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Use of Force Challenges
00:13:56
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| Mayors have that important role. | ||
| I know that you will carry it out and I cannot be prouder to be part of this tremendous team. | ||
| And so on behalf of all of these incredible Minneapolis residents that are going through a very difficult time right now, to say the least, thank you. | ||
| On behalf of the next city and the city after that that may experience this kind of invasion, thank you. | ||
| We got to hold rock solid. | ||
| We cannot back down. | ||
| Our cities, our mayors, are what will hold this democracy together. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
|
unidentified
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That was Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fry speaking to the U.S. Conference of Mayors. | |
| Coming up here on C-SPAN, we'll continue our live coverage of the annual event, taking you to a discussion on federal immigration operations across the country and how mayors support local immigrant communities. | ||
| When that happens, be sure to follow our live coverage here on C-SPAN. | ||
| A conversation now on use of force in federal law enforcement. | ||
| Jillian Snyder is our guest. | ||
| She's a retired New York City police officer, lecturer at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, senior fellow at the R Street Institute. | ||
| And Jillian Snyder, in the wake of the fatal shootings in Minneapolis, you posed this question in a column on R Street's webpage. | ||
| You asked, are federal immigration agents prepared for the unique challenges of enforcement operations in protest-filled urban environments? | ||
| How do you answer that question? | ||
| Right now, I don't know how to answer that question. | ||
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unidentified
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We're still waiting for more reporting. | |
| The investigation in this past weekend shooting is still very preliminary, but I think the main challenge here is we're taking officers and agents who are prepared for rural border operations and working to protect our borders, but yet have never really experienced what it's like to work in major cities where you already have active protests underway. | ||
| They don't get the same training that local police officers get. | ||
| So I think we really have to examine whether their training has prepared them for what they're encountering. | ||
| You worked in a major city, New York City, a former New York City police officer. | ||
| What sort of training did you receive for incidents like this? | ||
| NYPD, we have extensive training for large public gatherings, for parades, for New Year's Eve details, for the UN General Assembly, for civil unrest. | ||
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unidentified
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We do scenario-based training. | |
| The NYPD has an entire tactical village that they take us to yearly to make sure that we are prepared for any potential situation. | ||
| Of course, you can't prepare for everything, but they throw anything at you that they think you might face. | ||
| So because we work in a huge urban populated area, we are trained accordingly, knowing that there's probably a couple of hundred, if not a couple of thousand people on the streets around us. | ||
| So all of our use of force decisions really have to factor that in. | ||
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unidentified
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We're not working in isolated areas where there are not innocent victims or citizens walking by. | |
| Every decision we make has to consider that there could be a couple of people walking or waiting for the bus. | ||
| So it's very different from what CBP agents are trained for. | ||
| Use of force rules vary across the country. | ||
| There's no standard rule for use of force, but what were you taught when it comes to use of force and specifically use of deadly force? | ||
| What are the rules here? | ||
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unidentified
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It's not that easy. | |
| There is what's called a use of force continuum. | ||
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unidentified
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Most agencies do train their officers similarly. | |
| Federal agents do receive similar training. | ||
| I know it varies slightly, but you would generally, when you encounter someone, you give them a verbal request or a verbal order. | ||
| If they don't comply, you bring it up to the next level where it could be hand-to-hand combat. | ||
| You could use your OC spray or pepper spray as it's more commonly used. | ||
| Then you would go to your straight baton or your expandable baton. | ||
| If you are equipped with a taser, that would be your next level. | ||
| All of those are considered less than lethal or non-lethal uses of force. | ||
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unidentified
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If, in fact, the situation turned volatile or an imminent threat of serious physical injury or death was pending, that would be when an officer would engage with their firearm. | |
| So, bring me to federal use of force training and specifically, and you get into this in your column: CBP, the Border Patrol, and what they're taught. | ||
| What are the incidents they are most likely to encounter? | ||
| Well, because they are stationed primarily at the borders or within 100 miles of the United States borders, their training is really focused on conducting car stops that have gotten past the border. | ||
