allowed to aim for center mass, if they deem it necessary. The hope is that in some cases, such as those involving the mentally ill or “suicide-by-cop” situations, the technique may help preserve life while also protecting the officer and the public.

Albany Police Chief Michael Persley said police executives, especially in today’s climate, need to be open to new ideas.

He plans to attend the May 21 training, where he will assess the program and do his own research before making a decision on whether it could work in his southwest Georgia community.

“It’s a challenge to what you’ve been taught over the years,” he said. “In a lot of officer-involved shootings, if you talk to people afterwards, they don’t want to take a life. You want to stop the threat, but you don’t want to take a life.”

The Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police, which has taken no formal position about the training, knowing the interest, sent an email to hundreds of police leaders alerting them to the orientation training. The association’s executive director, Butch Ayers, the former Gwinnett police chief, said there’s a lot of concern about the program because it’s different.

Bibb County Sheriff David Davis read the article in the AJC and after some initial skepticism, said he became intrigued by the idea. He doesn’t know if it will work in the Macon community, but he’s sending his training leadership to LaGrange next week to check out the program.

He said he would want to explore any legal issues and study it further before making any decisions.

“I’m going into it with an open mind,” he said. “If we don’t evolve in this profession, we’re destine to become stagnant and possibly miss some revolutionary ideas.”

The Georgia Public Safety Training Center in Forsyth has been flooded with dozens of calls and emails about the program, many of them critical, since word of it spread, according to Chadd Wilson, director of the center’s basic training division. He said the center leadership plans to be at the training session in LaGrange to take measure for themselves.

Because it has spurred so much talk, he said, the center wants to carry out due diligence and make its own evaluation.

“We want to see what the content is,” he said. “We’ll make a determination after that.”

Dekmar, who has been in law enforcement for more than four decades, is a former president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. He said he patterned the new policy on those of other countries. He first learned of the concept nearly two decades ago during an exchange program in Israel. He later learned that countries in Europe also incorporate the shoot-to- incapacitate concept into their training.

At first, Dekmar had reservations about the idea. Then, after conducting his own research, he thought it had promise. In 2019, LaGrange firearms instructors and other leaders started researching the concept. They developed the training last year and started implementing it in February.

He’s hopeful that once other police leaders learn more, they will warm to the idea. He says it’s not a panacea for all the issues facing police use of force, but he believes it holds promise to save lives. If that happens, he said, it can increase community confidence in law enforcement.

“What’s been lost here is we did not have one police officer who went through this training — and these are difficult times — that was critical of this option,” he said. “Not one. That carries significant weight with me. Officers don’t want to take a life and they are looking for options.”

hmmmmm? Isn't 'dead' kinda like incapacitation? Asking for a friend.

Heh.

just gives the bottom dwellers something else to sue municipalities for, deliberate incapacitation.....

Mmkay, start carrying 12 ga

Putting it between the eyes generally incapacitates.

Is that shorter one Danny Devito?

So, on the other hand, will murderers only be charged with a lesser crime as long as they claim that they were only "shooting to incapacitate" their victim?

I believe there are a lot of cases where officers on their own initiative have shot to incapacitate. I have a friend with a derelict son that tried suicide by cop and was shot in the shoulder or upper arm. I believe the cop that shot him didn't want to kill a crazy and therefore shot to wound and incapacitate. This young man is now a guest of the sheriff because of continued misbehavior. Luckily for me in my 30 years I never pulled the trigger on anyone but I was very close one time to trying a right shoulder shot on an armed resister. When I first started qualifying with a handgun 40 years ago the kill zone marked off on the silhouette was much lower down into the abdomen and I aimed right over the belt buckle area thinking that will take him down and if I happen to shoot high or low I've still got him.

As our old friend Dr. Martin Fackler noted, the concordance between reliable incapacitation by and death in GSW’s is extremely close.

Center mass.

That way, a miss is still a hit.........

I would imagine that there have been numerous instances of an officer attempting to incapacitate rather than kill with a shot. I also wonder how many of those instances resulted in harm to the officer or others when that shot failed to incapacitate.

It's a worthwhile discussion, new ideas should be discussed. That said, there should be LOTS of questions:
- The adage of dead men tell no tales, sort of applies to dead men don't sue. Would there be laws to protect when a "shoot to stop" shooting cripples someone? Just as it should be now, justified shooting means no law suits (yeah right), but I could see some slime lawyer trying "intentional pain and suffering" type of line

- sometimes there's no time for a second shot. So a "shoot to stop" needs to have time/space for it to not stop and have to escalate to shoot center mass. I can see a druggie taking the shot to the leg/arm/shoulder and keep coming

- Center of mass is the target, mostly because it's big and under pressure accuracy suffers. Shooting to stop is smaller targets, legs, shoulders, arms etc. What happens when you miss and hit a bystander, or miss and the bad guy gets to you or some other victim and kills them?

I think it’s stupid

Trying to hit a couple of running charging legs, fire directed downward, misses, pass-thrus, in an urban environment, pavemnt ricochets, bystanders...

Whatever, let citizen oversight boards make all your policy for you

At least they're trying. Our local popo just want to shoot, chase and run over. ( They've literally run over two this year and called it an accidental. And then lied about time of death. ) I give La Grange credit for a move in the right direction.

Most cops can't and can't be bothered to learn to shoot well enough, though. Giving most of them a gun at all endangers the public more than it protects. Disarming 90% of them is appropriate.

Guns are antique tech. New tactics and tech must be developed as populations rise. Wouldn't we all like options that don't damage property nor endanger bystanders?

Your imagining is correct.

Keep in mind that most cops can’t hit s h I t with their pistols. The hit ratio for the nation’s cops in Officer Involved Shootings hovers around 20%, and has done for years. Four out of five cop bullets don’t even hit the felon they shoot at, and that’s when they use the largest part of the body as a target. I predict this Georgia department is gonna see their hit ratio drop below 2% if they truly implement this policy.

"What I have told Jill is to just take your double barrel shotgun, go out on the upstairs deck and fire a couple of shots into the air. That is all you need."

The joe bidet policy.

I think you might be onto something there Sam!

Lynn