McManus: Police need better training, not harsher discipline
Police Chief William McManus has acknowledged that the Police Department must “re-engineer the use of force,” a need underscored this week by the fatal officer-involved shooting of an unarmed man.
Officers must learn to communicate more calmly with citizens, McManus has said. This re-engineering, however, does not involve more harshly punishing officers who end up using excessive force.
“I don’t think there needs to be a shift toward more punitive (discipline),” McManus told me Friday. “It’s already punitive enough.”
He added, “We’re not trying to make officers do the right thing or understand proper tactics by holding a hammer over their head. It’s got to be training. I like to think our officers don’t need to be threatened with discipline to use the right amount of force in these circumstances.”
On Thursday, Officer John Lee, an 11-year veteran of SAPD, fatally shot Antronie Scott, a 36-year-old black man, after mistaking Scott’s cellphone for a gun.
Wanted on two felony warrants, Scott was exiting a vehicle when the officer approached and said, “Let me see your hands,” then almost immediately fired his weapon because Scott spun around quickly and the officer feared for his life, McManus told reporters.
The use of force by local police recently turned the head of a congressman.
U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, grew concerned after learning that two officers were suspended for only five days after severely beating Roger Carlos in a case of mistaken identity in May 2014. Carlos told the San Antonio Express-News that his injuries required surgery that left him paralyzed.
McManus is complying with a request by Castro for data on how the department disciplines its officers accused of using excessive force.
“I’m encouraged that they’ve been very cooperative and forthcoming and understand the need for further reforms,” Castro told me last week.
But reforming the Police Department does not require enhancing its disciplinary process, McManus said Friday.
“Re-engineering the use of force is about training and what the law allows in terms of officer discretion,” McManus said. “It’s a training-slash-education issue, and there needs to be, in many cases, a change in the way we do things, a change in tactics.”
Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, agreed.
Wexler led a gathering last week in Washington of nearly 200 law enforcement leaders, including McManus, to develop new principles on the use of force.
And this week, Wexler spoke at a Major Cities Chiefs Association meeting in San Antonio, where more than 60 police chiefs from across the nation gathered at a downtown hotel to discuss a variety of topics, including the use of force.
“We don’t really deal with the discipline issue at all,” Wexler told me. “Our focus is on policy, on tactics, training and equipment.”
Police departments should train officers to slow down, communicate more effectively and sometimes “step back,” Wexler said.
“So much of this is about prevention,” he said. “What can you do to provide officers with the appropriate training, tactics, policy and supervision to keep them from getting into a situation where they have to use force?
“I’m not saying discipline isn’t important,” Wexler added, “but you’re better off showing people how to do things first. … In many of these situations, I don’t blame the officer, I blame the training the officer receives.”
Last week, McManus told the City Council that reform means training officers to be “more of a guardian than a warrior.”
“If an officer does make a good-faith error in judgment,” McManus told me at that meeting, “the worst thing you can do is apply punitive discipline for an honest mistake.”
Was the killing of Scott this week an “honest mistake”?
“We’re looking at it very, very closely,” McManus said.
