Floyd case puts police practices under microscope

LACONIA — Police Chief Matt Canfield says hard-working officers across the country should not be confused with the one in Minneapolis who was involved in the death of George Floyd.

Videotape showed officer Derek Chauvin with his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes while the man was face down on the ground with his hands cuffed behind his back.

“It was sickening to see,” Canfield said in an interview. “The actions of that officer were completely wrong, and it’s going to have a lasting impact that will affect policing across the country.

“The majority of officers, 99 percent, are hard-working people out there serving the community, keeping it safe. It’s sad that the actions of a few officers taint the entire profession across the country.

“Who knows what caused the officer to do this? Was it truly racially motivated? No idea. Just a bad rogue cop? Possibly. Was it lack of proper background investigation and this person should not have been in law enforcement, possibly. Or training in that agency, was it not adequate?”

Canfield said his officers are restrained, controlled and do a phenomenal job.

Deadly force

“Not once in my career have I seen a police officer use deadly force when it wasn’t justified,” said Canfield, who has been with the department for 24 years.

“As a police department, I would want to terminate anyone whose use of force was unreasonable.”

Gilford Police Chief Anthony J. Bean Burpee said that when something like the Floyd case occurs, it provides an opportunity for officers to learn what not to do in similar situations. The idea is not to pass judgment but to learn.

At the same time, he said he would “like to think that's something like that wouldn't have happened at the Gilford Police Department. It shouldn’t have happened.”

Chokeholds not in training

Bean Burpee and Canfield said the neck compression used on Floyd, or chokeholds in general, are not something their officers are trained to do. Officers have less dangerous ways of restraining a suspect should that be necessary.

Chokeholds are not banned completely because in a true, life-or-death struggle, an officer could use this or other deadly force to save themselves or a member of the public, they said.

John Scippa is the director of the New Hampshire Police Standards and Training, which is the sole source of basic training and the primary source of in-service training for all law enforcement officers in the state.

“The NH Police Academy does not teach any sort of chokeholds, strangle holds or neck restraints as part of any recruit or in-service instruction,” Scippa said.

Eight recommendations

Former President Barack Obama participated last week in a virtual town hall on racial justice and police reform hosted by My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, a program of the Obama Foundation. Part of the presentation included “The 8 Can’t Wait Project,” run by police reform organization Campaign Zero.

The project offers eight strategies for police departments to reduce their use of force, including banning chokeholds, requiring de-escalation, providing a warning before shooting, having a use-of-force continuum and exhausting all other means before shooting.

Scippa said recruits at the academy must take a course that covers de-escalation techniques.

“Further, we have offered in-service programs on communication and de-escalation techniques for active NH police officers,” he said. “All recruit use of force classes mandate that de-escalation be attempted whenever safe for the officer to do so.”

De-escalation requirement

Bean Burpee and Canfield said de-escalation is policy in their departments.

“It starts with simple verbal judo,” Bean Burpee said. “We engage an individual in conversation, who we are, what we are there to do and what our ultimate resolution will be and we try to get them to comply.”

It’s not a cure-all. Not every situation can be de-escalated, especially when police are dealing with people who are intoxicated or highly agitated.

De-escalation can be the first step as an officer goes through a continuum of tactics that could potentially end with use of force, or as a last resort, deadly force.

“The officers can not endanger themselves or an innocent third party to an imminent threat of harm if de-escalation techniques delay the use of reasonable force to accomplish lawful objective,” Scippa said.

Warn first

A warning before shooting is something the chiefs say is situational. There may be times, such as an active shooter situation, where time and safety does not present the opportunity for such a warning.

“Situations evolve and are so dynamic,” Canfield said. “If you have time to give a warning” there’s time to negotiate without resorting to a firearm.

“We only shoot in immediate defense of life, whether our own or a third person. In those situations, there’s no time to give a warning.”

Duty to intervene

Another recommendation is that officers have a duty to intervene to stop excessive force by other officers. The chiefs and Scippa said this is an important practice.

“This concept is reiterated throughout the academy training experience and is spoken to specially with regard to the prevention of in-custody death to include pre-arrest indicators of those who may be predisposed to a medical problem and after care for anyone who is taken into custody whether force was used to make the arrest or not,” Scippa said.

In the Minneapolis case, three other officers stood by as Chauvin maintained his knee on Floyd’s neck even as the man said he couldn’t breathe.

Shooting at cars

Another recommendation is to ban shooting at moving vehicles.

The chiefs and Scippa said the only time this should be done would be as a last resort, such as if officers feared they or a bystander would be run over.

The group also recommends comprehensive reporting on use-of-force incidents. Such reporting is standard practice. 

Bean Burpee said police use of force to make an arrest is relatively rare in Gilford. Last year, there were 793 arrests and 35 times when force was used.

Hiring and training

Bean Burpee and Canfield said training is essential in fostering good police work. This includes practice on use of force scenarios, including in video simulations.

Kris Kelley, Gilford deputy chief of police, said there is a price tag for training and recruiting the best officers.

“From our perspective, this is one of the biggest ways to reduce liabilities,” he said. “No system is flawless, but we work hard on a comprehensive training program.”

Canfield said that before officers join his force, they undergo a background check and a psychological evaluation. A psychologist provides a recommendation on a candidate’s suitability for police work.

“We don’t want to hire people we don’t believe in,” Canfield said.

Union role

The influence of police unions over penalizing officers for misconduct and clear violations varies across the country, Canfield said.

“Our union would not tolerate retaining a bad officer,” he said.

He also mentioned that Laconia has a Police Commission that oversees the department.

In Minneapolis, Bob Kroll, the president of the police union, has said Chauvin and three other officers involved in the Floyd case were terminated without due process and that he would work to get them reinstated.

Chauvin faces second-degree murder charges and the three other officers face charges of aiding and abetting second-degree murder.