New Protesting Guidance Creates Vulnerabilities for Federal Law Enforcement Officers
As described earlier this month in FedAgent, the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) have issued the 21st Century Protest Response: Promoting Democracy and Advancing Community and Officer Safety, which details updated guidance for law enforcement officers on responding to mass protesting. This new guidance, created in partnership with the National Policing Institute (NPI) and Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), contains 102 recommendations for law enforcement officers. These recommendations focused on seven main areas: situational awareness, community relationship building and involvement, planning and training, response strategies and tactics, communication, officer safety and wellness, and after-action review.
This new guidance may force federal law enforcement officers to reevaluate what they’ve been taught is acceptable conduct and learn new protocols. With any changes to standard operating procedures may come increased vulnerability for law enforcement officers. Officers have been trained through repetition on how to make important split-second decisions – when pursuing a suspect, there may be no time to go over recently-updated policies in your head. Any adjustment to protocols may expose law enforcement officers to civil lawsuits from members of the public, as well as administrative actions from their agencies for failure to follow policy, and criticism from politically motivated officials and the public.
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*This article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.