Kewaunee County Sheriff Matt Joski says his department has ramped up the dialogue it has with the community about how it responds to incidents. How law enforcement either escalates or de-escalates a situation has come into focus over the last year due to media coverage and local response to national incidents. With limited information at their fingertips, Joski believes law enforcement has to respond in a way that protects the community and themselves.
He added every training they do circles back to the concept of de-escalation.
Joski enjoys the dialogue he has with community members about their policing techniques so they can better inform the public of what is and what may not be happening when they approach the scene of an incident.
FROM SHERIFF MATT JOSKI
This week’s article is in response to a very pleasant conversation I recently had with a young lady regarding her son’s experience with law enforcement. The story is as follows: Her son was attending to a service call of a rental unit, where he had entered the basement to conduct his work. One of the tenants, who were unaware of this work, called into law enforcement stating that there was a burglary in progress. As the young man was exiting the basement, he was met by Law Enforcement officers with their weapons drawn shouting commands to him. The young man complied with the orders of the Law Enforcement Officers, and the situation was resolved after determining that the young man did indeed have legitimate business purposes.
As you can imagine, this ordeal had an impact on this young man and he shared the story with his Mother, who felt that the Law Enforcement approach was excessively aggressive. I explained to her that Law Enforcement’s response is based primarily on the initial information we receive from the caller. While it is easy in hind sight to say that the heightened level of response was inappropriate, you have to look at what information was available at the time. While this incident took place outside of our community, the dynamics of such a call can and have happened even here in Kewaunee County. It is these types of situations which require our Officers to be well trained and proficient in both escalation and de-escalation techniques.
We recognize that each and every contact an Officer makes brings with it a level of risk. We must balance the mitigation of that risk with the need to maintain an open and non-threatening posture to our community. A good example is that you should never see an Officer approach a traffic stop with his hands in his pockets oblivious to the potential dangers he or she is walking into. On the other extreme, we do not want to see an officer approaching every traffic stop with a weapon drawn, shouting verbal commands. We must always strive to find the balance between keeping our officers safe while not alienating the very community we serve.
In every call we respond to and every traffic stop we make, we must be constantly adjusting our tactical posture in response to the behavior of those around us. To not escalate in a threatening environment is to put the officer and our community at risk, while escalating to quickly can turn a bad situation worse, resulting in a cascading of reactions leading to tragedy.
It is important to note that this process of escalation and de-escalation is incorporated into each and every one of our training scenarios. We are very aware that our mere presence at a scene brings with it a perceived level of force, and that our ability to appropriately escalate or de-escalate that level of force can be the difference between not only life or death, but also success or failure as public servants. I want to thank this member of our community for sharing her story with me, as it is in the sharing of experiences and perspectives that we are able to bridge the gaps and build stronger relationships.
