My police ethics professor, the late Dr. Michael Caldero, often said, “Police hold a monopoly on the legitimate use of coercive force.” I’ve shared this sentiment with trainees over the years, to help them at least begin to realize the awesome responsibility of law enforcement. I encourage all my students and trainees to engage in ongoing discussions of that legitimacy – where it comes from, and how it is maintained. LETC is committed to helping law enforcement officers and agencies continue this dialog, to seek, build, and maintain community support.
Continued legitimacy of the police require an understanding of the social, political, and economic issues that intimately inform response to conflict. At LETC, we give officers to tools necessary to resolve conflict consistently, and encourage continued learning, to seek new ways to resolve conflict and restore peace and justice. Because, As Dr. Caldero pointed out, legitimacy of the police is tenuous at best, and needs constant attention.
Though many officers today will never have first hand understanding of racial disparities, we must actively seek out and learn from those who have and use that knowledge to form more appropriate responses to conflict. Whether through the words we chose to use, where our ability to communicate an understand of disparity, to acknowledge feelings of anger, frustration, and resentment, all matter more than we might realize. Acknowledging the legitimacy of ones feelings is a critical part of conflict resolution. However, while our words make a significant impact, but as we see in the new videos released daily our actions still speak louder than those words.
Police use force every day, the marked car, uniforms, duty belts, command presence, all give rise to a certain level of force. When words fail, and they will, our force actions must also be consistent. Our actions must reflect an analytical approach to force options that takes race out of the equation. Ask yourself, what is the suspect doing and what response is necessary and appropriate given the actions and environment. I am going to ask you to go one step further and change the way you think about the application of force. LETC asks you to think about your actions a bit differently than most law enforcement trainers. We ask you to think: How do the circumstances limit your actions, i.e., what is the least restrictive action available to resolve the conflict.
Finally, we are all professionals, and as such, must step up to police ourselves. LETC advocates police policing themselves, as well. If you see an officer acting inappropriately take a stand and call them out. Police have a monopoly on the legitimate use of coercive force, but to maintain that legitimacy we must think critically about the community who grants us that legitimacy and police ourselves to ensure that we are all acting in the best interests of that community. Who do we serve and protect? The community.