Been thinking a lot about this response by @NYCMayor. Many have been talking about the failures that lead to the NYPD attack on Jazmine Headley & her 1 year old as rooted in lack of training & exercise in “deescalation.” That’s not right. Here’s what I think.
1. “Deescalation” implies that a situation had *already been escalated by Ms. Headley* to begin with. Ms. Headley took a day off from work to check on why childcare benefits had erroneously been cut off, & was denied a seat for her & her 1 y/o while she waited for four hours.
2. The police should never have been called in the first place. Instead, HRA should have offered her a fold out chair if they were concerned about her sitting on the ground. The 911 call escalated a frustrating situation into a dangerous Police-involved situation.
3. Yet once the police *were called, they should not have responded. If they asked the right questions, they would have realized there was no emergency. No crime being committed. No need for officers to get involved.
4. Once officers arrived, *their job was to investigate.* Not just automatically arrest. Not automatically intervene. Not start attacking. Theyre not authorized to arrest if no commission of any crime (Ms. Headley was committing no crime). Never allowed to use excessive force.
5. Once there, if they had done bare minimum investigation, they should have left, or gotten Ms. Headley a chair, or at most spoken to her. Instead *the NYPD created & escalated* a situation into a dangerous & violent one that didn’t already exist.
6. This isn’t just about these specific officers. It’s a larger problem in law enforcement of thinking of people as “less than.” Less than worthy of ordinary benefits of the doubt & human treatment. The same mentality allowing humans to separate parents & children in the border.
7. Training on deescalation is important, of course. But reducing unnecessary police-policed interactions is far more critical. There are far too many police officers. And relatedly, far too much reliance on police to solve issues that can & should be handled without them.
In the end, can you train people to have empathy? Does this really start at the point of HR? Thinking more critically about who police forces are actually hiring?
Does it start far earlier by putting a stop to the normalization and glorification of the militarization of law enforcement & violence? See this thread (and be sure to read at least some of the thousands of comments that prove my concern):
