The Key Is Leadership From the Top : Police officers need a system of support and restraint. Leaders must demand accountability down through the ranks.

Barring the discovery of mitigating factors, it appears that Southern California law enforcement has provided another notorious, videotaped example of police use of force gone awry. Courtesy of television news shows, millions have witnessed a man and a woman, in broad daylight on the shoulder of a busily traveled freeway, being thumped by the batons of Riverside County deputy sheriffs. The two had been passengers in a pickup truck, along with 19 other people, that had been pursued by officers at high speeds for nearly an hour. They were the only two who did not manage to escape the vehicle when it finally stopped.

If the facts are as they seem, the officers must answer for their actions. If policies or procedures are deficient, they must be changed. Addressing those two concerns is a relatively simple process. On the other hand, understanding and accepting police officers’ human fallibility is a profoundly more difficult concept but one that must be understood if incidents such as this are to be avoided in the future.

Police officers have more opportunities to make mistakes in one week than people in some occupations will experience in a lifetime. It is no pun that police mistakes frequently have grave consequences. Given these facts, what is to be done?

Careful selection of people hired as police officers, thorough and continuous training and conditioning of officers, clearly enunciated policies to guide their actions--all are essential. All are the common practice in Southern California law enforcement. None of these practices, however, will immunize officers from the effects of fatigue, physical or emotional pain, distress in their private lives, the involuntary rush of adrenaline in a moment of sudden stimulus or myriad other human frailties.

A structure must be fashioned around each officer to provide him or her with support while simultaneously providing the restraint necessary to keep the officer’s actions within proper bounds. This system of support and restraint must start with moral leadership from the top of the organization. Such simple and basic concepts as respect for each individual, reverence for the law and constant search for the truth must be more than words in some dusty book of rules. They must be principles that live every day in the words and actions of the organizational leader and the leader’s top staff. They must be a positive guide as well as a basis for the application of disciplinary or corrective action.

The leader must ensure that officers understand the goals and objectives of the organization and how the organization fits within the governmental structure as well as within society as a whole. The leader must hold subordinates strictly accountable for the actions of their subordinates. In no other way can supervisory responsibility be assured from top to bottom of the organization.

What do all of these principles have to do with the incident on the Pomona Freeway?

Why were local law enforcement officers pursuing suspected illegal immigrants? It is well established that citizenship status is not a matter of primary concern to state peace officers. The federal agency with the primary responsibility for security of the nation’s borders against illegal entry declined to pursue. How does pursuing a truckload of suspected illegals fit within the goals and objectives of any local law enforcement agency?

Where were command, control and supervisory attention during and at the end of the pursuit? The hour that transpired provided ample time for objective evaluation of the situation and supervisory input to guide the pursuing officers.

This time of crisis for the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department provides a valuable opportunity for its leader to reiterate to his officers and to the public what the department’s principles, standards and code of conduct are. While it would be clearly irresponsible for Sheriff Larry Smith to rush to judgment of his deputies before he has the facts, his words can have unparalleled impact on the attitudes of his officers and in restoring public confidence in his department. The sergeant chosen to be the spokesperson, however capable he may be, cannot provide that moral leadership.

Given the proper support and understanding, police officers’ human fallibility will not lead inevitably to human tragedy.