With unrest resulting from the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, Kosciusko Police Chief Herbert Dew understands that people want to know his department’s policies on use of force.
The first thing citizens need to understand, however, is that use of force and police brutality are not the same thing, he said.
“There is a difference between police brutality and a use of force,” said the Chief. “What happened in Minneapolis, I don’t condone that. You can’t justify that. But that isn’t Kosciusko, Mississippi.”
The KPD currently employs 11 white officers, 10 black officers and one Hispanic officer.
All patrolmen wear a body camera which is to be activated for every interaction with citizens.
“It is a useful tool for us. ‘Old school’ officers are going to look at it like, ‘My word should be good enough.’ But law enforcement has moved away from that over the years,” said Dew. “We’re more of a technological world now. Are body cameras perfect? No. Sometimes they don’t catch everything.”
A further problem is that they must be turned on manually, which can be forgotten.
Body cameras became standard issue in 2015 and the chief said the use of force policy was last adjusted in 2017, when it was changed from a six-stage model that escalated from verbal efforts all the way up to the use of deadly force. Dew said the earlier model was not always viable in rapidly-escalating situations.
The current policy allows for law enforcement to meet resistance with equal force, he said.
“Whatever resistance you’re showing, we meet that with whatever force is necessary to control that,” Dew said.
An example Dew provided was if a suspect refuses to place his or her arms behind his or her back to be handcuffed, officers may take hold of the suspect’s arms and move them into position to be handcuffed.
“But once you accomplish getting the suspect restrained, the force is over,” he said.
Kosciusko officers are trained to attempt to handcuff a suspect who is standing.
“If you can’t handle them that way, you probably need to go to the ground,” he said, “but the bottom line is you get them cuffed and get them up as quickly as you can.”
While he noted that it may take several similar efforts to get a suspect into a patrol car, once there, suspects are not permitted to lay down even though they might feel cramped.
Dew said that what many refer to as choke holds are not taught at the academy and are not permitted.
“We never let somebody lay on a seat on their stomach. We make them sit up,” he said.
Dew said that the local department does not have mace or tear gas available, and does not issue batons to officers, though some carry them.
“Some of the larger departments might have something like that, but for us, if we need something like that, we’d call in the highway patrol,” said Dew.
Officers are allowed to use tasers issued by the department, as well as impact weapons — which can be a baton, a ticket book holder, a flashlight — if the situation warrants it.
“It is not frequent that we use a taser or baton,” he said, though simply showing those weapons can sometimes serve as a deterrent. “As part of our (post academy) training, we have all been tased, so we know that feels like.”
Any time an officer uses force of any kind, a report must be filed with the department and it is reviewed by Dew to ensure policy is followed.
Since 2018, he said 48 such reports have been filed, with most consisting of instances of physical contact to restrain a suspect. Only a very few involved vehicle pursuit or taser use. Of those 48, he said none of the instances of use of force violated department policy.
“In the 27 years I’ve been here, I do not know of a situation where the Kosciusko Police Department has been sued or even accused of police brutality,” said Dew.
The Chief said if he gets a complaint call from a citizen, he asks them to come in and fill out a report, but he investigates even if paperwork is not filed.
Dew said the best thing for a citizen to do, even if he feels attention from law enforcement is unwarranted, is to comply.
“Do what the officer asks you to do. Once its over, if you feel something is not right, contact me,” he said. “If one of my guys asked you to do something wrong, I will address that.”
The Chief said those complaints can help officers improve their skills.
“We try to use complaints as learning experiences,” he said. “They can be educational tools with officers where we can tell them, ‘but you could have handled it in a different way.’”
