NYPD officers to undergo retraining in use of force following Garner death

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

NYPD officers to undergo retraining in use of force following Garner death

Amanda Holpuch in New York
theguardian.com, Thursday 4 December 2014 22.16 GMT

New York City mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled plans on Thursday to retrain city police officers to emphasise tactics such as de-escalation and improving communication between officers and citizens.

The announcement comes a day after a grand jury decided to not indict police officer Daniel Pantaleo, who put 43-year-old Eric Garner in a chokehold, which resulted in his death. The decision prompted a wave of peaceful protests across the city.

“These changes are happening because the people demanded it,” de Blasio said in a press conference at the NYPD Police Academy.

Critics of the NYPD’s tactics cited Garner’s death as yet another example of how police treat people in minority communities differently. “Everyone needs to know they will be treated the same regardless of who they are, and that’s what we aspire to,” de Blasio said.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/04/new-york-city-police-eric-garner

[Historic NY]

1. Retraining......

Dept. policy on choke holds. They need to pull the general order Officer Pantaleo signed for acknowledging that policy.


<Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly characterized the ban not as a new policy but as clarification of a 1985 order. That order said that "choke holds, which are potentially lethal and unnecessary, will not be routinely used." An exception was when an officer's life was in danger and the choke hold was the "least dangerous alternative method of restraint." The new policy allows no exceptions.>

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/24/nyregion/kelly-bans-choke-holds-by-officers.html

[Iggo]

2. They should undergo prison sentences.