Contextual Compliance Tool Kit

This archived article from PoliceOne.com first appeared Sep 11, 2008

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The word is spreading that the use of force continuum is dying a slow death. While the continuum model has served as a useful instructional tool for trainees over the years it has serious and even dangerous limitations as a tool for application in a field environment.

Police officers engaged in encounters with non-compliant offenders may feel that they are legally obligated to climb the use-of-force ladder and de-escalate to compliance, hesitating to take safer immediate assertive actions to end unlawful resistance. The stair- step dance of “he does that then I can do this” confuses practitioners, prosecutors, and juries. Fortunately, the US Supreme Court has a refreshingly realistic standard of reasonableness which has yet to be fully grasped by policymakers of my generation still trembling from the Warren court years.

This article offers five principles of understanding encounters with non-compliant offenders under the doctrinal umbrella of offender-centered decision making. That is to say that the subject with whom a peace officer is in lawful contact is the primary decider of the tenor of the encounter.

In all cases where the officer is dealing with an encounter outside of a purely consensual one (in which the subject has the right to simply turn and walk away), the law explicitly demands that the subject complies with the officer.

1. Training and report writing about non-compliant encounters should concentrate on the offender’s behavior and accurately portray the officer as reacting to the offender in the context of the event.

While this principle may not sound radically different than current practice it is a contrast to the continuum model. The continuum doctrine and its underlying premise is that officers are legally and morally bound to use no force where the remote possibility exists of avoiding it and to use the least force theoretically possible in the least intrusive way for the shortest possible amount of time.

The reality is that when an offender is non-compliant (they become an offender at the moment of non-compliance) the officer has the legal and moral obligation to gain compliance as quickly and safely as possible. Rather than lowest force, we must transition to a most effective paradigm. In this context, we would define “effective” as that which is quickest and safest. The most effective means of gaining compliance may not be the least possible force but must remain reasonable.

That which is most effective, i.e. fast and safe, tends to result in shorter physical contact when a hands-on disposition is inevitable. Briefer contact means less likelihood of injury to an offender, bystander, and officer. In that light, application of effective means to end non-compliance is a moral imperative as well as tactically superior and justifiable.

In addition, while de-escalation is one of the many tools in the compliance toolkit it is not always wise to employ attempts at verbal calming. Some conditions contributing to non-compliance are medical emergencies dependent on brain chemistry that will not respond to calming techniques and that will only get worse and less treatable over time. This does not argue against crisis intervention methods, but rather puts those methods in the toolbox for use when appropriate and to be left in the box when they are not.

2. Restructure the language of reporting to eliminate the term “use of force” from reports, policy, and training as much as possible.

The baggage that comes along with this term unfairly colors any objective report and tacitly implies that the officer’s actions are suspect and brutal. It promotes the assumption that if force was used it was the officer’s fault and he or she has some explaining to do.

In keeping with the concept that the decision to be non-compliant is with the offender, an officer’s efforts to gain lawful compliance should be described in those offender-centered terms with the officer identified as the victim. The subject of the narrative should be the offender, not the officer. Putting emphasis on the behavior of the offender and the context of the encounter more accurately portrays the offender’s unlawful behavior and minimizes the perception of the officer as the aggressor. The officer leads the reader to agree with him or her that the use of force was imposed upon them by the offender.

With offender-centered reporting, agencies may decide that separate forms for reporting use of force are unnecessary. Those reports were important in an earlier era of policing but can be supplanted by a more comprehensive approach to report making.

Any efforts required to gain offender compliance should be a part of the offense report narrative; fully documented in the accurate and comprehensive description of the offender’s unlawful behavior and the context of the contact. The offender-centered concept of non-compliance enhances officers’ awareness of their victimization which, in turn, will likely enhance the prosecutors’ and juries’ perceptions as well.

Use of force reports are by their nature defensive and carry the cloud of accusation over them. Documenting non-compliance puts the burden where it should be – on the offender’s behavior in the context of a criminal act of resistance.

In using language to convey the circumstances of the event officers should avoid passive language like “he was then subdued” and avoid mere labeling such as “resistive”, “combative”, “uncooperative”, “non-compliant” unless providing specific descriptions of behavior such as walking away, pushing, refusing to answer, fighting, etc.

