{"id":3642,"date":"2016-03-22T20:15:26","date_gmt":"2016-03-23T00:15:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/?p=3642"},"modified":"2016-03-22T20:15:26","modified_gmt":"2016-03-23T00:15:26","slug":"part-5-the-perf-etrators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/part-5-the-perf-etrators\/","title":{"rendered":"Part 5: The PERF-etrators"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I first saw the Police Executive Research Forum\u2019s \u201c30 Guiding Principles\u201d in their \u201cUse of Force: Taking Policing to a Higher Standard,\u201d I showed it to my significant other. She\u2019s not LE herself, but hangs out with enough law enforcement personnel to have a good idea how things work. After reading it, she shook her head sadly and said, \u201cWho PERF-etrated this?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The answer, according to PERF itself, is \u201cApproximately 200 police chiefs and other police officials from various ranks, along with federal officials, academics, and mental health experts.\u201d How significant that one category is missing from that mix: police instructors in the law and practice of judicious use of force. IALEFI, the International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors and ILEETA, the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association, would undoubtedly have been happy to help research and explain things, Unfortunately, it doesn\u2019t appear that either was contacted.<\/p>\n

I thought the single most egregious of their 30 points was Policy 3: \u201cPolice use of force must meet the test of proportionality.\u201d<\/u><\/strong> (Emphasis PERF\u2019s.) That sounds reasonable enough until you read the fine print: \u201cIn assessing whether a response is proportional, officers must ask themselves, \u2018How would the general public view the action we took? Would they think it was appropriate to the entire situation and to the severity of the threat posed to me or to the public?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

What? What? <\/em>Should life or death decision guidelines be made by people with hashtag agendas who can\u2019t seem to distinguish murder from justifiable homicide? The sort of people who create \u201chands up, don\u2019t shoot\u201d memes when hands weren\u2019t up and \u201cdon\u2019t shoot\u201d wasn\u2019t uttered? People who expect cops to risk fatal stab wounds (to themselves, and to others) because someone who doesn\u2019t understand weapons doesn\u2019t realize that within its range a knife can be as or more deadly than a police duty gun?\u00a0 We don\u2019t let cultists and faith healers determine medical treatment protocols.\u00a0 We shouldn\u2019t let people who replace scientifically-determined reality with fantasized memes be the arbiters of justifiable protective use of force.<\/p>\n

IACP (the International Association of Chiefs of Police, i.e., \u201cmanagement\u201d) and FOP (the Fraternal Order of Police, i.e., \u201clabor\u201d) have taken the unprecedented step of joining together to refute and challenge the PERF guidelines.\u00a0 There is a clue, there.<\/p>\n

An organization that calls itself a \u201cresearch forum\u201d should, one would think, put forth some research<\/em>.\u00a0 The PERF 30 document under discussion contains exactly one footnote\u2026citing another PERF paper.\u00a0 \u00a0Instead, the report speaks glowingly of Scottish police training to deal with knife-wielders without deploying firearms, ignoring the facts that (A) the desperate constables have<\/em> to do it that way because the vast majority are not allowed <\/em>to carry firearms, and (B) their training explains to them at the outset that they can expect to be slashed or stabbed while trying to subdue blade-wielders without using guns.<\/p>\n

Instead of letting the misperceptions of the uninformed (or agenda-motivated) elements of the public become the landmark for guidelines, PERF might have found room for one more recommended policy: Educating that public on the realities of police use of force. <\/em>Sadly, that much needed element appears to be totally lacking from their recommendations.<\/p>\n

As I close, let me state again that all the opinions I have expressed on this topic are my personal opinions, not necessarily those of any agency or organization which I serve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I first saw the Police Executive Research Forum\u2019s \u201c30 Guiding Principles\u201d in their \u201cUse of Force: Taking Policing to a Higher Standard,\u201d I showed it to my significant other. She\u2019s not LE herself, but hangs out with enough law enforcement personnel to have a good idea how things work. After reading it, she shook […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3642","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}