In an op-ed published Wednesday in the New York Times, Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo calls on law enforcement officers to “fundamentally” change the way they use their guns and deal with people in crisis — especially when they are wielding knives.
Describing a hypothetical situation, del Pozo writes that officers almost always point a gun at a knife-wielding person and shout commands. If the person advances, the officers shoot, and everyone loses, he writes.
“Each year, American police officers shoot and kill well over 125 people armed with knives, many of them in this manner,” del Pozo writes. “The public has grown impatient with seeing the same approach produce a predictably tragic result.”
The chief urges his counterparts around the nation to start training officers as if their weapons were “insurance policies” rather than “persuasive devices,” and suggests that American police take lessons from their unarmed colleagues across the pond.
“Barking orders as you stand there empty-handed would not only seem unnatural but also absurd,” the chief writes. “Your instincts would tell you to stay a safe distance away, try to contain the person, and calm the situation.”
The op-ed and its focus on deescalation exhibits the type of professional introspection that Burlingtonians have come to expect from the Ivy League-educated leader of their police force.
What the essay does not mention is the strikingly similar real-life scenario that unfolded under his watch three years ago, one that ended tragically.
In 2016, del Pozo was supervising the handling of a standoff in which an officer shot and killed Ralph “Phil” Grenon, 76, who was suffering from a psychotic episode in his downtown apartment.
Police were summoned because Grenon was ranting, and a standoff lasted several hours. Concerned Grenon might hurt himself, del Pozo sent in officers with tactical shields. They found Grenon in his shower clutching two knives. Officers fired chemical irritants into the room before attempting to use a Taser. But Grenon continued walking toward them and an officer opened fire.
Frustrated disability advocates decried the shooting, and del Pozo, just a year into his gig, was put on the defensive. He argued that his officers did everything they could to deescalate the situation. Reviews by authorities said it was legally justified.
Three years later, del Pozo said that if he could do it over, he would not let his decision to try to disarm Grenon be influenced by how long the incident was dragging on. Nor would he rely on Tasers, which proved ineffective.
Why not mention Grenon in the Times piece? Del Pozo said he didn’t believe it would be “topical” to a national audience. “Everywhere in America, people can think of incidents close to home that they feel would fall into this category,” he said.
Still, he does touch upon one local issue in the Times, referencing Burlington City Councilor Perri Freeman’s (P-Central District) suggestion to disarm the city’s police force. He calls the idea a “nonstarter” in America, where police officers are forced to respond to mass shootings and other types of gun violence.
But he writes that the police profession must take it upon itself to correct course if it doesn’t want politicians offering such ideas.
“We owe the public a commitment to doing everything we can to respect the sanctity of life,” he writes.
Freeman wasn’t aware of the op-ed when contacted Thursday. After she read it, she said she saw “a lot of positives” in his message, especially the part about guns. The nationwide debate over policing has been polarizing, she noted: “So I think this is actually a really good sign to hear so much critical thought behind some of these key issues.”
“One of the problems is that we teach our police officers to lead with the gun,” del Pozo writes in the Times. “We tell our officers that a knife or a shard of glass is always a lethal threat and that they should aggressively meet it with a lethal threat in return.
“But doing so forecloses all of the better ways to communicate with a person in crisis,” he continues. “There are alternatives.”
Dan Gilligan, the Burlington Police Officers’ Association president, had his own thoughts about the issue. Say you don’t have a gun, and a person with a knife advances on you, he said. Then what?
“I’ll tell you what you’re going to do: You’re going to get stabbed,” Gilligan said. “I don’t care what anybody says. That’s absolutely not our job.”
Gilligan agrees with some of del Pozo’s points. The union president has been a negotiator for 12 years and said it is undoubtedly easier to talk people down when they are not looking at the barrel of a gun.
But Gilligan said del Pozo provides an oversimplified view of these situations. Facing potentially dangerous people safely, without a weapon, requires backup officers positioned to cover the negotiator. That takes time, Gilligan said — a rare luxury in crisis situations.
“Everything we do — from words to lethal force — is to stop a behavior,” Gilligan said. “Unless you have somebody else there to provide that lethal cover for you, where you can be in a safe place to talk to somebody with a knife, then the gun has to be out.”
A more realistic approach is to ensure that police officers have access to nonlethal tools, Gilligan said. He commended del Pozo for working to obtain those tools and to get officers trained to use them.
The chief writes in his op-ed that police academies should train recruits on a “wide range of skills, drills and responses” before they ever handle a firearm.
“Training should start by sending officers into scenarios where they have to solve problems without recourse to lethal force,” he writes. He goes on to say that the American public would be made safer by officers whose “first instinct” is to communicate with people they encounter.
The chief’s recommendations to the nation do not seem to have yet infiltrated his own department’s psyche, however, as illustrated by several high-profile incidents.
