BOISE, Idaho — This article originally appeared in the Idaho Press.
From 2018 to 2021, Nampa, Meridian and Boise police shot and killed 12 people, ranging from a 29-year-old who had stabbed and killed the mother of his child to a Nampa man with a fake gun to a Boise man who pointed a speaker at police.
One of the most fundamental aspects of the justice system is that the punishment must fit the crime. And one of the areas where this gets questioned most is when the police kill somebody. After all, death is the ultimate price to pay.
Use of force is a controversial topic, and has been on the radar for a while. And though there are multiple kinds of use of force, fatal police shootings tend to draw a lot of attention, in part because of the stakes of deadly force.
There are a lot of varying opinions over whether death is an appropriate punishment for any crime. But at the same time, police have to protect themselves, and others, from being hurt.
“We’re talking about people’s bodies here,” said Cody Jorgensen, Boise State University associate professor of criminal justice. “Police are legally allowed to kill people under certain circumstances.”
What are the circumstances under which police can use force?
When police responded to the Boise Towne Square Mall shooting in October 2021, an officer fired his weapon at the mall shooter.
When shots rang out in an RV park in Meridian in 2020, officers shot and killed 58-year-old Arthur Ferrel.
But, perhaps surprisingly, neither of these is technically defined as a situation where police can use force, because there is no strict definition.
Nampa and Meridian’s ‘use of force’ policies both say that there is no policy that can reasonably predict every possible situation an officer can find. Instead, officers have to use “well-reasoned discretion.” Boise’s policy says the decision to use force depends on the “facts and circumstances of each particular case.”
Both Nampa and Meridian also said that officers can use deadly force to protect themselves and others from what an officer “reasonably believes is an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury.”
Nampa and Meridian’s policies also contain factors used to determine the reasonableness of force, such as the risk and potential consequences of escape, availability of other options, proximity of weapons and the individual’s mental state or capacity.
Boise’s criteria for determining use of force includes the nature and extent of the threat posed, the severity of the crime, officer/subject size and other physical attributes, as well as environmental considerations.
Another justification is to stop a fleeing person when the officer has probable cause to believe they have committed or intend to commit a felony that would result in serious injury or death if the person were not immediately apprehended.
More specifically, Nampa’s policy said that officers may use “reasonable force” to arrest someone who is fleeing or forcibly resisting.
However, the inclusion of the word “reasonable” is contentious.
Objective reasonableness has been a standard since the 1989 court case Graham v. Connor. In that case, an officer handcuffed a diabetic patient experiencing an insulin reaction under suspicion that he had done something wrong in a convenience store. No crime had been committed, so the patient was let go, but injured.
“What is reasonable and objective has to be viewed from what a reasonable officer would do, not just what a reasonable person would do,” Jorgensen said. “There are different interpretations of the word reasonable based on policing circles and members of the public.”
And there are aspects of policing that can prime police to excessively use force, he said.
For example, Jorgensen said there are parts of policing subculture that make police officers believe their job is more dangerous than it actually is. He said part of police subculture is being excessively suspicious. There’s also a saying that goes, “It’s better to be judged by 12 than buried by six.”
An exaggeration of danger combined with the prevalence of firearms in America can lead to situations where reasonable officers feel threatened, he said.
Nampa Police Lt. Eric Skoglund said he personally felt like he couldn’t relate to what Jorgensen said about police culture. Skoglund said officer safety is a big part of training.
“I don’t think that that training leads to an officer mentality of their job being more dangerous than it actually is,” Skoglund said.
He said that officers are aware they can be killed on the job, and that it’s “probably one of the few occupations” where the cause of death is homicide. But he said there are other job hazards, like driving on patrol, and officers are also trained on safe driving. He also said as part of training, officers are taught to be aware of possible dangers.
“You don’t know if that individual might be armed or not armed. You don’t know what that individual’s mindset is until you start to engage in conversation,” Skoglund said. “So just initially, what we teach our officers from initial contact is just be aware, and don’t draw conclusions immediately.”
Meridian Police Chief Tracy Basterrechea said the best way to avoid strained community relations is to build a “servant culture” and make sure that public interactions are viewed as fair and just.
He said he didn’t feel threatened in Idaho because of guns because most people tell him if they’re carrying. The level of violence in a community is what drives heightened awareness and feeling threatened, Basterrechea said.
“Whenever you have anyone, who doesn’t understand a subject, things can be misinterpreted and mischaracterized,” Basterrechea said. “Use of Force is always messy and never looks like it does in the movies, so people with no experience will make very ill-informed opinions.”
Policing has changed over the years, Basterrechea said, as has use-of-force training. De-escalation has also become a priority in many departments. He said Meridian police are working with a university to determine what effect de-escalation is having.
The old way of training officers to believe everyone is out to kill you is extremely outdated,” Basterrechea said. “Instead, you provide your officers with great training and equipment, so they feel confident in doing their job and knowing if they need to defend themselves they have those skills.”