3. Context is critical.

The context of the encounter gives the officer facts that determine his or her course of action. These facts are almost always unknown to the offender, but the offender’s ignorance of them must not justify his or her failure to comply. The law requires compliance.

The significance of environmental, social, and historical factors that color the officer’s perceptions of the encounter will escape the reader of the report unless the officer explicitly guides the reader to navigate the cumulative significance of those factors. All of the factual circumstances of the event and the officer’s subjective interpretation of them must be communicated in the report.

The reader of the report must have as much information as possible about the situation faced by the officer. Standard concerns such as time of day, number of persons, and knowledge of the offender’s emotional disposition should be articulated. Officers must give voice to their fears and concerns even though documenting fear seems counter to our self-image. Those who read the officer’s report should not be left to guess or assume the appropriateness of the officer’s actions without a fully painted picture.

4. Use the “Contextual Compliance Tool Kit” language and imagery.

Stage and step compliance policies should be altered to explicitly recognize the rapid decision making and fluidity inherent in non-compliance events. The metaphor of the toolkit is much more useful than some geometric graphic.

Rubrics, tables, arcs, stair steps, and wheels all imply some rational orbit of events when a person resists a police officer. The process of deciding how to gain compliance is a logical one, not trial and error.

The use of force continuum is predicated on trial and error – if step two doesn’t work go to step three and so on. It implies a willingness to err on the side of being ineffective. Achieving compliance efficiently is rational – the officer will select the tool most likely to be effective in solving the problem of non-compliance.

5. Document success.

Officers tend to subtly express in their reports that resorting to force was somehow a failure on their part. Lawful use of force is never a failure, except perhaps a failure of judgment on the part of the offender. Gaining compliance is what law enforcement does. That’s the “enforcement” part. It is what police are hired to do, empowered to do, entrusted to do, and expected to do. It is necessary and honorable.

The narrative regarding the efforts to gain compliance should be as positive as a realistic account can be. Is there a happy ending when somebody is subdued by multiple officers and handcuffed? Certainly, in the universal sense there was failure somewhere – family, school, religion, government, personal choices; all the things the criminologists study. But the officer’s mission is direct: gain compliance effectively. If that was accomplished then say so in the report. Document all of the care-giving that followed the offender’s resistance, including rights advisements, checking the tightness of handcuffs and restraints, and obtaining medical care.

Policymakers need to understand that the reactive measures of the past generation to lawsuits and bad publicity have achieved their purpose. We must proceed with caution and be ever mindful of the potential for litigation and loss of public confidence while scrupulously guarding civil rights of all whom we encounter. We need not agree with the enemies of law enforcement nor apologize for gaining compliance under the law – using all the tools in our tool kit.

6 tips for getting the most out of police training

This is an archive repost that originally appeared in PoliceOne.com in May of 2008

Cops love training. Lock and load. Hit the range. Slap some leather. Punch some holes in some paper. Lay some tread on the track. Mount up. Sign me up for SWAT school!

But let’s face it, not all training is worthwhile, not all subjects are fun and not all trainers are gifted educators. Here are some tips to get the most out of training – even bad training.

1. BE A “GOLD MINER” AND LEARN ONE THING
After 30 years of seminars, academies, and recertifications, I could sleep through most classes. But I am a life-long learner and even if I go to a repeat class with a boring instructor, I always promise myself that I will learn at least one new thing. That makes me a gold miner – looking for nuggets of useful information along the way.

Listening and watching for those nuggets keeps me alert and interested in what may be around the next coffee break.

2. MAKE YOUR OWN CONNECTIONS
Learning and retention occur when information is meaningful, especially if emotion or social connections are attached. Sometimes you have to make your own meaning – especially if you’ve tuned out an instructor you don’t like.

Think creatively and be open-minded. Can this diversity class help my interrogation skills? Would this information be good for someone I am training or work with? Is this mandatory class a step on my career ladder?

3. GIVE YOURSELF PERMISSION TO DISAGREE
Many times a concept, principle or course of instruction is presented as though it were brought down from Mt. Sinai along with the Ten Commandments. Methods, laws and training doctrine change. Sometimes new ideas are bad, sometimes new ideas are old ideas with new acronyms, and sometimes a trainer gets pulled in to teach a course for which they are not truly qualified.

