De-escalation With George Floyd
What Might Have That Looked Like?
Welcome to From Insults To Respect.
As I write this post, we are into the third week of the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin. The trial involves Mr Chauvin’s use of force with George Floyd, which began when a store employer from Cup Foods was paid by Floyd with a counterfeit $20 bill to purchase some cigarettes. When a store employer demanded that Floyd return the cigarettes, he refused, and consequently the employer called the police.
At 8:08, police officers Kueng and Lane arrived, briefly entered Cup Foods, and then crossed the street to Floyd’s SUV. At 8:12, a mere four minutes after arriving, the two officers had handcuffed Floyd, and Kueng had assisted Floyd to sit on the sidewalk against the wall in front of a restaurant.
At 8:13, Kueng and Lane told Floyd he was under arrest and walked him to their police car across the street. When the officers tried to get Floyd to enter the back of the police car, Floyd fell to his knees, clearly not wanting to enter the vehicle, and he explained, he was not resisting, but that he was recovering from COVID-19, that he was claustrophobic, had anxiety, and that he did not want to sit in the car. Despite this, Kueng and Lane continued to try to put him in the car, while Floyd begged them not to, repeatedly saying “I can’t breathe” and offering to lie on the ground instead.
At 8:17, officers Chauvin and Thao arrived in another police car, joining Kueng and Lane and two other officers who arrived in another police car, with Chauvin assuming command. By 8:19, two minutes after arriving, Chauvin pulls Floyd away from the police car, Floyd falls to the pavement, and while Floyd lay on his chest with his cheek to the ground, still handcuffed, Chauvin begins to press his knee against Floyd’s neck. Meanwhile, Kueng applies pressure to Floyd’s torso, and Lane applies pressure to Floyd’s legs.
By now, anyone reading this post well knows that after more than nine minutes with Mr Chauvin holding his knee against Mr Floyd’s neck, Mr Floyd ends up dead.
A Call For More De-Escalation Training
Shortly after this awful incident, the media became awash with calls for police to learn de-escalation strategies. According to a Scientific American article, “de-escalation aims to decrease the use of force against civilians by teaching officers techniques to slow things down and use time, space and communication to find an alternative.” Moreover, the article reports that:
In 2016 Campaign Zero—a law-enforcement reform initiative developed by Black Lives Matter activists—helped conduct an analysis of 91 police departments in the largest U.S. cities. The study found that de-escalation mandates were associated with lower rates of police killings and fewer officers being killed or assaulted in the line of duty—even after accounting for a number of departmental and social factors.
I found myself pleased to see so many were thinking about de-escalation after this awful incident. Nevertheless, I became frustrated because none of the articles bothered to describe in a detailed manner what a de-escalation approach would look like starting at the point Chauvin arrived to arrest Floyd. So, I thought it would be worthwhile for me to offer one approach for your consideration.
A Proposed De-escalation Approach For Dealing With The Type Of Situation Chauvin Faced
In the situation we are discussing when Chauvin arrived and assumed command, Floyd had no weapon and his hands were handcuffed behind his back. Let’s imagine it was me who assumed command in this type of situation.
Me to officers on the scene: What’s going on?
Officer Lane: We are trying to arrest Mr Floyd for allegedly trying to pass a fake $20 bill to buy cigarettes. Mr Floyd is reluctant to be placed in the patrol car.
Me: Did he explain why?
Officer Lane: He said he is recovering from COVID-19, that he’s claustrophobic, has anxiety, and when we tried to get him in the car he began to cry out that he is having trouble breathing. He says he is willing to lie down on the ground instead.
Me: Okay, let’s stop trying to push him into the car, and give me some time to discuss this with Mr Floyd. [I go over to Mr Floyd, and say] Hi Mr Floyd, I’m Officer Jeff Rubin, how are you?
Mr Floyd: I can’t get into the car, I’m claustrophobic, and when they try to put me in there, I start to have trouble breathing.
Me: I see. I understand being claustrophobic can bring on an anxiety attack, and that can make breathing hard. I’m here to see if I can help. Let’s slow things down. I’m not going to rush you to do anything. Take some time to catch your breath. Is there anything I can get for you, a drink, or something else?
Mr Floyd: No, I just need to settle down for a few minutes.
Me: That’s fine. Take your time. Please keep in mind this whole incident involves a fake $20 bill and a few cigarettes. The last thing that you want to do is to end up with a resisting arrest charge, or even worse, an assaulting an officer charge, both much more serious charges. If we bring you in without any more trouble, I’ll write in my report that you had some anxiety about getting into the police car but after a little breather, you were fully cooperative. That would be enormously helpful for you. So, take all the time you need to settle down, and let me know if I can be of any help in any way. [Then I would wait, planning to not say anything for up to fifteen minutes, unless Floyd begins to show some indication he wanted to express his anxiety about what he is experiencing.
If so, I would empathize with his feelings. To illustrate this, let’s see what that might look like in our next exchange].
Mr Floyd: Oh, man, when my brother Philo finds out about this, man, he’s gonna kill me. Oh, man!
Me, showing concern: You’re worried how your brother is going to take this.
Mr Floyd: Man, he’s gonna go nuts!
Me: It’s not a pleasant feeling when someone in your family gets upset with you, is it?
Mr Floyd: Man! (Then, after a brief pause) He’ll stick by me though, he always does.
