Police training gives glimpse of officers’ reality
Posted on July 25, 2007 in Crime & Law Enforcement by DM
Reading about Tim’s experience observing the Des Moines SWAT team reminded me of my own “police observance project.”
Back in the early 1990’s, I worked for the City of Des Moines Public Information Office and the Police Department came to me with a challenging project: they wanted to collaborate with the deaf and hard-of-hearing community to create a training video for police officers. Each segment of the video showed how officers could achieve their objectives when deaf or hard-of-hearing suspects were involved. On the flip side, it would show deaf and hard of hearing individuals how the various types of calls are handled and why certain procedures are followed. The goal was to create a level of understanding between the two groups.
Each of the segments included a dramatization of a particular type of call (traffic stops, domestic disturbances, interviewing crime witnesses, etc.), then commentary from an on-camera officer who would walk the viewer through the scene and offer tips for handling the situation.
One scene I remember well was the day we staged a foot chase with a deaf armed-robbery suspect. The point of the scene was that the officer would be shouting, “Stop! Drop the gun!” as he ran, but the suspect couldn’t hear the command - thereby putting himself at risk from the armed officer, who didn’t know the suspect was deaf.
We set the scene up in a neighborhood down by the state fairgrounds here in Des Moines, where there was a high chain link fence at which the suspect would realize he was “cornered.” I had scripted the scene so that the suspect would run up to that fence, ignoring the officer’s commands, then upon hitting the fence would turn and face the officer, who would have assumed a shooter’s stance with his weapon aimed squarely at the suspect. A little slow-motion action and some cuts back and forth between close-up shots of faces and weapons, and we had a nice little drama where the viewer was left wondering: would the officer shoot?
Our amateur actors did great - we used real officers and real members of the deaf/hard of hearing communtiy. The scene came out better than I ever expected. We even got neighbors into the act as several of them came out onto their porches (because of the shouting) while we went through several takes. While there was nothing really tense about shooting and editing the video, the final product revealed just how dangerous it can be when officers are unaware of the communication barriers, or when a suspect literally doesn’t understand that an officer is acting first out concern for his or her own safety.
We certainly achieved our goal of creating understanding.
I’m sure Tim got a much bigger dose of “police reality,” but I understand and share his fascination with the process.
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You got that right… it was a wild experience. The one part I didn’t put in my blog was that I was allowed to be a role player for one scenario and held another role player hostage. What a rush!
Tim, how do you GET these gigs?? LOL One of the details I remember from the traffic stop portion of our video shoot was that a deaf driver needs to be able to see the officer’s face (to assist with lip-reading), but the officer needs to stand kind of “behind” the stopped driver’s shoulder to make it more difficult for them to shoot at the officer if they are so inclined. It really was one of those moments where, I think, everyone said “A-ha, this is what we’re talking about - the need for mutual understanding.” Your whole experience sounds really neat - thanks for sharing it and for stopping by here! ~ J.