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unidentified
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They don't typically drive around and engage in random car stops. | |
| They're targeted because they feel that that person has unlawfully entered the country. | ||
| Or as we saw in Arizona yesterday, there was an incident there where CBP agents did engage with a vehicle that allegedly was involved in human trafficking. | ||
| And what we saw afterwards was the secondary car stop gunshots were fired by the assailant. | ||
| CBP agents, I believe, returned fire. | ||
| That is more typically the scenario that they are going to face. | ||
| They're not going to be doing routine car stops in major urban areas where there's hundreds or thousands of people walking around. | ||
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unidentified
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They're very targeted and measured in what they do. | |
| So putting them in these unpredictable situations, that's where I fear that their training might not give them all the resources and understanding that they need to conduct these safely for themselves or others. | ||
| Engaging with vehicles, go back to the Renee Good shooting and the use of force issues that came to your mind as you watch the many angles of that incident. | ||
| I will tell you firsthand, I have actually been involved in an incident where a driver tried to hit one of the officers I was working with. | ||
| This was back when I worked in Brooklyn. | ||
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unidentified
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We were trying to engage in a lawful car stop, and the individual decided to attempt to ram their vehicle onto an officer. | |
| One officer did return fire because the officer had no other means of getting out of the way before getting struck. | ||
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unidentified
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That officer did get struck, did suffer serious bodily harm, several broken bones. | |
| The gunshot did not hit the assailant, but we were able to capture him. | ||
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unidentified
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So I've been in a situation where I've had a car coming at me or someone that I'm standing with. | |
| So I understand the fear and the split-second decision making. | ||
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unidentified
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NYPD has very strict rules, as do most other agencies, local and state police. | |
| We are not encouraged to shoot at moving cars. | ||
| The thought behind it is even if we shoot the person driving the car, that doesn't necessarily mean the car is going to stop. | ||
| It now causes an even greater threat. | ||
| It could crash into someone else. | ||
| It could cause a major motor vehicle accident. | ||
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unidentified
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And we're not stopping the immediate threat of that driver because they're still behind the wheel of the car. | |
| Only if that car is posing that imminent threat of serious bodily harm or death to an officer or to another person, or if there are no other reasonable means to get out of harm's way, are we then allowed legally and lawfully to engage in a firefight with that vehicle? | ||
| Jillian Snyder is our guest of the R Street Institute. | ||
| RStreet.org is where you can go to read the column we mentioned at the top and all of her work. | ||
| And she's taking your phone calls for about the next 25, 30 minutes or so here on the Washington Journal. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independence 202748-8002 would especially like to hear from law enforcement your thoughts on these use of force issues. | ||
| If you want to call in during this segment, as folks are calling in Jillian Snyder, a column in today's USA Today written by two members of the Stanford Center for Racial Justice, it goes to this idea that we mentioned earlier that use of force guidelines vary across the country, that there's no uniform policy. | ||
| They write that in their research of the 100 largest cities in the United States, there's transparency into what has long been murky when it comes to use of force, saying use of deadly force, whether it's permitted or not, may depend entirely on what city that you're in. | ||
| They note that since George Floyd's murder by a police officer in Minneapolis in 2020, there's been some change. | ||
| 92 departments now ban chokeholds up from 22 a decade ago. | ||
| 93 now require officers to intervene when they witness misconduct compared to 29 back in 2015. | ||
| But the picture is still mixed. | ||
| 20 departments don't require officers to attempt to de-escalate a situation before they use force. | ||
| Only 41 states restrict the use of pepper spray or handcuffed people. | ||
| Just 54 cities clearly designate deadly force as a last resort. | ||
| They write when policies remain unknown to the public and murky, both learning and accountability suffer. | ||
| The question to you is: why isn't there a uniform use of force training standard here? | ||
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unidentified
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I think it's really hard to make something so black and white to have officers, okay, you can only do this if this happens. | |
| You can only do this if this happens. | ||
| I've been in many situations where giving someone a verbal command, if you were following this very strict continuum, if that person did not comply or they decided to come at you with a weapon, are you supposed to still go through the traditional continuum and then OC spray them and then use your baton and then use your taser and then use your firearm? | ||