You don’t have to be disruptive or disrespectful to question and debate things in your own mind. If you engage with the material and wrestle with it under the skeptic’s scope, you’ll add value to your training day.

4. NETWORK
Talk to other cops on break and at lunch. Pick their brains, listen to their war stories and get their business cards. The trainer is never the only person in the room with good information to share. Harvest knowledge from others.

5. BE A HUMBLE LEARNER
Stop posturing. Quit trying to prove you know more than the instructor or the officer next to you. Avoid telling yourself you already know all of this stuff. You don’t have to have a better story, a better way to do something or figure out a way to announce how great you are. Listen to your own conversation.

If you start hearing yourself saying “I” more than three times in a brief conversation, it’s time to shut up and learn.

6. ASK QUESTIONS
Despite the popular concept that there are no stupid questions, I know better. I have heard stupid questions and have been known to ask a few myself. It’s OK. Take the risk. The resulting dialogue will give a needed break to the course, inspire others to engage with the class and answer the stupid question somebody else was too afraid to ask.

If you don’t ask at the time, get the instructor’s email address and check the bibliography for the material to answer your questions later. You are the person most responsible for your own learning. Don’t be passive about it.

A Police Officer Memorial Day Prayer - given at a public ceremony May 15, 2012

In a culture of increasing awareness of terms like diversity and inclusiveness, the ironic result is often an exclusion of some of our great American traditions, including asking God's blessing on public events. This is not necessary under the establishment clause of the First Amendment and often injures the free exercise clause. Today's event deals in essence with death, and how its shadow informs the police officer's life. It is fitting then, that such a sober contemplation of things immortal, transcendent, and eternally significant be attended by calling upon our Creator to lend attention to this moment.

I invite you to join me as I do that or to engage in whatever pose, attitude, or thoughts that give honor to this occasion. My prayer is this -

Dear God, we gather today to honor servants of mankind who have given to us their last full measure of devotion. As we gather to honor the dead I pray that the light of their sacrifice might illuminate our own purpose; that as their life was too swiftly extinguished that it will yet fuel our dedication to peace and service.

May we as peace officers be renewed in our thankfulness to be numbered among heroes, and refreshed in our desire to faithfully serve others. As no greater love has any person but to lay down their life for another, let us so love - to love justice, to love our community, and to embrace our family and those who love us with active, purposeful demonstrations of love.

We pray that while we are wholly accountable for our actions that the critic' voice will be softened by voices of encouragement from our good citizens. We pray for wisdom for our legislators and leaders that they will never lightly employ our coercive power so that we shall never be a hand of oppression but always an instrument of peace.

Guard our liberty, Oh God. Guard our hearts Oh God. Guard our honor Oh God. In the name of the One who hears our petitions and has the power to grant them I pray. Amen.

Prejudice or politics? Why cop hate could be getting worse when cops are getting better

          A highly educated, intelligent, and moderately conservative acquaintance recently posted a story on his Facebook from a woman who had a police encounter to relate. The woman used social media to tell of a car stop of a vehicle in which she was a passenger and her boyfriend was the driver. The officer and the driver engaged in an escalation of tension ending with the officer pointing a gun at the driver. Upon their complaint to the officer’s supervisors, the officer reported that he had his Taser out and not a firearm, and there was no finding of wrongdoing. The woman decried that nothing had been done to discipline the officer. Her version was the only one presented. My acquaintance made this introduction to his sharing of the woman’s account: “Some of our police are heroes worthy of honor. But we need to reign in those who think that a badge and a gun make them lords among men.” That statement is factually true but bathed in the not so subtle prejudice that implies the worst of most officers. It sounds suspiciously like "I have a ____(black, gay, muslim, etc) friend and a lot of them are fine people....

            There was a time when critics of law enforcement were scofflaws and lawbreakers, or those who had personally experienced an unpleasant encounter with the police. Now we have ordinary and outstanding citizens who vicariously join ranks with the harshest critics, damning with faint praise with statements like “some of our police are good.” Losing the support of solid citizens who succumb to prejudice against the police is a blow to quality law enforcement.

