On its face, the saying makes sense, but in my eyes it’s badly flawed. Basically you could sum up the phrase by saying, "I’m going to make a judgment that may or may not be correct and it will be my truth." And that’s the whole the problem with the phrase. From that "truth" decisions will be made. Decisions that can impact any number of things; in this case, it can directly determine how an officer reacts when faced with a similar situation the next time it occurs.

There is the perception out there that we, as a department, do a lot of hand-wringing over the potential media coverage of, or the angle from which the public sees an incident. From that can come discipline that seems to be a direct response to the hand-wringing, a way to appease a "concerned" media. (It’s as if we sometimes try to beat the media and public to the punch, assuming controversy before it ever exists.) That is a dangerous path. That path is a perception where an officer gets disciplined because an incident just doesn’t look good. "We’re a little uneasy with what happened and some of the heat might go away if we ding you, so…" surely it’s not a big deal if we hand over a little suspension. That’s bad business.

It could be an officer arresting an unruly old man who ends up booked in jail, an officer punching someone in handcuffs after being kicked in the head by that same cuffed suspect, or an officer using the Taser on an aggressively fighting suspect who is simultaneously trying to destroy evidence.

I suppose this is going to sound idealistic and perhaps a bit naïve, but when I came on the department I had this notion that an officer would get the benefit of the doubt when it came to something like use of force. You were repeatedly told during training that you had discretion at your disposal, so use it. And I guess I figured that if an officer slugged a guy in the face or Tased someone, he/she probably had a pretty good reason to do it. (I also figured we had a job to do and if the media didn’t get that, well…then…)

For example, when I first became certified for the Taser, its usage seemed pretty cut and dry. A guy acts like he wants to fight you, you deploy it, (hopefully) the circuit is completed, he drops like a heavy stone, ballgame over. Of course, it doesn’t always work out that way and the policy has since been tweaked as a suspect must now actively resist before the Taser can be deployed. A gray area has continued to emerge since our department began using the Taser with regard to an actively resisting suspect who also is attempting to destroy evidence – namely by swallowing contraband.

The policy specifically states that you cannot administer the Taser to a suspect in order to stop that person from swallowing evidence. And yet it also states that you can deploy the Taser on a suspect who is actively resisting arrest – which is often happening at the exact same time as the attempted destruction of evidence. So what do you do when placed in that situation? I don’t know that we have an answer and we may want to find one sooner rather than later. There’s clearly a chasm of difference between shouting, "Spit it out or I’ll Tase you!" and the alternative – suspecting that a person has contraband in his mouth and when ordering the suspect to open his mouth, he begins to actively fight your attempts to retrieve it. Do we want to set precedent that we cannot administer the Taser on a fighting and resisting suspect (placing ourselves, the suspect, and possibly nearby innocents in danger) solely on the basis that we believe the suspect has contraband in his mouth? I fear that’s the path of the future.

Bringing us back to that dangerous path we’re walking. Do we want to mete out discipline that might cause an officer to not use the tools available to him for fear of that same discipline? That’s dangerous. In Ohio this past June, an officer was beaten by a handcuffed suspect badly enough that the officer required 14 stitches for two wounds. It begs the question: Was/is it that department’s policy to not strike handcuffed suspects? Did that officer pause or delay in acting because he feared getting in trouble should he have to put his hands on such an unruly suspect?

These very pages contained an article in recent months in which the author outlined incidents during which officers were slow to use (or failed to altogether use) appropriate force. The belief is that departments are either failing to properly train these officers for critical incidents, or the fallout from previous similar situations have given the officers pause for fear that they will be left to sway in the breeze should the department "determine" that the officer should have acted differently. That’s a handshake with the ol’ horned guy (a "Deal with the Devil" for those scoring at home) and that’s a brutal reality for officers to face.

It’s important that the review of an incident extend beyond, "You can’t do what you did…period. End of story." The totality of the circumstances may not yield so simple an answer. The perception that you absolutely cannot strike someone in handcuffs or Taser someone who happens to have contraband in their mouth may be wrong and may not be the reality of the situation whatsoever. We’re talking about perception and reality standing next to life and death in the discipline line and this job is much too gray for such absolutes.

We don’t have ‘em all so be safe out there, huh!