The Phoenix Police Department (PPD) announced Tuesday that the agency is updating its use of force policy. Interim Police Chief Michael Sullivan proposed the changes in response to the DOJ investigating PPD, as part of his effort vying to be named the permanent police chief. The new policy states that the force must be “objectively reasonable, necessary and proportional to effectively and safely resolve an incident.” However the Trump administration is shutting down the DOJ’s consent decrees with police departments across the country, and PPD officers are very concerned the policy is flawed.
The announcement admitted that the new policy is “deliberately stricter than the standards established by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Graham v Connor. 490 U.S. 386 (1989).” That decision said force by officers must be “reasonable.” The new policy adds “necessary” and “proportional.”
The Arizona Sun Times spoke to Ben Leuschner, president of the Phoenix Police Sergeants & Lieutenants Association (PPSLA) and a lieutenant with PPD. He said the new policy is “very subjective, not well defined, and confusing to the rank and file.”
Leuschner said the problem with adding the word “proportionality” is it doesn’t specify who determines whether the force was proportional, and there is “no clear definition” of the term. If it is the average person, someone who watches law enforcement TV shows, but who has no training or experience in law enforcement, he said, and merely watches some videos from a fisheye lens taken from a bodycam, that person won’t understand all of the nuances.
Read the rest of the article at The Arizona Sun Times