            How did the narrative of deeply flawed policing catch fire at a time when police officers have never been more carefully selected and trained, with higher education levels and more professional leadership than ever? Why do the carefully edited and selected videos proffered by the media and anti-police activists gain superior credibility over scientific studies on the realities of violent encounters? Why is Michael Brown still a hands-up-don’t-shoot hero when every investigation says exactly the opposite?

            The answer to these questions of how prejudices develop is in psychology. The answers to why is in politics.

Origins of Prejudice

            Prejudices are just one way that the brain processes information seeking to enhance pleasure and avoid danger. We are programmed to generalize and predict. When we get information, we use that to establish templates for decision making. What is familiar to us does not alert strong feelings of fear or disgust. What is unfamiliar we approach with caution.

            Another factor is the human inclination to associate with groups or tribes. We know who our friends are and who else is like our friend group. We develop a sense of who is in and who is out and, further, we begin to build real or imaginary walls and defenses against the out-group for our protection.

            Throughout our lifetime we accumulate the information that our brains use to decide if something is safe and familiar or foreign and potentially a threat.  We tend to pay attention to information that verifies our existing conclusions, but our experiences and new information can eventually change our prejudices. Prejudices are not based on mathematical probabilities. Most sticks are not snakes. Most berries are not poison. Most cops are not jerks. But if very many things you thought were sticks turn out to be snakes, you will hate both sticks and snakes.

            Changes in prejudices seldom happen immediately and completely. If, for example, a person has an embedded mistrust of police, they can have a positive experience or friendship with a law enforcement officer. The person will consider that positive relationship an exception to the rule rather than an endorsement of all police officers in order to hold on to their preconceptions. A more general trust or appreciation of the broader group will take more intense experiences and positive information.

The Politics of Prejudice

            Whether intentional or not, the playing and replaying of controversial videos of violent encounters with law enforcement feeds information to a public increasingly willing to interpret those images negatively and apply them broadly. Because department spokespersons are usually not the first to frame the story or are rendered silent by legal issues, those negative first impressions get more attention from the brain of the civilian.

            Viral videos, whether on traditional mass media or social media, are often shown in edited form and with a sensationalistic narrative. Untrained observers are likely to be repulsed by the intensity of the encounter and immediately begin a mental process of denial to deal with the images. The denial process allows the civilian to believe that they wouldn’t act like the suspect or the officer, thus immediately making the persons in the video part of an out-group. And, if they identify with the suspect in some way, it places the law enforcement officer further away from the public’s embrace.

            Even events that are eminently explainable from a police perspective get imprinted as negative and no amount of scrubbing will convince most people that their first impressions were wrong. Those who profit from sensationalism, and those who benefit from opposition to the police, jump on these many opportunities to fan the flames of misinformation. Individuals come to believe that those negative impressions are the norm, providing more validation to an already existing bias. A police officer, who sees those in their in-group getting unfairly treated, is prone to respond defensively and angrily, often playing into the hands of critics ready to paint defensiveness as guilt.

Can the good guys win the perception wars?

            If the frequency of confusing images and negative messaging is a major cause of anti-police sentiment, the cure may be more frequent positive messaging. Police agencies may no longer be content for the occasional feel-good newspaper article or community relations program. Consistent, persistent, positive messaging through multiple avenues is a new essential in law enforcement leadership. Constantly building credibility with the public is not a distraction from fighting crime, it is an essential element in effective contemporary policing. 

A Quick Quiz on the Philadelphia Starbucks Arrest

Unless you have the self-discipline to ignore things on the news that are utterly un-newsworthy, you have probably heard that a couple of men were arrested by police officers for trespassing in a Starbucks in the city of brotherly love. Apparently, two gentlemen sat at the coffee place for a while then asked for access to the bathroom. Since they hadn’t purchased anything, the manager did not allow them to use the restroom and asked them to leave. When they did not leave the manager made a 911 call to ask the police to handle the matter. Now, let’s see how much you know about all that.

Q 1   The management is racist because non-minority persons are allowed to hang out without buying anything but these guys were black so no way was that going to be allowed.

            A. True

            B. False

            C. Doesn’t matter to the responding officers since they got a call, had a witness,                                     attempted to resolve the matter without an arrest, and had probable cause to believe a                          violation had been committed.