Me: Nice.
Me, after 15 minutes has passed: How are you doing now, Mr Floyd?
Mr Floyd: I still need a few more minutes.
Me: OK, take a little more time. Keep in mind that we can move you into the car real slow, and I’ll go with you for the ride if you want. We can talk the whole way, and the whole ride will be over in 5 minutes. You want to give that a try?
Mr Floyd: Oh my God, my kids! What am I gonna do about them?
Me: It sounds to me like you really care about your kids (said in a warm and concerned tone).
Mr Floyd: I got five of them, and two grandkids. When I lost my job because of Covid, man, I haven’t been much help.
Me: This Covid virus has really turned a lot of lives upside down (said sadly).
Five minutes later, me: Are you starting to get ready?
Mr Floyd: Not yet, I still need some time to deal with this. Maybe I could use a drink of water.
Me: Officer Lane, please go in the store and buy a bottle of water for Mr Floyd. I’ll reimburse you out of petty cash.
Discussion
Dr Jeffrey Rubin
By now, you have gotten a sense of how I would have handled the situation. Every 15 minutes I would ask Mr Floyd how he is doing, empathize, and then ask him calmly if he was ready to give it a try to go to the station. From time to time I would tell him that if he starts to try and becomes too anxious, he could sit back down on the pavement until he is ready to try again.
Now, this approach may seem like it would take way too long for busy police officers to carry out, but bear in mind that the way Chauvin handled the situation, hundreds of hours and millions of dollars have been consumed. Also bear in mind that most people who are being arrested quickly cooperate with police officers to avoid being charged with resisting arrest. From my experience, typically the approach I’m advocating comes to an end within 15 to 30 minutes because people get tired of just sitting on the pavement with pedestrians passing by with puzzled looks on their faces.
So, there you have it, one specific description of what a de-escalation approach might look like. I present it as a jumping off point for further discussions on this deeply troubling episode. To my readers, please, if you will, chime in with suggestions about what you don’t like about this approach, and what might be an improvement.
My Best,
Jeff
Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
Excellent! They should have you training the officers!
Thanks, Linda. What I would like to see included in training is to have a collection of body camera footage showing a number of incidents that resulted in police officers losing their jobs because of their use of force, and then videos created for each of them which illustrates what de-escalation would have looked like and an explanation of how, if the de-escalation would have been employed, it very well might have saved the police officer’s job. I think that would lead to many of the police officers taking more seriously the value of de-escalation techniques.
An additional thought to consider is, someone recently told me he understands from a sociologist colleague who has studied police-civilian relations for many years that a major factor that differentiates departments is their use-of-force policies. He reports that departments divide into two groups 1) Those that use the legal standard of “was the force legal?” and 2) Those that require an officer to answer “was the force necessary?” His data shows major differences in number of civilian complaints and shootings between the two types of departments.
Apparently when failure to de-escalate hurts one’s career consistently, then police will pay attention to and learn de-escalation. Likely not before.
Jeff
Might have saved His Soul let alone his job.
Hi Owen,
I can only hope that the narrative of what he did and the consequence it led to for him will save the souls of other law enforcement agents as well as their jobs.
As someone who conducted raids in a SOF military unit for years – probably hundreds of missions in total – I can certainly relate to the mindset involved during the various apprehensions most LEOs conduct in the civilian world. Even across the globe in veritable hellscapes (not unlike many inner-cities of America), we encountered the same type of resistance from the perps and then some.
Oftentimes, a detainee would forcibly vomit or soil himself once in custody to make the handling more difficult. They’d start coughing or feigning sickness; In a foreign tongue, they’d say “I can’t breathe;” Suddenly they’d become lame, unable to stand or walk. Why? Because they’re guilty and know the jig is up, so they do the same thing most of these perps do regardless of where they’re from: delay the inevitable helicopter ride back to base, in-processing, and imprisonment.
To put things in perspective, keep in mind that these perps could’ve been shooting at the assault force moments prior to being detained; or, they’re simply career criminals like literally every single high-profile case during the BLM riots of 2020 (which arguably had more to do with the lack of accountability among a certain culture more than anything else, but I digress). So, you can understand why the assault force – or LEOs in the civilian world – might not have high amounts of “empathy” and “patience” once the active threats have been neutralized.
In short, no one who has to deal with these people acting this way on a daily basis has the time, patience, or utter lack of survival instinct to buy what these criminals are selling. De-escalation only works on perps who are smart enough, self-aware enough, or at least mentally capable enough to experience remorse and acknowledge they messed up. So, unless you’ve BTDT, you can stop hypothesizing from your ivory tower.
Hi ReaIist,
Your point of view is always welcome here.
Here’s my reaction to what you wrote. You close your comment by saying, unless you have been there, done that, you (meaning me) can stop hypothesizing from your ivory tower. I hasten to note that a jury of the peers (not ivory tower folks) of the local enforcement officer (LEO) in charge viewed how he acted in the situation under discussion as a felony and sent him to prison. You indicate, as I read your comment, that you have empathy for LEOs when they deal with these types of situations, as I do. I’m wondering if that empathy includes providing advice to LEOs on dealing with these types of situations so they don’t end up having community members voting to lock up these LEOs because their actions are viewed as wrong in these types of situations.
My Best,
Jeff