Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday announced a series of changes to police training and policies geared toward “lowering the temperature” of encounters between the police and rebuilding shattered trust between the department and the community.
In his first news conference since returning from a holiday vacation in Cuba to deal with the fallout of a double fatal police shooting on Saturday, Emanuel again pledged to reform the culture of the Chicago Police Department.
He said effective policing requires officers to communicate with residents, and that effective communication requires trust.
“We want to make sure officers are not operating just first gear or fifth gear, but to recognize the degrees in between . . . to a path where force can be the last option, not the first choice,” Emanuel told a roomful of reporters at City Hall.
Emanuel said the city would double the number of officers armed with Tasers and revamp police training to include “de-escalation” tactics to reduce violent encounters between citizens and police.
“There’s a difference between whether someone can use a gun and when they should use a gun. And we as a city must train for that difference,” Emanuel said.
The policy rollout comes at the end of a turbulent span for Emanuel’s administration that followed the release last month of dashcam video of a CPD officer firing 16 shots at 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, killing him.
The McDonald video prompted protests across the city that continued this week, as demonstrators camped outside Emanuel’s home on Tuesday.
He returned from vacation on Tuesday, after police shot two people, Quintonio LeGrier, 19, and Bettie Jones, 55, at a house in West Garfield Park early Saturday.
The fatal shootings were the first by CPD officers since the release of a video showing Officer Jason Van Dyke fatally shooting McDonald. Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder the same day the video was released.
Emanuel’s remarks were peppered with buzzwords in the world of progressive policing. Interim Police Supt. John Escalante noted that the policy changes were based on a review of systems in place in Seattle, Cleveland, Cincinnati — all cities that have been forced to revamp their departments following investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice. Emanuel and DOJ officials this month announced a similar investigation of the CPD was underway, a likely prelude to a federal court order that will mandate reforms.
RELATED: Investigators returned to police shooting site — 3 days later Mom of police shooting victim blasts DCFS: ‘I treat my child right’ Mary Mitchell: CPD needs an attitude adjustment West Side leaders demand officer be fired for weekend shootings U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan condemns police code of silence
“What I heard the mayor say ‘de-escalation,’ creating ‘time and distance,’ the importance of the ‘sanctity of human life’ . . . these are all things that are hugely important in departments across the country,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, after watching Emanuel’s remarks on YouTube.
“This is a sea change in how police departments are thinking about these issues. . . . In 2016 you’re going to see a sea change in how police see use of force, and Chicago is going to be front and center, as one of the largest departments in the country,” Wexler said.
According to a press release, by June, every patrol officer will be outfitted with a Taser and trained on how to use it. The mayor noted that none of the eight officers at the scene of McDonald’s shooting in 2014 had been armed with a Taser.
“If everyone is calling for a Taser, and no one has it, we have a problem,” Emanuel said.
Escalante noted that just 21 percent of CPD officers have been trained on how to use Tasers. Neither the superintendent nor the mayor said how the department would pay for 700 more Tasers, which cost about $1,000 each, or the additional training.
Tasers, the most popular brand of a category of devices called “electronic control weapons” in law enforcement circles, incapacitate their human targets with a jolt of 50,000 volts of electricity.
In use since the 1970s, Tasers were initially billed as “nonlethal” alternatives to firing bullets at people, but the devices have not gone without controversy. People who have health problems or who are jolted multiple times with Tasers can be injured or killed, and some departments have been had problems with officers using the devices too frequently.
The devices are a great tool for cops on the street, but are not a “cure-all,” said Julius Wachtel, a criminal justice lecturer at California State University Fullerton.
Wachtel applauded Emanuel’s plan because he thinks patrol officers want an intermediate, nonlethal weapon that is in between a gun and a baton. But without continual training — which is costly — the use of Tasers will not become second nature, he said.
Officers can mistakenly reach for Tasers, which have a pistol grip, and grab their guns in the heat of the moment. Even drawing the weapon smoothly requires extra training time, Wachtel said. Ideally, an officer would use a Taser from a safe distance, with backup on hand if the Taser fails.
“In real life, situations are fluid,” Wachtel said.
Gary Klugiewicz, a retired Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office captain who specializes in de-escalation training, says while there are many “perfect storms” out there, officers can always use more tips on how to quell a situation.
“Don’t start the negative dance,” said Klugiewicz, a training director at Vistelar, a Milwaukee-based conflict-management consulting company.
“Many times you can bring it [conflict] down,” he said.
Wexler notes that no single change can deliver the reformed police culture that Emanuel promised, and that other departments are undertaking, as high-profile police shootings have prompted intervention by DOJ.
“Retraining 11,000 cops while you’re trying to deal with guns and gangs, it’s challenging, but it can be done,” Wexler said. “It has to be done.”
