I need two replies to this discussion board on either agreeing or disagreeing. 150 words for each reply
Information Gathering and Arrests
There are many options available to control someone an officer is coming into contact with that they suspect of committing a crime. Depending on the level of compliance of the subject, the first level on the FBI’s use of force continuum is Officer Presence (Evans, 2019). At this level, the presence of the officer is enough to control the movements of the suspect without using any physical force. The second level is verbalization, which is when the officer gives verbal commands to a suspect in a manner that obtains the compliance of the suspect, without using physical force. The level of force used by an officer can vary depending on the crime that the person is suspected of committing, their level of compliance, and whether there are weapons involved (Evans, 2019). Officers are expected to use reasonable force. The parameters of reasonable force were set by the case of Graham v. Connor (1989) (Hess et al., 2017). Reasonable force can also be found in the Bible, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (New International Bible, 2011, Romans 12:18). An officer should live by this Biblical principal of only using force as a last option for dealing with a situation.
Deadly force is any level of force used by an officer that may cause death or great bodily harm to another person (Hess et al., 2017). Deadly force is governed by Tennessee v. Garner (1985), which took away the justification for shooting a fleeing felon absent an imminent danger to the life of someone else (Hess et al., 2017). Law enforcement agencies have policies governing when deadly force can be used against a person. “Such policies usually permit use of a gun or other weapon only in self-defense or if others are endangered by the suspect” (Hess et al., 2017, 7-10d).
Police use of deadly force is one of the most scrutinized things in our society. Based on several high-profile uses of deadly force, there is a growing call for the need for de-escalation training for officers (Engel et al., 2020). Other than implicit bias training, de-escalation training is the training most demanded by politicians, activists, lawmakers, and citizens. (Engel et al., 2020). De-escalation lacks a formal consistent definition, but has been defined as “taking action or communicating verbally or non-verbally during a potential force encounter in an attempt to stabilize the situation and reduce the immediacy of the threat so that more time, options, and resources can be called upon to resolve the situation without the use of force or with a reduction in the force necessary” (Engel et al., 2020, p. 724).
References
Engel, R. S., McManus, H. D., & Herold, T. D. (2020). Does de‐escalation training work? Criminology & Public Policy, 19(3), 721–759. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12467
Evans, K. (2019). The Alert Collector: Police Use of Force. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 59(2), 103-106. https://doi.org/10.5860/rusq.59.2.7274″>10.5860/rusq.59.2.7274
Hess, K. M., Orthmann, C. H., & Cho, H. L. (2017). Criminal Investigation (Eleventh). Cengage.
New International Bible. (2011). The NIV Bible. https://www.thenivbible.com/Links to an external site. (Original work published 1978)