RECOMMENDATION 20: The CIRB should play a direct role in the identification and resolution of individual policy violations or other performance issues associated with a critical incident. RECOMMENDATION 21: VPD and the City should clarify the role of legal counsel in the CIRB process, so that input on questions of law and liability does not come at the expense of rigorous analysis and necessary remedial measures.
Other Uses of Force Although deadly force events are understandably in a category of their own in terms of the scrutiny they receive, every use of physical force constitutes an exercise of police power that warrants attention and some level of accountability. This observation is, or should be, an unremarkable one. Law enforcement’s job is a challenging and often dangerous one, and the ability to use a reasonable level of force in order to overcome resistance or protect self or others against a physical threat is a necessary component of officers’ authority. By its very nature, though, force constitutes a significant imposition on those individuals who are subjected to it. The deadly force incidents we discuss above are the most obvious manifestations of this concept. They deserve the distinctive attention that they received from the public and the justice system, and our recommendations are consistent with that reality. But any use of force – no matter how minor or how fully warranted – is something that a contemporary officer is expected to report, document, and take ownership of. And when there are questions about the necessity or extent of a given force application, those matters deserve careful investigation and, where applicable, responsive consequences. What we would add to that baseline assessment is the notion that all force incidents deserve at least some level of holistic scrutiny that goes beyond legality or technical compliance with policy (as crucial as both those standards are). We have reviewed many hundreds of force incidents over the years. The overwhelming majority of them have been deemed by their agencies to be “in policy” – and we frequently concur with those findings. At the same time, though, a much larger percentage of those cases raise one or more issues that are deserving of, or would benefit from, some sort of managerial feedback. This
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