State issues broad changes in how police can use force

By: Steve Janoski
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... New Jersey police officers will be barred from using physical or deadly force against civilians except as a last resort and must intervene if they can see another officer going too far, according to sweeping new changes to the state's policy on when police can sue force.
..... New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said Monday [12/21/2020] that his office's year long effort to overhaul the state's 20-year-old policies was meant to protect citizens, build community trust and re-frame the way way officers approach exchanges with the pubic.
..... "We're going to preserve the sanctity of human life, we're going to preserve the rights and liberties of our residents and we're going to try to resolve every interaction in a peaceful and respectful manner," Grewal said in a statement.
..... "We're going to try to ed-escalte - that's duty we have," he said. "And if we have to use force, it's going to be a last resort that's reasonable, necessary and proportional."
..... "This is a paradigm shift," Grewal said.
..... The policy revisions, which also set rules for officers' sue of less-than-lethal force, vehicular pursuits and choke-holds, will affect about 38,000 officers in about 500 departments, Grewal's office said.
..... It's the attorney general's latest attempt to sue his power as the state's top law enforcement officer to advance police reform efforts in the Garden state.
..... Some of those efforts, such as his demand that departments establish an early-warning system to identify troubled officers, have met with little resistance. Others, like his wish to release the names of police who have been subject to major discipline, have sparked fiery opposition and lawsuits form their unions.
..... It's likely the new policy, which Grewal touted as the first of the kind in the nation, will meet that kind of fury, however.
..... Even though the Attorney General's Office has been working on the overhaul for about a year, Grewal said the George Floyd killing in May [2020] hastened the work.
..... "We understood that we're in the midst of a national reckoning on the issue of race, and lot of the issues, protests and demands center on law enforcement," Grewal said. "These killings have highlighted a distrust ... and we felt that we m=needed to move up the work that we were doing."
..... The standard formally take effect in a year, on December 31, 2021, Grewal said. But their influence will be felt far sooner: All New Jersey police officers will have to attend a two-day course on the changes by the end of next year. [2021]
..... The attorney general doesn't expect the brief training block to burn the policy into officers' brains overnight. But he expects the data collected by the state's recently announced sue-of-force portal - an Internet program departments use to report every detail of every incident - to help local, county and sate law enforcement officials review, retrain and discipline officers if necessary.
..... "We're going got make sure we get it right through the monitoring piece," Grewal said, adding that a version of the portal will be open for public review in early 2021.
..... The new policy requires that officers give clear warning if they intend to sue force on a resisting suspect, and then sue only the appropriate amount as dictated by one circumstances, Grewal said.
..... Deadly force must be viewed as an "absolute last resort" used to end an immediate threat of death or serious injury, the guidance says. And officers will not be able to draw and point their guns, unless they have a reasonable belief that deadly force may be necessary. They'll also have to report it as a "show of force," Grewal's office said.
..... "After hosting dozens of listening sessions and reviewing hundreds of public comments, we revised the use-of-force policy to reflect the needs and concerns of the people we serve," said Thomas Eicher, director of the state's Office of Public Integrity and Accountability. "But it's not enough to simply issue a progressive new policy. We are committed to retraining every officer in the sate and ensuring that they incorporate this model into their work."
..... The Rev. Dr. Charles F. Boyer, founder of Salvation and Social Justice, a faith-based advocacy group, said he viewed the new policy "as a necessary first step toward accountability."
.... The guidelines, which Grewal said were built with both community and law enforcement input, also establish a firm "duty to intervene" that requires all officers, regardless of rank, to step in if they see another officer suing illegal or excessive force.
..... And they ask police to be careful when dealing with emotionally disturbed people. When they can, police should bring with them other officers or mental health experts, negotiators pr worker trained in crisis intervention, the policy said.
..... Cumberland County Prosecutor Jennifer Webb-McRae noted that research indicates about 25% all fatal police-citizen interactions involved someone suffering a mental health crisis.
..... The guidelines also reiterate that choke-holds are banned in nearly all circumstances, and defines sitting, kneeling or standing on a person chest, back or neck as deadly force. This may be a direct nod to the Floyd killing - he died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
..... It also bars officers from firing at a moving vehicle in most circumstances; strictly limits when they can pursue a fleeing vehicle; loosens rules on suing Tasers and less-then-lethal ammunition; and requires departments to conduct a through use-of-force review every year and send a written report to their county prosecutor.
..... The president of the New Jersey Sate Policeman's Benevolent Association thanked the Attorney General's Office for taking the police union's suggestion into account.
.... "This policy makes key charges that will protect our officers on the job while assuring the public that the New Jersey police remain the best trained in the entire nation," said PBA President Pat Coligan.
..... The policies are a "step in the right direction,: said Rich Rivera, a police internal affairs expert and former West New York police officer, He added that the data needs to be constantly monitored and the polices can't be shelved.
..... "We also need to understand more clearly the training the officers with et," Rivera said. "It can't be rolled through in an email with all training done virtually. Use of force is too significant to be done Online. This needs to be hands-on."
..... Jiles Ship, president of the New Jersey chapter of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, called the policy changes "very important work. "we realize and under stand it's critically important to maintain the trust of the communities we serve," Ship said, because without the community;s help, it "makes our jobs tremendously difficult."

Staff Writer Ashley Balcerzak contributed to this story.

HOME