As Bernard L. Buckner, a 40-year police veteran and the chair of the Partnership for a Safer Cleveland stated in a recent editorial, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) mentioned “training” 82 times in its findings related to the investigation of the Cleveland Division of Police. Indeed, all of the local community groups that made formal, written recommendations to the DOJ repeatedly echoed the same sentiment — that additional training of cops in Cleveland is critically needed.
But, the complete saying referenced in the title of this article is, “You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink.”
This is what New York Mayor Bill De Blasio found out after instituting a “smart-policing program” in December after the death of Eric Garner, the Staten Island man who died from an illegal chokehold applied by a cop.
“The training that’s going to happen … will change the future of this city,” De Blasio said. “It will have not just an impact on thousands of people, it will have an impact on millions of people, because every interaction that every officer has with their fellow New Yorkers after they are trained again will be different.” Lofty ideals indeed.
But what actually happened during the training of the first 4,000 cops tells another — deeply disturbing — story: Eighty percent of the cops that sat through the three days of retraining opined afterwards that it was “worthless, a waste of time,” according to an article in the New York Post, and a number of the cops slept through the sessions, said a high-ranking police official.
Many of the cops later interviewed said they thought the training would be more “tactical, hands-on” instructing them on better techniques to take down suspects … not “boring” classroom lectures. They wanted training on additional methods of manhandling suspects (without leaving tell-tale bruises that might get them in trouble later), not on how to better relate to the citizenry. Obviously the cops in NYC want to determine what types of retraining they receive, and by-and-large are unwilling to buy into any they don’t agree with — a form of the inmates running the asylum.
This could be a harbinger of bad things to come in Cleveland when retraining of cops commences here, as Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association president Steve Loomis will no doubt ridicule any retraining he doesn’t agree with, and will instruct the rank and file cops to adopt the same attitude.
Buckner, in his editorial wrote, “In the 1960s we created the Ohio Police Officer Training Commission (OPOTC). Who better to know the training police should have than police?” But the mistake that is being made is that seven of the nine slots on the commission are filled by police professionals, and only one reserved for a member of the general public. “Is it any wonder, then, that the focus of the police training curriculum has been on tactics that some might call militaristic?” Buckner stated. This might also explain why a beautician has to have twice as many hours of training in Ohio than a police officer.
“OPOTC has become myopic, focusing only on the police officer and not the community being served,” said Buckner. “The term ‘community policing’ is often touted as a panacea for police ills, but since it lacks a formal standard, many people do not know what it means. It has become a sound bite for the media and for people seeking a public platform, but does little to solve the problem and adds more confusion to an already murky issue. What we have to get back to is the notion and culture of police as peace officers, rather than enforcement agents.”
That’s what cops are called in countries like Canada, where promotions are based on how well a peace officer does his or her job of keeping the peace … not on how many tickets are written, how many arrests are made, or how many asses are kicked. As long as we continue to apply the wrong metrics, we’ll continue to get the wrong results … and no amount of “retraining” is going to correct that problem.
[Photo: vancityhotshots]
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.