Lawful but awful
Unfortunately, there are situations in the United States where people are shot and killed by police and the public sees what happened differently than the “reasonable officer.”
In some cases, the person who is killed could have what is perceived to be a weapon, but turns out to be a phone, a wallet or just something that’s black in their hand. Other times, someone has a fake gun.
“This refers to the dilemma called the Split Second syndrome, where police are put in situations where it’s a life-or-death situation,” Jorgensen said. “Obviously when it comes to a fake gun ... police are going to perceive it as a real gun and respond like it. ... It looked like a real gun. What do you expect the police to do?”
But other situations, for example, when someone is unarmed, can end up “lawful but awful,” Jorgensen said, where the police officers who respond act legally but it turns out that the person wasn’t really a deadly threat.
This sort of “lawful but awful” situation can impact community relations because there’s a difference between how police would view the instance and how the public views it.
“From the public’s perspective, it looks like it was unjustified and unwarranted,” Jorgensen said. “The public isn’t in the world of policing. And, you know, they live in different echo chambers.”
The Treasure Valley is not immune to public criticism of police shootings. Members of the Bantu community met with Boise leaders and protested after Mohamud Mkoma, a local refugee, was shot by police in June 2021. Mkoma survived the shooting. The Office of Police Accountability mostly exonerated the officers, though a report said two of them violated policy by not turning on their body cameras.
Later that same year, Zachary Snow was shot and killed by police after his mother Melissa Walton called 911 looking for help for her son during a mental health crisis. The officers were exonerated of wrongdoing after a report said Snow pulled an object from his waistband, took a shooting position and pointed the object at officers. It turned out to be a portable speaker.
Walton filed a lawsuit against the city of Boise. A jury trial is scheduled for March of next year.
The police perspective
Area law enforcement told the Idaho Press such moments are scary for the officers, difficult and can be an adrenaline dump.
“There’s all the things that go into any type of combat situation, there’s fear for your safety. There’s fear for safety for those around you, and even safety for the suspect,” Basterrechea said. Basterrechea said he’s been involved in several use-of-force situations over 27 years, but nothing that led to a critical incident.
“Officers are people just like everybody else. We have emotions and we have different reactions to trauma and stress,” Boise Police Capt. Matt Jones said. “Generally speaking, having been in use-of-force situations myself, your concern is, ‘Am I going to possibly get hurt, are my partners going to be in danger, is a member of the public in danger?’”
Area law enforcement also emphasized that in most situations, police officers are not using force. Jones said in 2022, there were 122,000 calls for service where officers interacted with the public. In the same time frame, were three officer-involved shootings.
There are other types of force besides shooting. Basterrechea said there’s soft control, such as grabbing someone by the arm and escorting them.
There’s also hard empty-handed control, such as striking or punching someone or forcing them to the ground.
“The most probably common use of force that you’re going to see is the hands-on, grabbing a hold of someone and ending up rolling around in a wrestling match with them on the ground,” Basterrechea said.
And Skoglund said that the majority of times officers use force, it’s not with firearms.
“Ideally, you go through a career and you never have to use your firearm,” said Skoglund, who added that he’s never had to fire his weapon in the line of duty. “But some circumstances that you might be in might dictate that you have to, so you have to be proficient with it if you need it.”
But police officers go through more than just firearm training. They’re also trained in use-of-force procedure, such as what situations might warrant it, as well as on de-escalation.
“Having good scenario-based training, opportunities to kind of roleplay or think through situations beforehand helps a lot in situations that you are put in that are similar to what you have trained in,” Skoglund said.
Skoglund said the training helps in split-second decisions.
“You can’t always anticipate someone’s actions,” Skoglund said. “I’ve been out on the street with people and all of a sudden they take off running from you and you didn’t see that happening.”
And though police stressed that the vast majority of situations don’t involve firearms, or even force, that doesn’t mean de-escalation is always the right move.
“Certainly if I come up on somebody, and they obviously are pointing the gun at me, I’m not going to wait to try to talk him out of shooting me, I’m going to respond to that appropriately,” Basterrechea said. “If I show up on scene and somebody immediately charges at me, I’m not going to try to talk them out of beating me up, they’ve already obviously made up their mind.”
In a school shooting for example, the public would want the officers to respond accordingly to the person who is shooting. And if they didn’t, the public could lose some trust in the police, like what happened in Uvalde, Texas, after the first responders took over an hour to enter the building.
“So you know, using verbal type things, when you find somebody, to say, ‘Hey, stop shooting.’ They’re shooting rounds while you’re saying that. So are they killing people and you’re wasting time?” Skoglund said. “That’s the judgment position officers are put into to make those decisions and we want them to do the best they can and make what they believe is the right decision.”
This article originally appeared in the Idaho Press, read more on IdahoPress.com.
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