I-Team: State Audit Shows Some Police Departments Don't Meet Mandatory Training Requirements
CHELSEA (CBS) -- The state has known for months that some police officers in Massachusetts have not been properly trained, an I-Team investigation has learned.
Last November, a state audit found some cities and towns were not meeting the current mandatory training requirements. It called for more accountability and the state certification of officers.
"There are situations where an officer arrives and they realize that there is somebody in some sort of crisis," said Chelsea Captain Thomas Dunn.
Dunn told the I-Team a crisis does not need to lead to a violent outcome, the difference is in police training. He teaches de-escalation techniques.
"What we teach officers is to use time and space to their advantage. Don't put yourself in a bad situation at the outset," said Dunn.
Police training videos show how effective those principles can be. One Dunn showed has a police officer trying to get a woman who has a knife to drop it -- the officer calmly asks her. "All I'm asking is that you get rid of the knife then we'll get you help get your medication and get you feeling right, no big deal," you hear the officer said.
State Representative Paul Tucker is a former police chief. He agrees with the need for more and better police training but said that's not enough to fix the mistrust between police and the public.
"We also need to take a hard, hard look at selection, hiring, training, psychological testing all of those go into pieces of the puzzle," said Tucker.
He has proposed legislation that would require officers to have an associate's degrees or 60 college credits, along with mandatory annual diversity training.
"All the studies show across the board that an educated police officer during his encounters, or during her encounters, with the public have better outcomes, less lawsuits, less use of force complaints, better communication. All of these things, I can trace back to a good education," Tucker said.
Last week, the Massachusetts Black and Latino Caucasus released a ten-point plan to address racial injustice, including proposed legislation to certify police and a provision to decertify officers for misconduct.
According to Dunn, teaching officers to escalate deadly force situations not only reduces misconduct but can help build trust.
"We don't have a lot of excessive force complaints in Chelsea. This certainly taught principles to our officers where they are constantly reminded to create distance and have a conversation with folks. We've been very successful using this," said Dunn.
The state audit also showed, despite the two-dollar surcharge on rental cars for police training, cities and towns do not have enough funding to meet the mandatory requirements.
