Training Police Should Spare Lives : Burgreen’s plan to add non-lethal weapons should help curb fatal shootings too

San Diego Police Chief Bob Burgreen’s recently announced plan to purchase more non-lethal equipment for officers was a welcome one.

More stun guns, police dogs, Mace canisters, rubber bullets and electric Tasers will increase the options available to officers in potentially dangerous situations. And that, in turn, should reduce the number of times when police resort to shooting.

An equally welcome, and probably a more important, part of Burgreen’s plan, however, is the decision to increase the frequency of training. Over and over, police experts point to training--and retraining--as the best way to save the lives of officers and the public.

For San Diego, with too few officers already, that will mean a reduction in patrol officers of 2.5%. But the trade-off is worth it.

Burgreen and the Citizens Advisory Board on Police/Community Relations also have recommended that Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller’s office independently investigate police shootings. Most of the time, the district attorney’s office finds the police investigation adequate and says a separate investigation would be a waste of resources.

In virtually every case, the district attorney has found the shootings legally justifiable. With an independent review, most shootings would still be found legally justifiable. It is rare when police shootings meet criminal standards even if they violate department policies.

But, at this point, the only agency investigating police use of lethal force is the Police Department itself.

That is not sound public policy. Nor is it the practice in many other large cities.

If Miller won’t take on this responsibility, then the Citizens Review Board on Police Practices needs to be strengthened to give it the authority and staff for independent investigations.

Fatal shootings will never be eliminated from police work. Many of the people whom officers encounter are lethally dangerous.

But 12 fatal shootings by police this year in San Diego--among the highest rates in the country--have to be viewed as a failure of policies, training, supervision, judgment or equipment.