At the first available juncture, you try to talk the situation down. This, perhaps, is what needs to be learned from all the police violence in America.
Teach officers this, and it should make a difference.
I think of Bernardo Palacios here in Salt Lake City, and of how he turned and ran from the police. This, then, was a time the police could have been reassuring. "Sir!" they could have yelled. "Let us help you. Stop, and let us just talk."
Palacios was spooked, scared. He feared the police. We speak of de-escalation training for those with mental situations? Spooked and scared and not thinking straight, do we not realize Palacios's situation was not so different? If you don't use your deescalation training they gave you when confronted with Bernardo, all the training you have received is doing you no good.
Supposing there had been such training covering situations such as that of Palacios.
If we are not training officers to deescalate, this problem of police violence will never go away. They need to be peace officers, not just police officers.
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