Answer: C . For those of you who wished that there was a “D” choice, this is what it would have said : D. The officers should have called the CEO of the company and asked for a change in policy that would allow a person, regardless of race, color, or creed, to hang out at Starbucks like it was their living room for an indeterminate amount of time. If that had been an option on this multiple choice question, the answer would still have been C.

Q 2  A common cultural courtesy when sitting in a business is to:

            A. Keep looking at your watch to signal that you’re waiting for somebody

            B. Buy a pack of gum or something cheap as a good faith gesture

            C. Doesn’t matter to the responding officers since they got a call, had a witness,                            attempted to resolve the matter without an arrest, and had probable cause to                                           believe a violation had been committed.

            D. Make yourself at home and make sure to take some napkins and sugar packets                              while you’re there

Answer: Yup, still C.

Q 3  Upon hearing of the incident, the Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross:

            A. Immediately appointed a task force made up of  one ACLU attorney, one                                  Black Lives Matter member, and a federal judge to investigate why officers are                             responding to 911 calls involving minorities

            B.  Placed the officers on unpaid leave until the investigation into the matter could                        be delayed long enough for the media to forget it ever happened

            C. Made a statement on social media explaining that the officers did nothing                                  wrong

            D. Implemented a policy prohibiting officers from drinking coffee with cream or                           sugar in it

Answer: Aha! Trick question! The answer is C. Support of line officers by an administration in politically charged environments does seem to be the exception to the rule, but Commissioner Ross decided to take the unique course of sticking with the facts and the law.

Q 4  In what ways did Starbucks back-pedal to keep its customers?

            A. Apologized for allowing its manager to follow its policy

            B. Denied the tweets that compared this incident to the Woolworth lunch

            counter arrests of the 1950s   

            C. Doesn’t matter to the responding officers since they got a call, had a witness,                            attempted to resolve the matter without an arrest, and had probable cause to believe                              a violation had been committed.

            D. Passively took a verbal beating from Philadelphia’s mayor, who accused them                          of racism

Answer: Again, for our purposes, the answer is C – although I would score “all of the above” as correct.

Commissioner Ross is quoted as saying “These officers had legal standing to make this arrest. These officers did absolutely nothing wrong. They followed policy, they did what they were supposed to do, they were professional in all their dealings with these gentlemen — and instead, they got the opposite back. I will say that as an African-American male, I am very aware of implicit bias. We are committed to fair and unbiased policing, and anything less than that will not be tolerated in this department.”

Commissioner, I will be sending you a personal note of congratulations. And it will include my usual appreciation gift – a Starbucks gift card. Just make sure and order quickly when you do go in. 

David French on Why Cops are Like Soldiers and Shouldn’t Be Killing People

This is one of those discussion pieces that I try to leave alone because I have a chip on my shoulder and I try to keep my brain from running away and keeping me awake at night. My defensiveness comes from forty years of immersion in the world of law enforcement as an officer and leader and as an academic and trainer. Besides being a police academy trainer, I was immersed in deadly force studies after an officer-involved shooting of one of my officers when I was a police chief. I also work, in my capacity as a chaplain, with officers wounded in the line of duty that are so terribly ignored and disposable. My heart is with the cops, and I have trod there.

During that intense study and the years that have followed, I have become aware of the physics and biology involved in an officer’s decision to use deadly force. We pay more attention to the skill of a quarterback playing football than we do on the dynamics of an officer’s use of force. When those factors arise in court and presented to judges and juries rational decisions are made by the courts to find that the officer’s actions were reasonable and justifiable, despite ugly critique and disturbing videos.

Mr. French – and yes, thank you for your service – makes an attempt to credibly compare his military unit’s success in killing few civilians during wartime to the controversial killings by police officers. He fails and here’s why.

The theater of war is not the streets of America. “I walked the streets of local towns and villages. I experienced tense situations where you didn’t know whether to shoot or hold fire I walked the streets of local towns and villages. I experienced tense situations where you didn’t know whether to shoot or hold fire.”  Right. You were at war. You didn’t want to kill a good guy or let a bad guy live to fight another day, but the consequences, though grave, are not the consequences that a police officer faces. There are allowances in war. Collateral damage is a pre-calculated cost. Allowing anonymous forces to get away to do anonymous damage in another battle lays differently at the combatants’ feet than the police officers.