In March, a Burlington man with health problems died days after an officer punched him three times. Last Friday, Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan declined to prosecute the case, deciding that the officer, Cory Campbell, was acting in self-defense after Douglas Kilburn swung at him first.
Donovan did call the case “troubling,” however, and faulted the cop for “antagonistic” actions that provoked Kilburn to lash out.
“Every officer that I know has watched this body camera footage and discussed this and is very reflective about what he or she can do to avoid agitating people,” del Pozo told Seven Days on the day of Donovan’s announcement.
And two black men have sued the department alleging excessive use of force for separate downtown incidents last year. Bodycam footage shows cops knocking the men unconscious without warning.
Correction, November 15, 2019: A previous version of this story contained “communication” in a quote from the op-ed when the word used was actually “communicate.”
Related Stories
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
A private citizen confronted by a violent individual armed with a knife has absolutely every right to shoot and kill that assailant. As do cops. They don’t surrender their rights to defend themselves just because Ms. Freeman has a case of the vapors.
Shoot shoot shoot, no matter the situation. Treat everything in a suspect’s hand as a life threatening instrument. Fingernail clippers? Shoot! A cell phone? Shoot! A stick from a tree? Shoot! There’s only one way to handle every situation and that’s BANG! Who cares what happens next? Or could have been done differently? BANG BANG BANG. Problem solved.
The alleged top cop in the most socialistic USA city is actually a sociologist in disguise.
He suddenly is preaching restraint after a 30-year career as a real cop – in NYC.
It’s a fine time for him to decide cops shouldn’t use guns – now that he’s off the street and out of danger holed up in his ivory tower.
URGES??????? how about demands? This force has sadly become a ghost of what it used to be and it falls right on the shoulders of the Chief and the Mayor.
“Fingernail clippers? Shoot! A cell phone? Shoot! A stick from a tree?”
Hey, Mr. or Ms. Exaggerate/Hysteria, can you please cite one single example in Vermont of a cop shooting someone with fingernail clippers or a stick from a tree?
Thanks.
“A case of the vapors”?? Can’t leave your (totally ingrained) misogyny out of it, huh? And written on a platform founded by two successful and creative women. That IS hysterical.
What is the harm in having a thoughtful discussion about the use of weapons by law enforcement officers? Is it just possible that people from all sides of the issue might come out from behind their circled wagoms and actually learn something from it?
If this was in any way genuine and not just a publicity stunt, it might be a step in the right direction. But it’s like trying to dampen down the fire after you’ve already thrown on a ton of wood and a gallon of gasoline.
Maybe they should try starting this way;
1)Don’t hire two digit IQ Sociopaths for police work & make the minimum starting age 30+.
2)Make the start, middle & end of their training as well as the beginning of every shift a stone cold reminder that they police any community, only with that community’s permission.
3)Impose severe penalties for any violation of the peoples rights and include training of the inviolate nature of the rights of the people over their government and government agencies. Which also makes people responsible for their own conduct.
4)Remove any and all profit incentives from policing including the use of municipal courts & prisons as revenue extortion mills.
5)Do away with the BAR Asssociation. Victimless crimes are not crimes at all.
Come on, the cops in full gear and with shields are afraid of a 76 year old man with a knife? They didn’t have to shoot to kill! But they didn’t use any common sense and Del Pozo is trying to make himself look good!
VtSavage; Spare me your ingrained misandry, you assume men can’t get the vapors? To be clear, men also get the vapors. Witness that Petrarca character, or Bernie. Perhaps Ms. Freeman can lift herself up off her fainting couch long enough to go on some ride-alongs, and she could explain to the officers why she is so eager to put them at risk for her political beliefs.
GIGrape,
How exactly does one shoot “not-to-kill”? Someone’s been watching a few too many A-Team reruns.
PATRICK, you shoot them in the arm or leg, you don’t have to kill them.. Use some common sense! Just because cops are trained to shoot to kill doesn’t mean they have to..
Mr. Cashman identifies the very reason why citizens are alarmed by police use of guns, and why our elected representatives, at the request of their constituents, are concerned about police officers being judges, juries, and executioners.
In most situations, there are non-lethal ways for the police to apprehend citizens suspected of crimes or threatening to commit them.
Let’s clear a few things up:
1. A firearm is lethal force, always.
2. There is no such thing as a “non-lethal” gunshot wound. There may be gunshot wounds the target didn’t die from, but no matter where struck or what the intent every gunshot wound is applied lethal force.
3. Remember how Thomas Magnum kept getting shot through the shoulder and next week would be right back at PI-ing? In the real world even if you survive gunshot wounds they are long term, and generally lifelong, debilitating injuries. Having a half inch hole blown through your scapula with bone and bullet fragments careening wildly through your torso leaves damage. A round or frag tearing through your belly? Goodbye lengths of intestine, hello peritonitis. A bullet through a narrow extremity like forearm or calf? Traumatic amputation and massive blood loss for you (which most people who die from gunshot wounds die of). Hit them in the thigh? Femoral artery ruptured by the bullet or bone fragments followed by a dirt nap.
