Are Seattle police resisting a change in culture?

Two Seattle police officers are under review by their department after a video captured them making comments during de-escalation training.

“I pulled my gun out and I stuck it right in his nose and I go, ‘show me your hands now.’ He showed me his hands. I just deescalated him from doing something,” an officer said during the training, only to hear an objection from the trainer.

“I will argue with you to the death on this one because had I not stuck my gun in his face, he may have assaulted somebody,” the cop said.

But the trainer didn’t buy it.

“The policy says &#8212 don’t’ argue with this &#8212 I am explaining to you what the policy says,” the trainer said in the video. “The policy doesn’t equate de-escalation with use of force, which is what you did. That’s how we describe what you did in our policy.”

The video was produced by the The New York Times for an article about how police departments are reevaluating how they police and deescalate situations.

Seattle has engaged new policies after a 2012 agreement with the Federal Department of Justice after an investigation into use of force. The policies proved unpopular with some Seattle police officers, who sued the city.

The recent training captured on video came to the attention of Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole, who then implemented an investigation into the two officers in the video. Comments made by the instructor are also being reviewed.

“Reform is not easy, but I remain enthusiastic that we are at the forefront of police reform. Police agencies from around the country are coming to Seattle to learn from our successes and challenges,” O’Toole said in a recent response to the video. “We are addressing decades of institutional culture and embedded practices. This change sometimes requires difficult conversations.”

“Already, Seattle is seeing good results from smart and safe tactical decisions made by officers who have gone through both CIT and de-escalation training,” she said. “Officers and supervisors of all ranks have been passing on positive comments about the training and their learning outcomes.”

That culture is at the heart of the issue, according to KIRO Radio’s Tom and Curley Show.

“Don’t you think there are two cultures clashing here,” Curley said, pointing out one side filled with scientists and sociologists examining data and determining more proper ways to deescalate situations.

“And then maybe there’s the other culture, which is the real world, and in the real world you have an individual that probably wants to cause harm to you, himself or someone else around you and is not a rational individual that you can deescalate a situation from,” he said. “And that is the clash of the two cultures, the cops that live on the street and what scientists come up with in the lab.”

Sometimes, Curley said, there is a lack of understanding from higher-ups who are far removed from the front lines of an organization.

“I remember working, and all of a sudden this thing would come down from corporate explaining how to do something, and they have no idea what it’s like in the real world,” Curley said. “That stuff doesn’t fit in the real world, but some guy, some lawyer covering everybody comes up with something so the corporate people can say, ‘Oh we warned them ahead of time they couldn’t’ do these things.'”

But not everything that comes from a lab is bogus, Tom noted.

“My hunch is that this approach is being suggested in a lot of cases that de-escalation might have worked because they are not hardened criminals,” Tom said. “When you are dealing with gangs who have killed people right and left, it feels ridiculous to be more passive. But in more interactions than not, I would guess police are not dealing with hardened criminals.”

Whether they are hardened criminals or peaceful citizens, the culture may still be guilty.

“You have to first accept the first assumption that you are guilty and the culture needs to change. If you don’t accept the culture needs to change, you will resist every step along the way,” Curley said. “By accepting the second step which is ‘I will now adopt this new stance,’ you are basically admitting that you were culturally insensitive to people.”

“And a lot of people don’t want to do that,” Tom quickly said. “But if the direction of the police department and your chief is going in that direction, you are either going to have to get on board or leave either the profession or this particular police force.”