MANKATO — Although Dr. Bill Lewinski had been booked to speak to the Mankato Area Lifelong Learners months ago, his presentation on “Use of Force: Training Police for Better Outcomes” couldn’t have been more timely.
And for the 35-40 people who listened to him speak generally about police training strengths and weaknesses, especially as it applies to the sometimes deadly interactions with the public, it’s likely the specific case of the shooting death of Renee Good was never far from their minds.
With decades of experience as a faculty member in Minnesota State University’s Law Enforcement program, Lewinski has long been a sought-after expert on police-public interactions. Now as executive director of Force Science Institute, Ltd., his hands-on studies in areas that often get insufficient attention in law enforcement programs could change the future of law enforcement training.
“All I have to say about the shooting in Minneapolis is it is really complex,” he said in conclusion, touching on the possible outcomes for the first time in two hours. “It is one of the most complex behavioral shootings I have ever seen. Usually it’s much simpler than that, but we can literally write a volume on the human performance elements involved in that incident.”
But how, you may ask, does he see it playing out when it is investigated? Like his answer to the group, you may not like what he said.
“I’m predicting you may be unhappy, depending upon your politics and your view,” is how he put it. “The courts are going to look at the moment the officer made the decision to shoot. All the rest of the context is gone, and what is the officer’s state of mind at that point? I’m very concerned.”
While speaking on the use of force use in law enforcement, Lewinski brought forth information and deficiencies in training that can’t help but cause concern in even the average citizen. An entire course of study, for example, is 600 hours; dog groomers at PETCO get about 800 hours before clipping a customer’s best friend.
And, he said, it’s likely that groomer has more experience doing the actual task than law enforcement students. Book learning is not sufficient to prepare an effective public safety officer, he said. What is needed instead is teaching of what should be done to the point where reactions become automatic so the brain can focus on specifics of the situation and skills can take over.
“We might not do as good a job as we think we’re doing. In training our officers in the state of Minnesota, we’ve very proud because we’re one of four states that require a two-year or four-year degree,” he said.
“Every study we’re aware of tells us that if you want somebody to learn something, you don’t teach it to them by lecturing to them and testing their skills on multiple choice, etc.,” he continued. “Police work is a clinical skill, and being a clinical skill it involves an integration of multi-disciplinary areas, and it involves diagnosis, assessment process, decision-making, skillful implementation.”
Among his many examples, he showed images of the arrest of Philando Castile by officer Jeronimo Yanez, pointing out errors made by the officers on the scene that went against their training and created a deadly situation. He spoke of how long it takes officers to respond and fire a weapon as opposed to how quickly the suspect moves.
Like a football quarterback who must throw the pass where the receiver will be and not where they are, or the surgeon who thinks several cuts ahead while making an incision for an operation, he said an officer must anticipate the next actions or they won’t be able to successfully respond.
Force Science Institute uses eye-tracking in specific situations to illustrate how officers may not look where they need in order to be able to anticipate.
Law enforcement programs could take another tip from football teams, he said, when they study game film of opponents to learn tendencies and “tells” that can indicate the next moves of those they are competing against.
Sadly, programs often don’t train officers for what they need because they don’t have the necessary funding. Or as in the case with Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents today, the perceived need outweighs the time available to fill that need, Lewinski said.
“The average ICE officer out there today has six weeks of training for everything,” he said in response to a question from Barbara Keating, retired MSU sociology professor who had many law enforcement students in class. She then asked how that compares to what they used to receive.
“First of all they would go to (Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers) and they would complete an almost 800-hour course in FLETC,” he said. “And then they would come back to ICE and they would get specialized training at ICE.”
To meet the current perceived need, that has been reduced to 47 hours.