Use of Force: Louisville Metro Police Department November 2013 Voiceover: Beat Intro 00:00 This is the Beat—a podcast series that keeps you in the know about the latest community policing topics facing our nation. TeNeane Bradford 00:08 Hello and welcome. My name is TeNeane Bradford and on behalf of the COPS Office I’d like to introduce you to Chief Steve Conrad from the Louisville Metro Police Department. Chief Conrad is here to discuss use of force issues. Chief, can you share your department’s concerns around use of force issues? Steve Conrad 00:25 You know, TeNeane, use of force is a big deal. We ask our police officers to do a tough job. They also know that many of their decisions—all of their decisions in use of force situations—are going to be looked at, evaluated, and, in some cases, second-guessed. From our point of view, it’s critically important that we get it right, and the truth is we don’t always. We have policies in place. We have training that is based on those policies. We want to make sure that our officers do what they need to do, whether it’s using some sort of a control hold or a takedown in a situation that requires physical force or even in an officer-involved shooting situation where we have to use deadly force. TeNeane 01:13 What concerns do your community members have around this issue? Steve 01:16 I think, to begin with, the community has the same concerns that our officers do; everybody wants us to get it right. It is important to our community—I think it would be the same for any community across the country—to, first off, be treated respectfully by the police. Our success in the community is 100 percent contingent on developing and maintaining trust. Without being able to do that, we’re not going to be effective. I think the community wants to know us. They want to make sure that we’re out there doing the right thing, and they want to make sure that we’re doing what needs to be done to make their neighborhoods safe. They deserve that. TeNeane 02:03 What have you done with your jurisdiction to address the issue within your department and with the community? Steve 02:08 You know, that’s a pretty broad question. Internally, when we do have a serious use of force situation, we have a Public Integrity Unit that we’ve created that will do the criminal investigation that’s separate and apart from our Homicide Unit. We want to make sure that we have investigators who are trained specifically to do officer-involved shooting cases. That criminal review, once it is complete, is shared with our Commonwealth Attorney who is the state’s attorney in Kentucky. From that review, we will either get a presentation of that case to a Grand Jury, if criminal charges are appropriate, or we’ll get an indication back from the Commonwealth Attorney that there will be no charges placed in that particular situation. Once that first part of the process is completed we then transition to our internal review, which is done by our Professional Standards Unit. Really, we’re looking for opportunities to—first and foremost—see if our officers followed our policies, followed our training. We’re also looking for opportunities to improve and try and avoid those situations in the future. In terms of working with the community, I think there are probably opportunities for us to improve. We have a citizens’—it’s not really a review process, but we have a citizens’ commission on police accountability. Our Professional Standards Unit commander will do a presentation of all serious use of force incidents to that citizens’ commission and they will evaluate based on our policies, their understanding of our policies, and their position as representatives of our community to make a determination about whether or not they believe that force was, in fact, justified. Another thing that we’ve done that I think is a bit unique. We had a really tragic shooting last May, a year ago May, where four men ended up being shot after a shootout. Another shooting developed shortly after that. An officer intervened and ended up having to shoot a woman in that situation. It was awful. At the end of the day we had three people dead and three people wounded in an officer- involved shooting. One of the outcomes of that was a need to train members of our community to help us respond to those crises, those emergencies, to provide, after some training, that psychological first aid that people need to help them vent some of their feelings and some of their frustrations. After that shooting we had a year ago May, there was a shooting after the first initial shooting that was really borne out of people not knowing what to do with their emotions. We’re really hopeful. We had an officer-involved shooting this past weekend. We are calling that team into action to help with some of the victims of a robbery that was broken up, the neighborhood that was affected where the shooting was concerned, and also to reach out to the suspect’s family. He died as a result of the shooting. Although their perspective is very different, they have a very real sense of loss as well. It’s important, I think, for us to use this new tool to try to reach out to all of those people involved. TeNeane 05:40 Do you think you’ll be able to use the COPS report called Collaborative Reform Process: A Review of Officer-Involved Shootings in the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department to help your own agency? Steve 05:51 Absolutely. As a matter of fact, I had an opportunity to get a copy of the report late last year. We’ve already, as a command staff, reviewed the report in its entirety. We have developed a list of action steps. We are basing our in-service training, which is a 40-hour block of training that all of our sworn personnel go through every year. In the coming year, we are going to focus in on a number of the techniques and things that we saw in the Las Vegas report. Specifically focusing on the whole issue of being able to deescalate a situation to the avoid it getting to the point where you have to use deadly force. We’re also going to try and build in more of the reality-based training. It is a bit more labor intensive from the training staff’s point of view but I think it will truly, truly pay dividends. Another great takeaway that we saw early on, the Las Vegas report talked about the fact that many officer shootings end up growing out of officer-initiated stops. We wanted to make sure that our officers were using good, sound, constitutionally-approved techniques as they are going about doing Terry stops and Terry searches. Those are the kinds of things that I think, at least in our department and based on what I read on Las Vegas, have led to, at least, uses of force and, in some cases, deadly uses of force. Already I think the report is paying dividends in Louisville and it’s something that we are going to continue to work with and to continue to try to implement those action steps. TeNeane 07:27 Chief Conrad, thank you so much for your time and expertise. Steve 07:30 Thank you very much. Voiceover: Beat Exit 07:32 The Beat was brought to you by the United States Department of Justice, COPS Office. The COPS Office helps to keep our nation’s communities safe by giving grants to law enforcement agencies, developing community policing publications, developing partnerships, and solving problems. Voiceover: Disclaimer 07:49 The opinions contained herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or polices of the U.S. Department of Justice. References to specific agencies, companies, products, or services should not be considered an endorsement by the authors or the U.S. Department of Justice. Rather, the references are illustrations to supplement discussion of the issues.