Page 6 - ARUBA TODAY

A6 U.S. NEWS
Tuesday 10 december 2019
Accidental shootings by police expose training shortfalls

By MARTHA BELLISLE and surveyed agencies with her husband and try- and reached a $2 million tracts, causing the other
Associated Press across the country through ing to grab their 3-year-old settlement. hand or arm to jerk or con-
SEATTLE (AP) — When an public records requests. The son from him outside their Hill's lawyer did not respond tract.
Iowa mother tried to take review was not compre- Burlington home when Offi- to a request for comment Experts agree the way to
her child from her husband reduce them is to rethink
during an argument on a training, starting with the
snowy sidewalk in 2015, an amount required.
officer stepped in to stop While all academies re-
the scuffle. But he acciden- quire cadets to undergo
tally fired his weapon as a a certain number of hours
dog approached, killing of firearms instruction, the
the woman as her family AP found how many varies
watched in horror. widely.
When a Minnesota ser- Georgia, Illinois and Indi-
geant stopped a motor- ana, for example, call for
cyclist after a 2015 high- 40 hours of specific firearms
speed chase, he stepped training. Washington state
out of his patrol car with requires 90, but once of-
his firearm drawn, flush with ficers go to work for a de-
adrenaline, and acciden- partment, the amount of
tally shot the man in the additional training they
arm. receive is uncertain, said
And an Arkansas police of- Sean Hendrickson, an in-
ficer fatally shot a suspect structor at the Washing-
in 2012 as she tried to get ton State Criminal Justice
him into handcuffs. Training Commission, which
Accidental shootings by trains the state's police and
law enforcement have In this July 16, 2019, photo, a King County Sheriff's deputy holds a training weapon as he practices sheriff's deputies.
happened in recent years a traffic stop during a class at Washington state's Basic Law Enforcement Academy in Burien, Another issue is the type of
at agencies small and Wash. training used. Most acad-
large and at all levels — Associated Press emies employ "block and
city, county, state and silo" methods, which bom-
federal — across the U.S., bard officers with informa-
an Associated Press inves- hensive due to the sheer cer Jesse Hill approached. from the AP. Gabe Steele, tion and make it difficult to
tigation has found. They've number of U.S. law en- The husband, Gabe Steele, 40, thinks Hill should have retain, experts say.
caused hundreds of injuries forcement agencies and had called 911. been held accountable. What's lacking are stan-
to officers, their partners, a lack of reporting require- But the couple's dog dart- "He just got to go on va- dards for firearms training at
suspects and bystanders, ments for such shootings. ed toward Hill, and he lost cation and get paid for it, the academy and through-
and sometimes they've But it provides a snapshot his balance and fired two for taking my son's mother out an officer's career.
caused deaths. of the problem, document- shots as he fell backward in away," Steele told the AP. Some private firearms train-
Experts say it's because of- ing 1,422 unintentional dis- the snow. One bullet hit the "No one has ever apolo- ing companies have re-
ficers don't get the training charges since 2012 at 258 dog, the other hit 34-year- gized to me and my son. sponded by offering free
they need to handle their agencies. old Autumn Steele, killing That hurts." classes for law enforce-
guns proficiently, especially The tally includes any inci- her. Agencies have different ment.
in life-and-death situations. dent in which a gun went The AP found 21 cases terms for these shootings, Missouri-based My Brothers
The methods used to train off and the officer didn't where people died in acci- including "accidental," 6 sells T-shirts to help fund
officers with their firearms intend it to, whether they dental shootings by police. "negligent," or "unintention- training for officers through
"create the illusion of learn- were cleaning or unloading It identified another 134 al" discharges. another group, Shield Solu-
ing" but are inadequate a weapon or surging with cases where the officer in- But Doug Tangen, fire- tions. Lighthorse Tactical,
for the demands of today's adrenaline while respond- jured himself, and 45 where arms program manager at based in Alabama, offers
policing, said Bill Lewinski, ing to a call. Some shoot- an accidental discharge Washington state's law en- similar deals.
executive director of the ings occurred because of injured another officer. An forcement training center, "The basic training an of-
Illinois-based Force Science muscle reflexes, experts officer accidentally shot in- argues they are all caused ficer receives at the po-
Institute, which provides re- said, or because the officer nocent bystanders in 34 in- by a degree of negligence lice academy is a base to
search and training to law simply tripped. stances and suspects in 19. because at some point work from," said Lighthorse
enforcement agencies. Countless law enforcement Unintentional shootings the officer violated one or owner Curt Carpenter, a
Officers are most proficient officers safely perform their typically lead to two inves- more of the four universal retired officer. "The prob-
with their guns immediate- duties every day, but some tigations: An outside agen- firearms safety rules: As- lem is that the academy is
ly after finishing a police experts say even a small cy determines if charges sume all guns are loaded, often all the training an of-
academy, experts say. number of accidental should be filed, and internal always point the muzzle in ficer gets.'"q
After that, most are tested shootings is unacceptable review examines whether a safe direction, keep your
only once or twice a year because they're prevent- policies were violated and finger off the trigger, and
in "qualifications" that mea- able. punishment such as sus- be sure of your target and
sure a minimum level of "Ninety-nine out of 100 pension is appropriate. what is beyond it.
firearms proficiency. There times, there is not some- In Autumn Steele's case, a In some cases, the offi-
are no federal guidelines thing wrong with the gun," prosecutor compared the cer was hyped up due to
for these tests so there are said Paul Markel, a former evidence against Iowa's adrenaline, which can se-
thousands of different stan- police officer and firearms homicide statutes and verely impair the senses.
dards across the county. instructor in Mississippi. "It's decided Hill could not be Other accidental shoot-
No one tracks these shoot- the person holding it." charged. Steele's family ings have been attributed
ings nationwide, so the AP In the 2015 Iowa case, Au- filed a wrongful death suit to muscle reflexes — one
collected media reports tumn Steele was arguing against the officer and city hand or arm jerks or con-