When Police Officers Choke?

This week, soon to be Ex-President Trump said that police officer should be excused from shooting Black suspects because (like some golfers) they choke. Duffers like Trump may choke on three foot putts but the top pros don't. Similarly, the top police officers don't choke.

The mainstream media got in an uproar about Trump's analogy this week. And for good reason. An officers's alleged choking does not excuse their actions. When a pro golfer misses an easy shot he doesn't get a do-over. He suffers the consequences. He does not win tournments or misses cuts and certainly loses out on income. There is a clear penalty. Similarly, a police officer who chokes under any circumstances (and especially with a gun in his hand) doesn't get a do-over and should suffer additional consequences, sometimes including criminal charges.

But in a larger sense, why do we allow police officers who choke under pressure to have guns or even be on the force? Why aren't they screened better before the join the force? Why aren't they trained (and trained and trained) through simulations, and classes, and practice to be in complete control of a situation before a firearm is even issued to them?

The military spends thousands of dollars screening candidates before they are allowed to attend flight instruction. Other than expediency and funding why don't police departments similarly screen candidates? Because we don't weed out the misfits, the racists, the cowboys, and the chokers; we don't always have the most outstanding professional police officers. To use Trump's golfer analogy we don't always get the potential Top Pros into police academies.

After screening the military spends a great deal of additional time, effort and money on training before a flight cadet is certified as a pilot. And after certification more time, effort and money is spent on follow-up training. Cadets and Pilots spend hundreds of hours working with very realistic simulators to help them learn to deal with potentially difficult, potentially deadly situations. After certification pilots spend hundreds more hours in airplanes training, training, training.

In our cities a selected police recruit attends a police academy for less than five months and then spends another month with a training officer. Six months training and an officer gets a gun. There is of course follow-up training, but it is nowhere on the level of what the miliary insists upon. It's no wonder that we sometimes end up with less than Top Pros on the police force.

But wait...many people want us to spend less money on policing. "Defund the Police" is the cry. This is wrong...to get the policing we want, the policing we need... we should be spending more. But we should be much more careful how it is spent. We should encourage that police forces spend money to improve recruitment and screening of candidates, to improve initial training, and to improve and increase training after officers enter service. That is how to get more effective policing.