Use of force: How do Iowa police decide?

CEDAR RAPIDS — When is force used by law enforcement too much? And who gets to decide if it is?

At a time when public scrutiny of police use of force is at a high level, the Cedar Rapids Police Department has remained remarkably consistent in its force usage.

Between 2011 and 2013, use of force — which ranges from hands-on counter measures to the use of firearms and can include Tasers, chemical spray or batons — only ranged in the neighborhood of 322 to 330 incidents. Though Dec. 16, 2014, Cedar Rapids police officers had used force 266 times.

Taking arrest totals into consideration, police used force in 3.74 percent of all arrests in 2012 and 3.43 percent of calls through mid-December 2014. The two other years fell within that range.

But how the Cedar Rapids Police Department compares to the rest of the nation is difficult, if not impossible, to discern. Unlike uniform crime statistics, which are reported to the FBI annually, police departments are not required to submit most use-of-force numbers.

Even within the state, it is difficult to compare use of force as each department sets its own polices on tracking force. For example, the Iowa City Police Department includes incidents when an officer uses a weapon to destroy a sick or dying animal in its use of force numbers, something other departments do not do.

'Different things work differently in different communities,' Iowa City Police Capt. Doug Hart said. 'Regarding our particular use-of-force model, I think it works very well for what I've seen and used here, both in application and review.'

And while use-of-force policies generally are built around the same definitions of reasonable and deadly force and rely on the same law to shape those policies, departments in Eastern Iowa also have different review procedures for when force is applied. A review of those policies shows that while those strategies have more in common than not, each department varies in who reviews use of force and who, if anyone, reviews use-of-force statistics.

An exception is officer-involved shootings, which almost always involve a review done by an outside agency — often the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.

Local control

Use-of-force polices are based on the Iowa Code definition of reasonable force, which is determined as 'force and no more which a reasonable person, in like circumstances, would judge to be necessary to prevent an injury or loss and can include deadly force if it is reasonable to believe that such force is necessary to avoid injury or risk to one's life or safety or the life or safety of another, or it is reasonable to believe that such force is necessary to resist a like force or threat.'

Police departments also rely on court cases to shape policies. For instance, a 1989 Supreme Court case, Graham v. Connor, deals with the use of excessive force.

Essentially, police respond to the level of resistance they receive. Minimal resistance is met with minimal force, and potentially deadly resistance is met with deadly force.

'People choose to cooperate or not, that's the main thing as far as determining what level of force to use,' Cedar Rapids Police Department Capt. Bernie Walther said. 'It's the subject's choice. We react or respond to their compliance or non-compliance ...

'It has to be reasonable force, but reasonable from an officer's point of view with the information the officer has at the time of the incident.'

Beyond those definitions and case laws, however, police departments are left to craft guidelines that suit the individual agency. Walther said that autonomy is important and necessary.

'There has to be some kind of local control or local expectation — that helps dictate what level of local control is reasonable,' Walther said.

That means basing policies on the type of community the police department is serving and the level of resistance the public offers. Some departments, Walther said, are more traffic-enforcement focused, while other cities contend more with alcohol-related problems.

When a Cedar Rapids officer uses force, it is reviewed at the scene by a supervisor, if one is available, Walther said. From there, a use-of-force policy is filled out and submitted to a watch commander. After that, the report goes to the patrol division captain and, finally, internal affairs.

At each step of the way, police personnel want to make certain the force was appropriately applied.

'We're looking for training issues,' Walther said. 'We'll look at, does the subject get hurt? Does the officer get hurt? Were techniques used appropriately or were they mistaken?'

Walther said the review process not only identifies potential issues from a single incident, but also looks for trends. Is one officer using a Taser more often than others? Is force being applied more often in certain calls? Are officers getting hurt? Is race a factor?

Walther said the department conducts in-service training each quarter, which offers opportunities to address any negative trends identified in the department's use of force.

Outside review

The review process is done entirely within the department with no outside oversight, The Gazette found. At least, not until the review has been completed.

At the Iowa City Police Department, officers who use force submit a report to their supervisor, who then writes a review summary and determines whether the force was consistent with department procedures. The summary is then reviewed by the captain of field operations and police chief.

Once a month, a use-of-force committee consisting of the administrative captain, sergeant of planning and research and one other officer review force summaries from the past month.

'The purpose for that last review there is to look for departmental trends or issues that seem to be arising, kind of looking at it through a different lens,' Hart said.

A synopsis of that review is submitted to both the Iowa City manager's office, as well as the Police Citizens Review Board, which was established after an officer-involved shooting.

While individuals outside law enforcement are privy to the use-of-force numbers after the department has reviewed them, Hart questioned the value of having a community member be involved earlier in the process to offer a non-police perspective.

'The one concern I would have with just any arbitrary community member is ensuring they had an appropriate and thorough understanding of current law — both state and federal — and case law,' he said. 'That's not to say it couldn't be done.'

And, Hart added, the review process isn't based simply on the officer's recollection or opinion of whether use of force was appropriate. Hart said police also review additional reports, interview other officers and review video evidence, which he said has become increasingly effective at documenting the calls for service.

Iowa City is not the only department that submits its use-of-force numbers to an outside committee. When he joined the Waterloo Police Department as its chief in May 2010, Daniel Trelka was tasked with tackling the city's disproportionate rates of minorities being involved with law enforcement, either as suspects or victims.

One step was meeting with the city's human rights commission and sharing use-of-force information. Trelka described those meetings as providing information to the community, rather than oversight for the department.

'They can ask questions,' he said. 'Police departments, we're so reluctant to fully share information ...

and we shouldn't be.'

He added, 'We need to have a dialogue with the community. I know we've made tremendous progress here in Waterloo, but we've got a long way to go.'

Case for consistency

While officials at the Cedar Rapids, Iowa City and Waterloo police departments all spoke in favor of letting departments set their own use-of-force policy, one in Dubuque said there are benefits to a uniform policy for all law enforcement agencies.

'I think it's a nationwide issue,' Dubuque Police Lt. Scott Baxter said of the inconsistencies in force policies.

A uniform review and reporting policies would create more consistency and transparency in law enforcement, something that would be beneficial in the current law enforcement climate, he said.

'I think we're doing ourselves and the profession a disservice by not doing that,' he said. 'I think there's something to be learned from each use-of-force occurrence.'

Walther compares the use-of-force debate to the current school-start dates, saying there is an argument to be made for local control.

'You have to remember we're a local police department,' he said. 'If (citizens) want to have laws changed in their community or want laws enforced in a certain way, that needs to be communicated to the city council.'