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.
“If a suspect pulls out a knife, can the officer only pull out a knife?” Leuschner asked. “If a suspect only fires three rounds, can the officer only fire three back?” He said these limitations could put an officer’s life — or the suspect and others — in jeopardy, and will contribute to attrition since officers will be concerned they cannot fully defend themselves from harm. While “reasonable and necessary” are understandable terms that have been defined in law, “proportionate” is not, he said.
He said Phoenix City Councilman Kevin Robinson described the standards established in Graham v. Conner for the use of force by law enforcement as reasonable based on a reasonable person, which was incorrect. The case held that it must be a reasonable police officer; the average person doesn’t have the training or experience.
The court held, “The ‘reasonableness’ of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, and its calculus must embody an allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second decisions about the amount of force necessary in a particular situation.”