French explains “our troopers faced constant attacks. IEDs claimed lives. Men died to ambushes. Indirect fire was a frequent threat to our combat outposts. Our troopers fought pitched battles in the streets, called in air strikes, fired thousands of artillery rounds, and killed, wounded, and captured dozens of terrorists.”  Exactly. For the police officer, while having to make a deadly force decision is quite common (police officers are amazingly restrained in that regard – I know, the reader will not believe that the studies are quite clear on that matter), the exercise of that power is quite rare and, in the context of all the police/citizen contacts that occur, a statistical anomaly.

French states that “Good officers, like good soldiers, know that each encounter takes place against the background of a much larger context, with multiple factors influencing the outcome” and does so in the context of probabilities. He denies that officers should think that a deadly encounter is as likely in one situation as in another, that they should play the odds. 

This thinking, which I understand is reasonable from the non-police citizen’s base of experience, does not reflect the police officer’s reality. When we hear that a suspect shot by police was mentally ill, only had a cell phone, was just a trespasser, etc, that belies the totality of circumstances faced by the officer. A barking dog complaint can be an indicator of a burglary in progress. A 911 hang-up can be a prelude to a murder. Worse case scenario thinking? Yes. When you buy a lottery ticket you have a one in a million chance of making the big score, but you have the same chance as anybody else.

Anecdotally I know a trooper who was shot by a man who he had contacted for urinating in public. I was knocked unconscious by a traffic violator, and struck by a vehicle whose driver was fleeing a vandalism. When 911 callers say they see a man with a gun, is the officer supposed to think “Ahh, it’s probably just a toy?” Making a deadly force decision is predicated on the circumstances at the moment of the fatal shot, not on whether your suspect is a misdemeanant or felon. French’s statement “Pursuit of an armed robber is different from the pursuit of a vandal, and both are dramatically different from rolling up on an actual firefight” isn’t true as it plays out in the real world of murky and fluid changes.

So, Mr. French, we don’t have the license that war allows. Our mission, as you point out, is largely service and investigation oriented. But the old Marine concept of being polite to everyone you meet and have a plan to kill them is not as ridiculous as you imply. It might be a good time to visit my article posted recently here, regarding California’s proposal to redefine the rules of engagement for deadly force:  https://aztroopers.org/enews/4-reasons-californias-deadly-force-proposal-deserves-to-die

Now, Mr. French reminds us “it’s important to understand that the mission must come before personal safety.” Are we then to conclude that when the question of “is that person trying to kill me?” comes to an officer’s mind that her response should be “well, let’s see if he shoots me or not?” I won’t go into all of the micro-facts that go through the brain – many of them at a less than conscious awareness level – that telegraph a lethal intent, but those can be articulated and, when juries understand them, deadly force decisions that seem outrageous become quite rational. Of course, there are “bad” shootings, but not very many. And the list of shootings spouted by the average commentator always includes cases that have been critically examined and found lawful.

The idea that officers are set free from responsibility because they claim they were afraid isn’t as cowardly as French makes it sound. First of all there is a high ethical call for survival that includes the ability to continue to serve, continue to intervene, avoid being an impediment to other first responders, and completing the mission in which they were engaged. Secondly, the fear standard is not subjective, it is objective. The fear must be reasonable and articulated to meet the legal standard, not merely claimed.  French disingenuously misappropriated an officer’s statement that French quoted in speaking about the Castile shooting to conclude that the officer shot a man because the man was exposing a child to second-hand smoke. Please, Mr. French, if you have to do those kinds of contortions, you reduce your credibility.

On a related note, French claims that “policing is far down on the list of the most dangerous jobs”. This is being recently challenged by closer studies of officer injury and death. And even if police work isn’t all that dangerous, as French implies and I vigorously reject, that’s not relevant to Officer A’s individual decision to employ deadly force in a given situation. French implies, in commenting on a recent shooting in Sacramento, California, that the fact no officer has been killed in the line of duty for a long time should somehow enter into the calculation of the officer who decided to shoot. (In a case that has not been fully examined forensically – but lack of facts never stopped an opinion).

