Protect and Serve

Associated Press

BURIEN, Wash.

When prosecutor Dan Satterberg used to visit Washington state’s police academy, the seas would part before him. Recruits would snap to attention, backs to the walls, and allow him to pass.

Now, they greet him and start a conversation.

“It takes a lot longer to walk down the halls,” said Satterberg, the elected prosecutor in Seattle’s King County.

The friendlier attitude reflects a campaign underway here and elsewhere around the U.S. to “demilitarize” the police and produce officers who think of themselves as guardians of their communities, not members of an occupying force.

Calls for demilitarizing law enforcement began a few years ago but gained urgency after the violent protests over the shooting of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., last summer.

The philosophy was endorsed this week by President Barack Obama’s 21st Century Policing task force. As part of that change in thinking, Obama curtailed the government’s practice of supplying armored vehicles, heavy weapons and other military-style equipment to police departments.

But it isn’t just about the gear.

Though some critics say that good officers already consider themselves protectors and that police need the best equipment to defend themselves and the public, many law-enforcement leaders see a need for a broader change in police training and culture.

That includes getting cops to use their wits rather than their weapons whenever possible, as well as instilling a strong moral compass. Supporters say the approach could reduce cynicism, corruption and maybe even suicides among officers.

“We are at this moment where we have to re-engineer how we recruit, how we train and how we supervise,” said Chuck Wexler, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Police Executive Research Forum.

“De-escalation, crisis intervention, better communication skills – all of these things are what the 21st-century police officer needs to have in any situation, whether it’s talking to a citizen you may have stopped or trying to defuse a situation where a mentally ill person has picked up a rock or a weapon.”

For the past few years, the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission, which trains the state’s local police and deputy sheriffs, has emphasized such skills.

The state academy relies heavily on a curriculum called “Blue Courage,” developed by a former Aurora, Ill., police commander with support from the U.S. Justice Department. It was first used in 2013 at Arizona’s largest police academy, after local chiefs listened to a presentation.

“It struck a chord,” said Lyle Mann, executive director of the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board. “There was this feeling that the militarization, the focus on officer safety, this whole confrontational kind of thing was morphing in a way that didn’t feel good to those progressive chiefs.”

The Justice Department has spent $1.5 million so far on Blue Courage, and it has been introduced at the New York City and Baltimore County police departments, as well as academies in Nebraska and Arizona.