Post Update

Affirmative Duty Of Police To Protect Must Be Included

The Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission (POSTC) will soon be deliberating over one of its most significant policy mandates; establishing regulations regarding the use of force for Massachusetts police officers.   In the prelude to the deliberations, POSTC offered a draft copy at their February meeting and called for public comments.  MAPLE has filed a series of recommendations regarding this draft. (see attachments)             

The draft places a heavy and repetitive emphasis on de-escalation.  MAPLE supports this emphasis, but believes, that it tends to overshadow a police officer’s primary responsibility, which is to protect life.  We urged that this duty be unequivocally stated in the standard, particularly in the case of “active shooters”.  Additionally, the POSTC draft interjected a qualification requiring officers to seek barrier protection as part of the escalation requirement.  We urged that this be deleted as it sets a specific condition that in a use of force review could distract factfinders.  The “barrier phrase” could also cause an officer to hesitate in responding to a life or death situation.  We maintain that de-escalation is a valid policy, but it should be evaluated free of any specific conditions, with only the “totality of circumstances” serving as the overall criterion.             

MAPLE is also urging, that the prohibition against “chokeholds” be removed under certain conditions.  The chokehold should be evaluated as a lethal force option.  Officers should be able to apply a choke hold, if they are engaged in a struggle in which they fear for their life.            

The POST Standard goes very heavy on de-escalation with regard to crowd control. MAPLE does not oppose this emphasis but recommends, that a provision reiterating police responsibilities with regard to unlawful assemblies (MGL C269S1) be inserted.  Some limit must specify what type of activities officers should not tolerate. This is lacking in the draft.             

The POSTC draft referenced “kettling” with regard to crowd control and seeks to prohibit it.   This term appears to refer to the deliberate trapping of demonstrators by police during a crowd dispersal operations.   MAPLE endorses, the long-standing practice of requiring avenues of egress, when a crowd is dispersed.  We urged clarification on the “kettling” terminology.  However, we also emphasized that nothing should prohibit a police insertion team from entering a tumultuous crowd to extricate violent individuals.  The draft also seeks to impose a “duty to intervene” on officers assigned to crowd control duties.  We outlined the danger this could present to police unit cohesion during a crowd control situation. We offered that it is line supervisors, who have the primary responsibility to ensure officers utilize restraint, not individual officers.  We asked for a modification of this requirement limiting intervention to only those cases, where an officer observes actions that grossly depart from approved training standards.                

Requirements regarding the management of firearms by police agencies were also in the draft.  MAPLE recommended several additional standards that were not included.   We recommended provisions that would require officers to carry only those weapons on duty, that are authorized by the Chief of their agency. Officers must, at all times, ensure safety and security of the weapons.  Any loss of a weapon would require an investigation; any discharge or use of a firearm under conditions where an officer’s sobriety may be an issue, on or off duty, must also be investigated.  A determination must be made as to the officer’s fitness for duty. The findings must be reported to POSTC.                

MAPLE’s recommendations were the result of collective effort from the Board of Directors, the Police Leadership Committee and the membership at large.  All members were provided with the draft standard and were asked comment.  Some members chose to comment directly to the POSTC.

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