French began on a weak premise and concluded with weak presumptions predicated on few facts. Being a soldier and being a police officer are not equivalents.

Hiring the disabled - how inclusive can we be?

Historically, American law enforcement began largely as a patronage job – something you got because you knew someone with political power who could appoint you. Law enforcement agencies were composed of people who looked like the people who were elected or gained office by political power – white males. This was the template for what a police officer looked like. Any deviation came with suspicions from within the police culture as well as the public. With the arrival of civil service in policing, candidates were chosen by merit. The screening process still managed to filter out almost all but white males.

But change was inevitable. According to the Office of Community Policing, the first black police officer was, surprisingly, in Selma, Alabama circa 1867. An article from the National Law Enforcement Museum chronicles New York City’s first black police officer, Samuel Battle, appointed in 1911. Alice Stebbins Wells is regarded as the first American female police officer, serving Los Angeles in 1910.

In mid-century America, government became the petri dish in the era of renewed interest in civil rights. More women and more minorities were hired by law enforcement, even if only to avoid lawsuits. The first police department that I served added its first female two years after I started. The police station, built in the early 1970s, had no locker room for females. In 1981, Patrolman Woody Tennant became the first openly gay police officer in San Francisco. Transgender cops used to make headlines and get interviews in the media. Not such a big deal now.

Added to race, gender, and sexual orientation, the most recent debates became about bodies and physical capacity. With the advent of the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, the physical abilities required to pass an entrance exam or police academy came into question. Doing pull-ups, being a minimum height, and other standard physical tasks now generated lawsuits demanding proof that standards were relevant to actual law enforcement tasks. A 1993 issue of the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin debated vision requirements for recruits. Fast forward to March of last year when Matias Ferreira, a 28 year old double amputee, graduated as a police officer with the Suffolk County, NY police department. Also last year, Wendy Caldwell was sworn in as Houston Police Department’s oldest academy graduate at age 53.

This week we find this headline: “Texas PD hires first deaf female officer. Officer Erica Trevino became the first female deaf commissioned officer in the department’s history.” Dalhart, Texas, population 8,307, is stepping into the brave new world of non-discrimination by disability.

Where will it end? That’s not a slap-your-forehead with an exasperated sigh question. It’s legit. What are the outer limits of acceptability of police recruits? Given the concern about finding enough cops to fill our ranks now, the challenge is not just to obtain bodies, but what kinds of bodies can we – or must we – accept?

The human brain’s template is wired early on to respond with either acceptance or suspicion in determining what is normal and what is a threat. Our law enforcement culture is no different. A black cop in a police department that has always been all white is not normal. A college-educated cop in a blue-collar GED world is not normal. A female with a badge isn’t normal where it has never happened before.  Black officers historically were prohibited from arresting white offenders. Women officers had to wear skirts and could only arrest if a male officer were also present. Many were immediately assigned to juvenile work for the presumed maternal instincts.

Every mold-breaking first-generation of a new type of officer has faced the loneliness of proving themselves. It was not only sink or swim, it was often sink or swim with a weight around your neck. Waiting for back up when your shift has conspired to not give you any help is no fun.

Officer Trevino, I would have advised you as strongly as possible to find another profession. If  I were on patrol with you at DPD, I’d be nervous. And I give you the same advice I’d give a cross-fit ex-Seal Team Six recruit: When it’s not for you, get out when you can.

It seems that the only barrier to being a cop is intelligence. Yes, Robert Jordan tested so high on his application for the New London, Connecticut police department that his application was tossed out. He sued for discrimination, but a federal appeals court in 2000 said that being too smart is an allowable disqualifier.

But I’ve worked with obese cops, old cops, arthritic cops, dumb cops, and Coke bottle lens wearing cops, and I’ve worked myself when I was too sick and weak to put up a fight but I suited up anyway. I managed to retire in one piece. The profession owes you, Officer Trevino, your Chief, and your co-workers gratitude for being the Chuck Yeagar of deaf police officers. You may break the no sound barrier. If you don’t make it, it will have been a worthy experiment anyway. And we hope no one gets hurt because you couldn’t hear what you needed to hear.  Good luck, sister.