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Ashland police chief addresses '8 Can't Wait' recommendations By Nick Morgan for the Tidings Jul 09, 2020 05:08 PM A A A national movement is calling for eight tangible policies to help lessen police violence, but Ashland’s police chief says not all of them are “quite that simple” to implement. In the wake of George Floyd’s May 25 killing by police, a movement known as “8 Can’t Wait” sets tangible policies touching on topics ranging from chokeholds to mandating verbal warnings before police use force. The national police campaign organization Campaign Zero, which originated the #8cantwait movement, argues that policies that target police chokeholds and strangleholds, deescalate situations, require warnings before shooting, exhaust alternatives before shooting, require officers to intervene in excessive force situations, ban shots at moving vehicles, require comprehensive reporting and require police to use what’s known as a “use of force continuum” can save lives. Ashland police Chief Tighe O’Meara told the mayor and City Council at a Monday special session addressing the police department’s force policies, “Some of them are right on target.” More than half of the recommendations already are specified in the Ashland Police Department handbook — some added with a few modifications to the policy last month, and others longstanding. One policy, requiring Ashland officers to deescalate situations “whenever feasible,” was implemented June 4, O’Meara told the council. The police department does not use nor train in the use of chokeholds, also known as the carotid control hold, and chokeholds are allowed only in life-or-death and self-defense situations. Medford police has a similar policy on its books. Also among 8 Can’t Wait recommendations already in place in Ashland are policies covering officers’ duty to intercede when an officer witnesses another officer using excessive force, requirements for reporting and documenting excessive force, a policy that severely restricts gunshots at moving vehicles, and requirements to issue verbal warnings whenever feasible before an officer uses force up to and including lethal force. The most difficult recommendation to implement, O’Meara told the council, is the recommendation that police develop what’s known as a “force continuum,” which limits the type of force and or weapons that an officer can use depending on the situation. In practice, O’Meara told the council, a use-of-force continuum involves “too much if-then going on.” The Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training in Salem, the academy that trains Oregon law enforcement officers, stepped away from the force continuum method “several years ago,” according to O’Meara. Officers are now taught to use “a framework,” O’Meara said, which instructs them to respond to threats while also using deescalation techniques, with the goal of using the minimum amount of force to make an arrest. “To require an officer to use an ‘if-then’ approach to use-of-force incidents can be very dangerous to the officer and the public,” O’Meara wrote in documentation to the council ahead of the session. “It is better to give the officer various tools and to ensure the officer responds in an appropriate way given the totality of circumstances, while keeping in mind that deescalation and using the minimum force necessary are critical to every use-of-force encounter.” O’Meara highlighted a part of the Ashland force policy that states, “officers shall use only that amount of force that reasonably appears necessary, given the facts and circumstances perceived by the officer at the time of the event, to effectively bring an incident under control.” O’Meara told the council that requiring officers to exhaust all other reasonable means before resorting to lethal force may put another person or the officer at risk. “If a suspect is presenting an immediate threat to another person, it would put that person and the officer, and the public, at continued risk to have an officer attempt to apply lower level force,” O’Meara wrote. Reach reporter Nick Morgan at 541-776-4471 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @MTCrimeBeat. Ashland police.jpg