After George Floyd protests, CMPD announces ‘duty to intervene’ policy change
Since the death of George Floyd during his arrest by a Minneapolis police officer, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department has repeatedly denounced the actions of the arresting officer and emphasized that CMPD officers are never trained to place a knee on a suspect’s neck.
Charlotte activists have pointed out that, while CMPD officers are not taught to behave that way, the department lacked an explicit policy that would require officers to intervene when the leading officer is ineffective at de-escalating a situation or is using excessive force.
However on Wednesday, CMPD Chief Kerr Putney announced that the department will change the language of its directive to include that officers should intervene when another officer is not de-escalating a situation successfully or is using excessive force.
“We will have something people can see as duty to intervene, but also specifically how we will treat (that policy),” he said. “This has been something we’ve been trying to codify.”
In the past year, CMPD repeatedly declined to adopt a “duty to intervene” policy. However, calls to change the policy received new momentum because of the protests over Floyd’s death, activists say.
When asked about adding a “duty to intervene” policy on Monday, CMPD Chief Kerr Putney said the department is currently reviewing its own directives and may make adjustments.
“You gotta be more about educating the heart and testing the people … more so than good policies on paper. You have to live those policies,” he said, pointing out that the Minneapolis Police Department already had a similar policy in place.
In a video captured by a bystander, the officer is shown with his knee on Floyd’s neck for several minutes before he goes unconscious. In the video, three other Minneapolis police officers are on the scene but do not intervene, despite the protests of onlookers.
All four officers have since been fired and the arresting officer, Derek Chauvin, has since been charged with second-degree murder.
Charlotte activists said a policy that requires an officer to step in when another officer is not successfully de-escalating a situation or is unnecessarily escalating a situation is relevant because of fatal police shootings that have taken place in Charlotte.
“It’s easy to look at something as egregious as George Floyd’s death and say, ‘Hopefully that would never happen here,’ but we’ve had encounters with the police department with Keith Lamont Scott and (Danquirs Franklin) where, if the police had intervened, maybe it wouldn’t have escalated to … lethal force,” said the chair of the Citizen’s Review Board, Tonya Jameson.
Policy turned down in the past
As recently as last month, CMPD has rejected the policy that supporting officers should take control of an encounter if the leading officer is ineffective at de-escalating a situation or gaining compliance from a suspect.
In recent feedback between the Citizens Review Board and the City of Charlotte, the review board recommended that CMPD adopt such a policy, following the fatal police shooting of Danquirs Franklin at a Burger King last year.
Franklin was killed in March 2019 after CMPD Officer Wende Kerl and another officer responded to a Burger King on Beatties Ford Road after 911 calls came in about a man inside the restaurant with a gun.
When officers arrived, Franklin was squatting next to a car in the parking lot, body camera footage shows. Police have said Franklin was armed.
In video from the body cam Kerl was wearing that day, she is heard yelling at Franklin to put the gun down more than 15 times in the roughly 40 seconds before he was fatally shot.
Critics said the video showed Franklin was lowering a gun toward the ground when Kerl shot him, The Charlotte Observer previously reported. During the investigation and a review by the Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office, Kerl said she saw Franklin pull out a gun and that she believed he was preparing to point the gun toward someone.
The DA’s office found Kerl was legally justified in shooting Franklin, and she was not charged. Kerl was placed back on full duty in November last year to a non-patrol investigative assignment.
Citizens can appeal decisions made by the chief of police after an internal police investigation if they believe disciplinary action has been insufficient or that officers have not been punished for violating policy. In February, the Citizens Review Board broke with CMPD’s decision for only the second time and said the use of lethal force was not justified.
The review board’s recommendations – which were released last month — said that a policy allowing surrounding officers to take control of an encounter “could have helped prevent” Franklin’s death.
In response, CMPD said a policy requiring officers on scene to determine whether the leading officer’s methods are necessary during an armed encounter would be “unrealistic and potentially dangerous.”
“Requiring officers to immediately intervene and assess whether a lesser degree of force would be appropriate is not practical, as frequently circumstances are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving.”
CMPD also said that the department’s Response to Resistance Policy — which was updated in November with input from the review board and local activists — emphasizes that officers should immediately report other officers who “engage in a use of force” to a supervisor.
Renewed hope for policy following protests
Since Floyd’s death, CMPD has repeatedly condemned Chauvin’s actions and emphasized that CMPD officers are not taught to place their knee on a suspect’s neck.
“It’s disgusting, cowardly. There is no justification. We keep doing all this work but the behavior of one person puts us all in jeopardy,” Putney said with Heal Charlotte Activists on Friday.
CMPD’s constructive conversation team has also been on the street answering questions from protesters. On Friday at Beatties Ford Road, CMPD Capt. Zeru Chickoree, who works in the Freedom Division, also emphasized the department’s policies.
“We want to be able to address questions like … ‘Hey, could I experience this as a citizen of Charlotte,’” Chickoree said. “We want (protesters) to know that this was something that was out of any type of training scenario that we can provide or certainly anything we would say is appropriate.”
Jameson said a “duty to intervene” policy can build a culture where de-escalation is practiced and expected by all officers on the scene.
In the past week, Robert Dawkins from the social justice group Action NC said activists have been calling City Council members and lobbying for CMPD to include a duty to intervene policy. He also said that two days ago, Putney promised to address the issue this week.
Dawkins said the policy was first proposed to CMPD last year, when the department revamped its Response to Resistance policy and procedures to emphasize de-escalation. Dawkins and the Citizen’s Review Board suggested a “duty to intervene” policy that was ultimately left off the table, he said.
This story was originally published June 3, 2020 at 5:17 PM.
