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The Utah Department of Public Safety is looking at implementing rules governing the use of force by highway patrol troopers, and a legislative committee is considering whether similar, uniform rules should be enacted for police departments statewide.
"While there is no way to specify the exact amount or type of reasonable force to be applied in any situation," the new proposed DPS rule reads, "each officer is expected to use these guidelines to make such decisions in a professional, impartial and reasonable manner."
The policies allow an officer to use the force he or she deems necessary when making an arrest, based on the behavior of the suspect, the threat posed to the public, seriousness of the offense the suspect is believed to have committed, and other factors.
If the officers believe the suspect may be a risk due to mental illness, they are instructed to wait for backup and to use a stun-gun to subdue the individual if needed, rather than pepper spray.
Deadly force is permitted if the officer believes the suspect has committed a felony that caused serious injury or death or if the suspect may pose an imminent threat to the officer or the public.
Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, co-chairman of the Legislature's Administrative Rules Review Committee, questioned Monday whether the state should require local police and sheriff's departments to abide by similar, uniform policies.
Draper Police Chief Bryan Roberts, a member of the board of directors of the Utah Chiefs of Police Association, cautioned against making any one-size-fits-all policy too restrictive.
"You need to leave some [factors] at the discretion of the individual agencies and the individuals they serve. Policing in Salt Lake to West Valley to Draper … are all a little bit of a different animal," Roberts said. "I don't think [the rules] need to be too restrictive. I think there needs to be language in there to allow for the ability to tailor specific language to your specific needs."
Both Roberts and Utah County Sheriff Jim Tracy, president of the Utah Sheriff's Association, supported psychological evaluations for incoming law-enforcement applicants, in order to weed out officers who might not be up to the job.
Tracy said one of the things they are looking for are people who seem to think it would be "neat" to have a badge and a gun and might be inclined to exercise "authoritarian aggression."
He said the Utah County Sheriff's Office has been doing psychological evaluations of applicants for more than two decades and most of the sheriffs he has spoken with support the idea of doing the same. It can be difficult, however, for departments in rural parts of the state to find professionals capable of performing the evaluations.
The review of use of force policies and psychological evaluations is part of an analysis by the committee that came on the heels of notable police shootings and violent episodes in Utah and in other states.
The committee has already looked at training officers to de-escalate crisis situations and plans to look at the use of body cameras and policies on investigating the use of force by police.
After studying the issue during the summer and fall, the committee is expected to recommend potential policy changes later this year.
Tracy and Roberts cautioned that any look at police violence needs to be kept in perspective. Tracy said his department had 26,000 contacts with citizens last year and between 80 and 100 incidents where force had to be used. Roberts said his Draper officers had 23,000 contacts, made 930 arrests and had just nine incidents where force had to be used.
Tracy pointed to recent riots in Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore after high-profile episodes of police using violence on suspects, and said those incidents "may be driving some in an emotionally driven effort to suck everything in and find a fix."