Bend police revise training to defuse risky encounters
A Bend man with a knife was caught on camera in Orchard Park last week, threatening to kill himself or officers and highlighting what police call a rising challenge — one they are addressing with more training to defuse such situations.
The tense encounter showed the man waving the knife at officers who had guns drawn while he cursed at them, asked them to shoot him and cut his wrists and neck before officers were able to use Tasers and subdue him.
Bend Police Chief Jim Porter said it’s a troubling example of what’s becoming very familiar for police.
“Our mental health calls where we respond to people in crisis went from two a day to almost five a day,” Porter said last Thursday.
According to data provided by the department, officers responded to 1,584 mental health calls last year — a 51 percent increase from 2010.
It’s forcing the department to change tactics.
“We’ve taken on how we train our officers to interact with people in mental health crisis,” Porter said.
That may have saved the life of the suspect, who was charged with menacing, unlawful use of a weapon and a probation violation.
“Deadly force is absolutely authorized,” Porter said of the incident. “Not only was he waving the knife around — he had the means, the opportunity and he articulated his intention.”
Instead officers waited for several minutes before they tased him and took him to the hospital, then jail.
Training officers call it one of the best possible outcomes, given the violent nature of the situation. They also said officers acted in alignment with new best practices.
“It takes longer than it has in the past,” said Capt. Cory Darling, explaining how the department responds to calls regarding the mentally ill. “But instead of rushing in and just trying to put an end to the situation right away, we’re trying to take our time and try to come to a positive outcome.”
Training Officer Scott Vincent said he recently put officers through training similar to the incident in Orchard Park.
“Once of the main things that we push for in our training is being creative in our response, being patient and trying to respond to the needs of what’s going on,” Vincent said.
Porter said the department has focused on this newer-style training the last three years.
And he believes the numbers offer proof it’s working.
“We have 80,000 calls for service per year, and only (a few) of those resulted in us using force,” Porter said. ” It’s gone down.”
Police data collected since 2009 shows the height of use-of-force cases was in 2012. That year, police used force 84 times.
In 2014, they reported use of force 56 times.
Porter said use of force can range from the tragic extreme — killing suspects — to simply putting them in light-restraint holds.
Vincent credits successful police resolution of encounters to the department’s and city’s support of dedicating two police employees to full-time officer training.
“Training is absolutely key in reducing the amount of force and use of force,” Vincent said.
With that in mind, Bend police have asked the city to fund a $45,000 new portable training unit they hope to have officers in this year.
“We’re really moving toward an integrated use-of-force training,” Darling said. “So as opposed to focusing on firearms training one day and defensive-tactics training the next day and maybe deescalation training a separate day, we’re trying to incorporate all of those training aspects into one training.”
Vincent said the unit itself can be changed to depict different scenarios.
“It has temporary walls that we can put up, so we can shoot special-made ammunition that’s a real small paintball made out of basically lipstick,” Vincent said. “We’ll have officers go up staircases and have to interact with different angles — basically we’re taking what’s happening out in the real world and making it our training.”
The department also hopes to become more efficient by launching a new unit this fall consisting of a sergeant and two officers that will focus on mental-crisis emergencies.
