Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 111, No. 120, Ed. 1 Sunday, November 30, 2014 Page: 4 of 40
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4A
Sunday, November 30, 2014
NATIONAL
Denton Record-Chronicle
Ferguson lesson: Police can better calm situations
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By Gene Johnson
and Eric Tucker
Associated Press
SEATTLE — The grand jury
that declined to indict Ferguson
police officer Darren Wilson was
focused on whether he might
have acted in self-defense when
he shot and killed unarmed, 18-
year-old Michael Brown.
But the case raises another
question: Could Wilson have
avoided getting into a spot
where he had to make that split-
second, life-or-death decision?
Departments around the
country have in recent years
stepped up their training in “de-
escalation” — the art of defusing
atense situation with a word or a
gesture instead of being con-
frontational or reaching for a
weapon.
Proponents, including the
Justice Department, say the ap-
proach can improve trust and
understanding between police
and residents, curtail the unnec-
essary use of force and improve
the safety of officers and civilians
alike.
“We haven’t taught officers to
just walk away,” said Cambridge,
Massachusetts, Police Commis-
sioner Robert Haas. “But if the
only reason a person is acting up
is because you’re standing there
... isn’t that a viable approach?”
Haas and other law enforce-
ment officials said they didn’t
want to second-guess Wilson’s
actions because they weren’t in
his shoes at the time of the Aug.
9 shooting.
But, many said, the case
should accelerate a national dis-
cussion about police culture and
the potential for broader train-
David Carson/AP file photo
In this Aug. 9 photo, police officers stand near a crowd gath-
ering by the scene where 18-year-old Michael Brown was fa-
tally shot by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo. Departments
around the country have in recent years stepped up their
training in “de-escalation” — the art of defusing a tense situ-
ation with a word or a gesture instead of being confrontation-
al or reaching for a weapon.
ing in de-escalation, which is
considered especially important
in dealing with people in mental
health or drug-related crises.
In Missouri this month, a
federal law enforcement team
held training with St. Louis-area
police, including top command-
ers from Ferguson, on how un-
intentional bias affects police
work. That approach goes hand-
in-hand with de-escalation.
“In every police encounter,
the officer and the civilian bring
with them and see the world
through their experiences. The
more these views diverge, the
more they immediately see the
other as a threat,” said Jenny
Durkan, the former U.S. attor-
ney in Seattle who led the effort
to curb excessive uses of force by
city police.
According to Wilson’s grand
jury testimony, Brown and a
friend were walking down the
middle of the street when he
drove up and asked them to use
the sidewalk. When they de-
clined, he suggested it again.
Brown responded by cursing at
him, Wilson said. He backed up
his vehicle to confront Brown,
who was carrying stolen cigars.
Brown shoved the vehicle’s
door shut as Wilson tried to
Suspect in Patz’s killing: 'Did I do it?’
By Jennifer Peltz
Associated Press
NEW YORK - As he
watched TV reports on a 33-year-
old missing-child case, a man
who’d never been a suspect start-
ed pondering whether he was the
killer, he later told a psychologist
‘“Did I [do] it?’. It was just a
thought that came into my
head,” Pedro Hernandez recalls
in the psychologist’s report, part
of a recent court filing that adds
new details about his defense in
a case that galvanized the miss-
ing-children’s movement. “I
was, like, nervous and question-
ing myself ... trying to make
sense.”
Hernandez would soon tell
police he did choke 6-year-old
Etan Patz in 1979, confessing af-
ter investigators were tipped
that he’d spoken of having
harmed a child. But defense psy-
chological experts later found
him unsure of whether the bru-
tal scenario he’d described was
real or imaginary.
“I believed it in my mind that
I did it, but I don’t think I did it,”
Hernandez, 53, told one psy-
chologist.
The interplay between belief
and reality is shaping up to be a
central issue in his murder trial,
set for early next year. Since a
judge ruled this week that jurors
could hear Hernandez’s confes-
sion, it will be up to them to de-
cide whether it was true.
His defense says it was fiction
from a man with an IQ, in the
bottom 2 percent of the popula-
tion and mental illness that
makes it difficult for him to dis-
tinguish real life from fantasy.
Prosecutors say his confession
was legitimate, and they’re seek-
ing to limit proposed expert tes-
timony on the psychological
phenomenon of false confes-
sions.
‘We believe the evidence that
Mr. Hernandez killed Etan Patz
to be credible and persuasive
and that his statements are not
the product of any mental ill-
ness,” the Manhattan district at-
torney’s office has said.
Etan vanished while walking
to his school bus stop May 25,
1979, now memorialized as Na-
tional Missing Children’s Day.
Hernandez then worked at a
nearby comer store.
Etan was never found, and
the investigation spanned de-
cades. After police followed an
ultimately fruitless lead to a
Manhattan basement in April
2012 — the news Hernandez
watched on TV — they got a tip
about him. Authorities eventu-
ally learned that in the 1980s,
the Maple Shade, New Jersey,
man apparently told a friend, his
now-ex-wife and a church
prayer circle he’d hurt an un-
named child in New York City.
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open it, and then attacked the of-
ficer through the door’s open
window, Wilson said. The officer
began shooting, then got out of
the car, chased Brown, and fired
some more when Brown turned
around.
“My job isn’t to just sit and
wait,” Wilson told ABC News.
In its investigations of police
agencies, the Justice Depart-
ment has singled out poor de-es-
calation tactics.
In a July report on the New-
ark, New Jersey, department,
the DOJ faulted a “pattern and
practice of taking immediate of-
fensive action” rather than act-
ing within the bounds of the
Constitution and displaying the
“thick skin and patience” needed
for the job.
In Seattle and in Albuquer-
que, New Mexico, the DOJ
blasted police for too quickly us-
ing flashlights, batons or stun
guns as weapons when force
could have been avoided.
In Seattle in 2010, an officer
killed a Native American wood-
carver who had crossed the
street while holding a small
knife and a block of wood. The
officer got out of his car, and
when the carver — who turned
out to be hard of hearing —
didn’t immediately drop the tool
as ordered, he was shot.
Like Wilson, the officer
wasn’t charged criminally be-
cause of the high bar for such
prosecutions against police, but
the case helped spur the federal
civil rights investigation of the
department. A consent decree
overhauled the department’s
training, putting a premium on
de-escalation and bias-free po-
licing.
The DOJ has already
launched a similar investigation
in Ferguson.
In practice, de-escalation can
take many forms, said Seattle
police spokesman Sean Whit-
comb. Sometimes it means that
multiple officers respond rather
than one, because the larger
presence can make excitable
subjects realize they’re outnum-
bered.
But for an officer, it can also
mean calmly introducing your-
self, listening to what someone is
saying and simply relating to the
person.
The use of body-worn cam-
eras can also help, experts say,
because both officers and civil-
ians tend to behave better when
they know they’re being record-
ed.
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Parks, Scott K. Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 111, No. 120, Ed. 1 Sunday, November 30, 2014, newspaper, November 30, 2014; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1108091/m1/4/?q=%22~1~1~1%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .