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From Force Science Research Center:
Force Science News #36
January 20, 2006
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The Force Science News is provided by The Force Science Research Center,
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ARE CONTROVERSIAL RECOMMENDATIONS ABOUT OFFICERS IN SHOOTINGS REALLY VALID?
How do you think an officer should be treated after he has shot and
killed an offender:
A. Like a suspect or a civilian witness--required to give a statement
ASAP...isolated for fear he'll collude with others to concoct a
self-serving fairy tale of what happened...interrogated rather than
interviewed, with every discrepancy and hole in his version of events
regarded suspiciously as probable evidence of deceit?
B. Like a survivor of a critical incident--given time to de-escalate and
mentally process the high-stress encounter before being extensively
questioned...allowed to walk back through the confrontation to clarify
what took place...interviewed with techniques that enhance and
effectively "mine" memory...regarded as truthful and well-intentioned
until reliable evidence suggests otherwise?
According to the recommendations of a nonprofit police oversight and
consulting organization that is dedicated to influencing LE policies and
practices nationally and internationally, "A" is the preferred approach.
And the foothold this group is gaining is alarming some prominent police
psychologists and other knowledgeable observers who have spent much of
their careers trying to make Approach "B" the standard after an
officer-involved shooting.
The oversight group, launched with money from the Ford Foundation and
based in Los Angeles, is called PARC (Police Assessment Resource
Center). Aiming to help departments "advance effective, respectful and
publicly accountable policing," PARC has been engaged to investigate,
monitor, advise and/or propose "reform" recommendations for agencies and
police oversight entities in California, New York, Oregon, New Mexico,
Louisiana, Michigan, Idaho, and elsewhere, including at least one other
country (Greece).
According to its website (www.parc.info), the organization also works
with journalists to "improve" the "critical analysis" of LE issues in
the media. And lately some plaintiffs' attorneys have been citing policy
principles advanced by PARC in police-related lawsuits. "PARC and its
philosophy are surfacing in a wide variety of venues," declares Dr. Bill
Lewinski, one behavioral scientist who strongly takes issue with the
group's post-shooting proposals.
PARC offers a wide range of suggestions for changing police practices.
After analyzing 32 officer-involved shootings and 2 in-custody deaths in
Portland (OR), for example, the group made 89 recommendations regarding
Portland Police Bureau's training, tactics, policies and procedures.
(PARC's 266-page report of its findings, as well as other of its
departmental analyses, can be downloaded from its website.)
Only PARC's views on the proper treatment of officers after a shooting
will be discussed in this article from Force Science News, however,
because effective interviewing techniques is an area currently being
explored at the Force Science Research Center, Minnesota State
University-Mankato.
The propelling force behind PARC is its founding director and president,
a 60ish attorney named Merrick Bobb. Bobb has told reporters that he was
drawn to changing police conduct after he was accused (falsely, he
insists) of trying to drive his car into an officer during his law
school days at the University of California's volatile Berkeley campus.
Bobb, who claims to be the world's "first police monitor," served as
deputy general counsel to the Christopher Commission, which investigated
LAPD after the Rodney King incident, and also on the Kolts Commission
which investigated LASD. He currently "reviews and monitors" LASD on an
on-going basis as special counsel to the LA Board of Supervisors.
His board of trustees at PARC includes, among others, a lawyer who has
worked for the NAACP, a representative of the Urban League, the
executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, a
former U.S. Asst. Attorney General for civil rights, an executive with
the Los Angeles Times, the former U.S. Attorney whose office prosecuted
NYC officers in the Abner Louima case, and 2 former LE administrators.
In its Portland report, PARC explains what it considers "best practices"
for dealing with an officer who has been involved in a shooting or an
in-custody death. Among its observations/recommendations are these:
--Just as it is "beyond dispute that witnesses should be interviewed as
soon as possible" after an occurrence, "best practice likewise dictates
that officers" should be questioned promptly too, certainly "no later
than several hours after" a shooting, PARC declares. "Contemporaneous
interviews enhance the integrity of the process by reducing the
likelihood that the officers' account of events will be deliberately
contaminated (e.g., by efforts to 'get officers' stories straight') or
accidentally contaminated (i.e., where an officer's memory of the
incident is subconsciously affected by what he or she hears from others)."
--"As a general rule, Homicide investigators interview civilians
involved in, or witnessing, a shooting...as soon as possible, regardless
of their emotional state. Often these civilians are taken from the
scene...to headquarters and persuaded to stay--often for many
hours--until Homicide has an opportunity to fully interview them."
Police officers, PARC says, should be treated no differently.
--PARC claims "there is no empirical support" for the view that
conducting an interview soon after a high-stress event "necessarily
produces unreliable testimony." It dismisses as "not persuasive"
arguments that a waiting period of up to 3 days before extensive
questioning is fairer for the involved officer and produces more
accurate accounts because of reduction of stress and enhancement of memory.
--PARC also objects to "informal, untaped 'pre-interviews' with
officers." Rather than seeing these as contributing to more complete and
better quality recall, PARC is concerned that they "might corrupt the
integrity of statements eventually made for the record."
--As to significant research indicating that officers' perceptions can
be distorted during a deadly force incident, PARC asserts that "waiting
to interview the officer will not affect these phenomena."
--What seems most to concern PARC is that delaying interviews "increases
the possibility of officer collusion or inadvertent contamination" of
memory. "Once the involved officers leave the crime scene, there is no
one to prevent them from 'getting their stories straight.'"
Although PARC's recommendations seem to be finding favor among some
investigators and administrators, sources contacted by FSN who are
intimately familiar with police shootings expressed serious concerns
about PARC's conclusions and the philosophy they appear to reflect.
"PARC's proposals are based on an attitude, not on scientific
foundation," says Bill Lewinski, FSRC's executive director, who has
nearly 3 decades' experience in LE psychology. "This attitude reflects a
belief that cops are devious, that they engage in shootings out of their
own will, and that they should be handled with the same degree of
suspicion as any suspected criminal held in a shooting.
"In theory PARC's approach will lessen distrust of the police by the
public but in reality it could lead to the opposite result because in
many cases immediate and aggressive questioning of the involved officer
is guaranteed to produce discrepancies, unwarranted suspicion, and
problems in court. Then, ultimately, when an unfounded prosecution of an
officer fails, the public won't trust either its cops or the court system.
"Every officer-involved shooting needs to be investigated thoroughly,
but in a way that produces more factual disclosures and, in the end, the
best possible representation of the truth."
Investigation of an officer-involved shooting needs to be approached
with the understanding that "when officers use deadly force, it's not
just another homicide," says John Hoag, an attorney for multiple public
safety labor organizations in Oregon who estimates he has personally
responded to some 40 LE shootings. "The overwhelming majority of
homicide investigations are for murders--killings that are
unquestionably not justified and for which guilty persons need to be
arrested.
"In contrast, society employs officers to use deadly force when
necessary. It's an essential job requirement and they are trained to use
it only when it is appropriate and legal to do so. In virtually every
police shooting, officers did what they had to do and what we hire them
to do. They are not criminals nor are they civilians, and they should
not be treated as such. Protecting their legitimate interests will
actually yield more accurate statements."
Dr. Alexis Artwohl, a prominent researcher of critical incident
phenomena, a former police psychologist in Portland and, like Hoag, a
member of FSRC's National Advisory Board, agrees.
"PARC seems to think that after a shooting officers are basically going
to be liars, trying to cover up and elude" investigators seeking a
truthful reconstruction, she says. She points out that in the 21 pages
of its Portland report that relate to post-shooting handling of
officers, PARC 5 times cites the need to prevent officers from colluding
to "get their story straight."
"I am not so na�ve as to believe that there are no police officers who
lie," she says. "A small percentage are unethical, immoral and corrupt.
But in a democracy, we are not allowed to accuse everyone in a group of
being dishonest just because a small percentage of the group may be."
"The model should be designed to fit the rule, not the exception," says
Ofcr. Levi Bolton, a 31-year police veteran, a former report writing
instructor and now a trustee with the Phoenix Law Enforcement Assn., the
city's police union. "Common practices shouldn't be built around deviancy."
It's usually desirable to interview potential suspects and civilian
witnesses as soon as possible after a violent event, Artwohl explains,
because they may disappear during a delay. "I'm not aware of a single
case where that has happened with a police officer," she says. She also
agrees with others FSN interviewed that most officers will reliably
comply with a directive not to discuss a shooting with anyone other than
an attorney
prior to giving a statement. Thus the realistic risks of waiting to
question an officer seem small compared to considerable benefits.
It's well established that a significant percentage of officers
experience perceptual distortions during the mental and physical
hyper-stress of a shooting, ranging from auditory exclusion to
frustrating memory gaps. Concern about what will happen afterward--the
media scrutiny, the investigations, potential disciplinary action, legal
proceedings and job loss, the possibility of becoming a political
scapegoat--only aggravate the alarm arousal.
"Any time you are at a high level of stress and anxiety it can
temporarily impair your ability to remember things accurately and
completely," Artwohl says. "Some officers can calm down very quickly"
and may feel in satisfactory condition to give a coherent statement
promptly. But most will benefit from "recovery time."
Some researchers, she says, have concluded that nearly 40 per cent of
officers experience a return of "lost" details to their memories "just
by waiting," not only after shootings but after physical-force
altercations as well.
Also in Artwohl's experience, confirmed by research done by LASD, it is
common after a critical incident "for all survivors, including officers,
to second guess themselves and/or others. This second guessing is
emotionally based and almost invariably irrational. Insisting on
immediate statements from officers who are still experiencing high
levels of emotional arousal increases the risk that they will make
emotionally based statements fraught with second guessing and perceptual
distortions that are not an accurate reflection of what really happened."
She points out that delaying an officer's questioning, even through a
complete sleep cycle, has been endorsed by the Psychological Services
Section of the IACP, which "reflects the collective wisdom of the most
experienced police psychologists." These professionals have concluded
that this delay will yield "more coherent and accurate statements,"
Artwohl says.
Hoag claims that an even longer delay may be best. "In most cases, the
first night the officer won't sleep well, if at all," he says, "and when
the adrenalin peak runs out he may be so tired that he won't give the
best statement either. A 2-day delay allows for at least one good
night's sleep. Rested, the officer can sort out better what actually
happened as opposed to what may be his mistaken impressions."
This delay does not impede an investigation. An involved officer while
still at the scene can advise as to injuries, location of offenders,
evidence that needs protection and witnesses who should be questioned.
"This is NOT the same as a full interview," Artwohl emphasizes. "No
transcript is made, information is simply verbally related to
investigators."
Bolton says his department, while preferring prompt full interviews, has
been flexible in not insisting on a rigid timetable, and "nothing has
been lost. Ideally, the department and the involved officer should
approach the post-shooting investigation as partners, all on the same
team seeking the truth, not as adversaries at odds with each other."
As to timing, he says: "No human psyche is the same. The dynamics depend
on an officer's experience, age, training, previous critical incidents,
fatigue, what's going on in his or her personal life-many factors. We
let the officers make the call as to when they feel they've come back to
Planet Earth." Most, he says, end up submitting to an interview soon
after the incident. "We're not so rigid as to insist that you have to
wait in all cases."
Despite PARC's caution against "pre-interview" reconstructions, Hoag
strongly favors the officer informally revisiting the scene with his
attorney--but without an investigator or video camera present--before
submitting a statement.
"Walking through the scene under the same lighting conditions and seeing
how the physical evidence jibes with what the officer recalls helps
identify how much perceptual distortion has occurred and helps the
officer remember more accurately and fully exactly what happened," Hoag
says. "I've had many tell me that without a walk-through, there would
have been many errors in what they said. Any statement given before rest
and a walk-through should be recognized as having a high potential for
inaccuracies."
Hoag's experience has been that "officers who've had to use deadly force
want to give the most accurate statement possible explaining what they
did and why they did it. The investigative approach used by the
department should be one that encourages the officer to cooperate fully,
as that is in everyone's best interest."
He sees "distrust implicit in the PARC recommendations" and observes:
"If the officer is approached like a criminal by the very agency that
employs him, he'll be encouraged to exercise his right to remain silent.
Society will not benefit from that. The agency will not benefit, and the
involved officer will pay a horribly high price as well.
"You want the officer to come out of a shooting and a shooting
investigation at peace with what happened, a stronger, better officer,
not an embittered one. How he's treated is huge in the results you get."
Lewinski notes: "There have been tens of thousands of experiments and
articles related to emotional intensity and its effect on perception and
memory. These help us understand about the true 'best practices' for
working with officers who have been involved in deadly force encounters.
They inform us of the types of information officers capture and don't
capture during a critical incident and the best ways to mine the
memories of an officer who has been in a life-threatening confrontation.
"FSRC will be conducting studies next summer funded by the Constables
Branch Board of the London Metropolitan Police which will consolidate
this research. The object of this study will be to examine and effects
of stress on psychomotor skills, perception and memory and then to
investigate a variety of methods for their effectiveness in tapping
memories.
"In short, we're going to explore what science has to say rather than
relying on attitude and opinion."
NOTE: For information on one study of perception and memory, see FSN
Transmission #2, "Will Traumatic Stress Sharpen Your Memory or Sabotage
It: What the Latest Findings Reveal." It can be found at:
http://www.forcesciencenews.com/home/detail.html?serial=2
================
(c) 2006: Force Science Research Center, www.forcescience.org. Reprints
allowed by request. For reprint clearance, please e-mail:
[email protected]. FORCE SCIENCE is a registered trademark of
The Force Science Research Center, a non-profit organization based at
Minnesota State University, Mankato.
================
(One list member, who had a costly experience with a police officer,
complained about the last Force Science News I shared with the list.
While serving police officers are a minority of the members of the list,
I feel that virtually all list members are capable of extrapolating the
lesson from the Force Science research. In this case, it seems pretty
obvious that private citizens should not be in a hurry to give
"complete" statements following self-defense incidents.)
--
Stephen P. Wenger
Firearm safety - It's a matter
for education, not legislation.
http://www.spw-duf.info