| So I think that's the challenge. | ||
| And that's why a lot of major metropolitan areas, when they train their officers, they train them to use equal levels of force or the next level above to gain compliance and control of the situation. | ||
| And that's not just to make the arrests, that's to keep everyone on scene safe. | ||
| But what you have seen in the last six years is a lot of cities are working with city council or state legislators to bring into law what the restrictions on law enforcement. | ||
| Now, NYPD, we banned chokeholds way before I even became a police officer. | ||
| That's something that was very strict and codified in our department guidelines that we were not allowed to use formal chokeholds. | ||
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unidentified
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We've seen a lot of other cities follow suit just because the compression of someone's airway obviously can lead to serious physical injury or death. | |
| But we are allowed other takedown maneuvers that some construe as chokeholds, but they're clearly not. | ||
| But the point is that we have seen a lot of agencies and city leaders working with their governments to try and come up with some type of rules and regulations to restrict the use of force. | ||
| Now, I want to make sure that officers are still allowed to do what they need to do to keep safe themselves and keep safe members of the public. | ||
| Because if we start handcuffing them too much and putting too many restrictions, we're now putting officers' lives at risk. | ||
| And we're also going to see a lot less people interested in the profession of policing. | ||
| Let me let you chat with a few callers, and there are some on the line for you. | ||
| This is Martha in Indiana, Republican. | ||
| Martha, thanks for waiting. | ||
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unidentified
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Go ahead. | |
| Hi. | ||
| I just wanted to talk about the ICE officers. | ||
| You know, people seem to forget that they're just people and they were supposed to have peaceful protests and stay on the sidewalk. | ||
| They're all rushing them. | ||
| They're making all kinds of noises, throwing things at them. | ||
| I'm sure it was so chaotic before these two shootings, and they had such a split second to think about what to do. | ||
| When I watch it, I kind of think, well, they probably could have taken that guy in custody because there was six officers on him. | ||
| But somebody yelled gun, and that's all it took. | ||
| And then, you know, I think people, you know, they go on about these two, but did they forget about the lady that got set on fire on the subway and that young woman that got stabbed in the chest on the train and all those kind of things. | ||
| But they want to make a huge deal. | ||
| And it is a huge deal, but it's so one-sided. | ||
| Those officers, I've seen them stand there and take getting yelled in the face right up to them. | ||
| People throw in things, and they just stand there stiff. | ||
| Like they, I'm afraid they, I think they're afraid that they can't do anything. | ||
| And so then when something like this happens, it's just because it's so chaotic. | ||
| And I hate to see it. | ||
| I hate for our country to go like this. | ||
| That's Martha in Indiana. | ||
| Jillian Snyder, what do you want to respond to? | ||
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unidentified
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Well, I'm very glad that she called and said that it's so chaotic. | |
| And most people that are calling in, I'm hoping some law enforcement call in because they could at least understand the scenario that these officers and agents are facing because they themselves have probably seen something similar. | ||
| These agents are put into unpredictable and chaotic scenes, as Martha just said. | ||
| And their training is supposed to equip them with the knowledge and the tools to respond effectively. | ||
| But in that moment, and again, as Martha said, split-second decision-making. | ||
| You can watch the rest of this online at c-span.org. | ||
| We're going to take you live now to a discussion with mayors from across the country about federal immigration actions in their cities and their plans to support local immigrant communities. | ||
| Live coverage here on C-SPAN. | ||
| We'll get some updates on issues that are happening around the country as well as some legal counsel and things that are moving. | ||
| And so hopefully it will be an informative and helpful session for you. | ||
|
Denver's Newcomers
00:00:57
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| Thank you for spending the time. | ||
| I'll just, for opening thoughts, share one idea, which is our city, like many, have been addressing the needs of newcomers who've been arriving in Denver. | ||
| We were, over the last several years, one of the largest recipients per capita of newcomers that arrived primarily from Venezuela. | ||
| And I think our city, like many, had to answer the question, what do you do in that context when folks arrive without resources, without support, without infrastructure? | ||
| And I'm reminded, we just last week celebrated Dr. King's birthday, and we have a huge marade in our city. | ||
| And one of my favorite stories about Dr. King is if you remember the last speech he ever gave, it was the speech in Memphis he gave on April 3rd, the night before he was assassinated. | ||
| He was there actually on the garbage workers strike. | ||
| And it's the famous speech where he says, I may not get there with you, but I've been to the mountaintop. | ||
| The mountaintop speech is very famous. | ||