Oklahoma police have shot and killed more people per capita this year than any other state in the nation. In Oklahoma City, fatal officer-involved shootings are on the rise as well, and that’s causing some to question officer training.
In July, four Oklahoma City police officers arrived at a house in the northeast part of the city. They were looking for Andre Williams. Williams was a registered sex offender with a lengthy record, and he had allegedly just raped a woman.
When the four cops arrived on scene, Captain PacoBalderrama says they found Williams hiding under a bed with a knife nearby.
“Now at that point, the officers try to de-escalate him. ‘Look, give up. Don't grab the knife. Come out slowly.’ Gave every direction possible to try to get this guy to give up peacefully,” Balderrama says.
But he didn’t. Police reports say as Williams emerged from beneath the bed, he grabbed the knife.
“He was told time after time after time to drop it,” Balderrama says. “Before he fully came out from under the bed, he was even tased.”
The taser didn’t work. Records show Williams continued to defy officers. He reportedly lunged at the lead cop with the knife.
“At that point, that's when the officers discharged their weapons at the suspect.”
Williams died at the scene, bringing the department’s fatal officer-involved shooting total to seven for the year.
Balderrama says his officers are trained to de-escalate situations like this one, but it doesn’t guarantee a peaceful ending.
The NAACP’s Garland Pruitt worries about the number of police killings nationwide and within his community.
In 2006, Oklahoma City police didn’t fatally shoot a single suspect. Last year, they shot and killed nine.
“When you see a killing, when you know of all of these killings and they're on the rise, and there's no mechanism in place to address that concern, that's a problem,” Pruitt says.
A new Police Executive Research Forum paper outlines concerns about how police are being trained to use force and says it’s time to overhaul police training, supervision and culture.
Yale Law School’s Megan Quattlebaum says there’s a shift in policing taking place nationwide. She works on training programs to rebuild police and community trust.
“What you're ideally hoping for is situations that do not escalate to involve force,” Quattlebaum says.
De-escalation is a skill, she says. It’s not just theoretical.
That specific kind of training within the Oklahoma City Police Department makes up a small portion of total instruction time.
Officers spend at least 40 hours learning how to use tasers and 96 hours at a firearm academy. The department’s de-escalation program is eight hours.
“Focusing on policy surrounding use of force, making sure those are clear and appropriate, and making sure the training officers need is there and is up to par, I think those are two things that all departments can and should be doing,” Quattlebaum says.
There’s no set standard on how much de-escalation training is sufficient.
Milton Combs lives in Oklahoma City and works with a group aiming to increase cooperation between cops and the community.
“We have to continually engage these people so that they understand where the citizens are coming from and force them to come to the table in collaboration,” Combs says.
He’s skeptical. Combs says unless there’s a real overhaul in police and community relations, things may not change.
“Police officers are not going to change their behaviors. They're trained to shoot center mass, they're trained to arrest, they're trained to detain, they're trained to do all those kinds of things,” he says.
Oklahoma City Police Captain Paco Balderrama says his department trains their officers well. He says suspects -- not cops -- dictate the level of force.
“They are reverting back to their training, which is the best, the latest training that we have, and that's what they're following.”
Balderrama says police can’t be proactive in reducing officer-involved shooting numbers like they can be with burglaries or white collar crimes. He calls the shootings random. Random, unpredictable acts.
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