4. Even if it were possible to only “shoot to wound”, presumably using Christian Slater’s “Ich Luge” bullets from Heathers, the only way to make such a shot on a moving human is pure luck. No one is that good, especially when their life is at risk and they are under immense stress. Extremities are small targets in constant motion.
5. Even with all that, that is as it is meant to be. If you are at a point where lethal force is justified and necessary then don’t screw around trying to make a lethal weapon non-lethal, shoot the assailant until they are down and not moving and no longer a threat. If you haven’t reached that point, then don’t deploy lethal force.
I wonder why all the people who know a better way didn’t become police officers. They are always hiring.
Not to detract from the riveting intellectual conversation taking place on this bulletin board, but this misquote raised my eyebrows as to accuracy:
“But doing so forecloses all of the better ways to communication with a person in crisis,” he continues.
Here’s the real quote from NYT (asterisks mine): “But doing so forecloses all of the better ways to *communicate* with a person in crisis.”
First, the quote provided by Seven Days makes no sense. Nobody talks like that. This suggests the author wrote out the quote instead of copying and pasting. In rewriting the quote, either force of habit or a corrected typo created the wrong word.
It’s a small detail in the scheme of things, but accuracy in journalism – especially when telling the public the exact words coming from someone’s mouth (or pixels in this case) – matters.
The press is widely regarded in a negative light in today’s world and the lack of attention to details is one reason why among many.
JTW says “I wonder why all the people who know a better way didnt become police officers. They are always hiring.”
My first instinct is to say, for the same reason I don’t ride around on the back of a garbage truck, I’ve got better things to do. But my next thought is something one of the founders once said. Something to the effect of “It’s the people that want to be in positions of authority, that you can’t trust in those positions”
As far as I’m concerned, the whole idea of hired police is an outdated concept. We don’t need it anymore & it’s become more destructive to our welfare than it is beneficial, now just a tool of municipal tyrants & the BAR Association.
Thanks, TIki. We’ve fixed it.
Do they still moderate these comments?
I’d say the Chief should practice what he preaches but I can see the headline now: ” Del Pozo talks man to death in tense stand off.”
Sounds like the police chief needs to spend some time on today’s streets with ‘troubled’ citizens who don’t respect the laws, that they feel entitled to break the law, that applies to them or they consider out of date, or a ‘substance enhanced’ person, or have a group (gang) come at them swinging weapons.
Hey, Chief get out from behind that desk
I liked Chief Del Pozo’s editorial in the New York Times. As far as the comment about him “getting out from behind the desk,” I’d say that the Chief has to do that deskwork – it’s the job.
No, we can’t just not have guns, and that may be an issue for some, but it’s a fact, for now.
I do not blame either the Chief or the Police in general for the incident involving Phil Grenon. I live in Phil’s former building, and I was there. I knew Phil – before and after he stopped taking his medicine. Nice guy – before he became the guy you didn’t want to run into in the hall.
The case was bungled by Howard Mental Health Services, and that’s why it became a Police matter. I think the Chief would agree it should never have become a Police matter. They handled it according to various protocols – I don’t see where they should have been afraid of him harming himself – he was mad that his behavior had caused him to receive an eviction notice – but Howard should have sent a team to explain his options, and they did not.
Instead, Phil was left to his paranoid thoughts, and became a bit threatening (yelling out the window, etc.). I was present for the final encounter, and heard the shots fired. It should never have happened. The fellow next to the shooter had a riot-shield – I think he should have thrown that at Phil instead of the bullets.
At any rate – it’s easy to condemn afterwards, and difficult to judge what to do in a fast-moving dangerous scenario. But the Chief is right – guns should Not be the first line of defense.
Charlie, I agree with you.. The guy should have thrown his riot shield but I think at that point they didn’t think about that option and shooting him was the only one left. And yes Howard should have sent a team to see what they could do but didn’t. They have screwed up a lot of times too. I know from a past experience with someone else I knew. Howard had a street outreach program and they didn’t do anything to help the person even though he asked them. They didn’t have the time to help! I was there and heard the conversation and also talked to Howard Mental health! Their first call is worthless…
i think it’s possible that instead of posting this article criticizing the Chief in sevendays, the author could have instead criticized him in a nytimes op-ed. it is possible though, it would not be published, since the author has no knowledge of policework, nor any knowledge of making sacrifices of life and liberty to protect an ungrateful populace. perhaps with more wisdom, and more well-rounded knowledge, he could make a more thoughtful criticism to a much larger audience. i hope that instead of reaching for low-hanging fruit, the author instead educates himself to provide better coverage of serious social issues.