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    Roger Wertheimer
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    What should be a police department's policies and regulations on the use of deadly force? What is the relevance for this of the state law on capital punishment?

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    What should be a police department's policies and regulations on the use of deadly force? What is the relevance for this of the state law on capital punishment?

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    44 views9 pages

    Regulating POlice Use of Deadly Force

    Uploaded by

    Roger Wertheimer
    What should be a police department's policies and regulations on the use of deadly force? What is the relevance for this of the state law on capital punishment?

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    CHAPTER 6 Regulating Police Use of Deadly Force Roger Wertheimer ‘A WINTER OF DISCONTENT Tt ras the winter of 1969, a year and a half after the Chicago Democratic Convention. Open season on police had bean publicly and privately declared by fevolutionaries and random snipers. Demonstrations, riots, and confrontations between the police and the people had become a national custom. A few months later in the ‘summer of 1970, Portland, Oregon would host the American Legion Convention and its featured speaker, Spiro Agnew. Rumor had it that every Yippie, hippie, Weatherman, and war protestar in the ‘West was going to descend on Portland to demonstrate. The pre- dicted turnout, according to ramors respected by the Portland Police Department and the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office, ranged ‘rom 40,000 to upwards of 100,000—some said it would be bigger ‘than Woodstock. The state of Oregon would sponsor a rock festival {n the next county in the hopes of drawing the protesters out ofthe city; it was, [believe the first and only statesubsidized drag fet in ‘American history. Police paranoia had ceased to be discriminable * thological condition. Major police departments were looking. at tanktype weapons for erowd control-And onelocal deputy sherit ‘ed to cur livid every time a five year-old waved to him the "V" peace sign; he was convinced thatthe kids had been indoctrinated by hippies and were really giving him the finger. ‘There { was: dopesmoking, draft-resisting doctor of philosophy ‘and Multnomah County deputy sheriff assigned the task of drat- ing a revision of the department's Rules and Procedures Manual, | pattcularly the section entitled “Police Restraint.” which specified the policies, regulations, and procedures governing the use of force and deadly force by members of the department, which consisted of, as I recall, roughly 250 deputies, correctional officers, and a (sorted stat | MORAL AIMS AND REALITY CONSTRAINTS | __The asus of police use of deadly force might be considered as a problem within an a prior moral theory, or within the context of constructing state legislation, or again in dhe context of the ju: ‘al appliation ofthe ‘ent agency's own internal regulations iT belive, both theoreti [galls and pac, more ntereting ad fundamental Thisios0 “Though we may find it altogether natural to pas judgment on a policeman’s actions using only our moral common sense, theteal ‘We operate with must give way when it conficte with what the off fer would be directed to do by the best set of departmeatal regula tions. Since Hume, we have become familiar with the idea thet to ‘chieve our moral aime we need ioatittions and system of rules, hich, sometimes regretful transmit to each action the constraints that operate on the system as a whole: More recently, John Kava hhas elaborated and made famoua Nelaon Goodman's conception of [the dinlctical proces for improving our normative belies by cor- recting our intuitive judgments on particlar cases inthe light of ‘our general principles, and vice vere tin quite in the epirt of Ravi epecally considering hio cancer with the stability of seis Ilene of ng upon tat dee {Gone onthe best et of rules fora artment might propery lead us to ater our beliefs about how a policeman should behave. ‘Tho principles of justice governing the framework of society must be both theoretically and practically consistent withthe society's specific institutional rules, Our Jodgments about the beet inatite Regulating Police Use of Deadly Force / 95 tonal rules may be grounds for assessments of our general norms: ‘tive principles and not merely derivations from those principles. ‘Just as a scientific theory is evaluated by criteria other than and at times incompatible with conformity to observational data, inti tutional rules must meet ertera other than abstract (preinaity. tional moral truth. Rightly or wrongly, a police department cannot hhave regulations permitting officers to violate state statutes or local ‘ordinances. Whether it might have practices of that sortie a more problematic matter) Beyond this there are myriad unofficial exter: nal pressures. The internal regulations an enforcement agency sels {or itself do not have the statas of law, and many of them are clasi- fied information. However, they are often intended as public deo. larations, and thus, for example, incidents may arise in which complaints are brought against the agency that appeal to its an- nounced rules and policies. For obvious reasons, police agencies far more so than meet institutions construct ther rules and polices with an eye continuously on such contingencies. Later I ‘shall focus on a particular instance of this. ‘fa rue is to achieve its aims, it must be obeyed, and if tia not respected the costs of enforcement may become high, even prohibi- tively high. That is another generality with special poignancy for the regulation governing police use of fore. Most citizens realize that an officer is not likely to respect a ule that threatens his own safety, but few citizens have any realistic conception of how much land what kinds of force are necessary to accomplish certain tasks Safely. Moreover, still fewer citizens appreciate that a policeman {is not likely to reapect a rule he views as a threat to his own self reapect because it bare him from effective action, as fr example, the Miranda rules were thought todo. Restrictions on police use of force are specially problematic since they may jeopardize an off- cars sense of worth a8 well a his eonee of security. ‘Another fact about rules we may elsewhere overlook is that fol Jowing a rule is a complex psychological operation, and the more complex the rule, the more complex the operation. A civil code for property or contracts ean go merrily on for pages because the cir cumstances in which the rules are normally applied allow for the requisite study and deliberation. Codes for police behavior must reckon with their being applied to behavior that regularly pre-empts reflection upon them. While much police wark is routine and much oft that isn't proceeds at apace permitting deliberation or consul- tation with the department manual or a supervisor, when resort to

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