“This trains officers to think they are in a war zone and we’re the enemy,” said Susan Harman, a member of Oakland Privacy, which promotes police transparency throughout the region, particularly on surveillance. “There’s no cookie-cutter approach to this - that’s what we teach,” instructor Jim Glennon, a retired police lieutenant, told the New York Times.īut in the currently charged police-community atmosphere across the country, it has passed for a lightning rod, coming under fire from both police think tanks like the Police Executive Research Forum and Bay Area civil rights groups. In that battle on the streets, two bank robbers wearing body armor used automatic weapons against outgunned officers.Ĭalibre officials contend that they train officers in balancing serving as community “guardians” and then becoming “warriors” when they need to stop a violent threat to the same community.
Smith’s “peacemakers first and warriors second” line references a relatively recent creation in police rhetoric, based on an array of academic literature involving the transition of American police into paramilitary agencies after the infamous 1997 North Hollywood shootout.
“Any training we sponsor must align with the values of our office to be peacemakers first and warriors second and unfortunately the recently cancelled training class was not vetted fully to ensure that it aligned with our departmental values.” “Especially in light of the killing of another police officer in San Diego and the assault on law enforcement that is occurring nationwide by dangerous criminals, our department must work to provide the most effective training to ensure every sheriff’s deputy has the best chance of being safe and returning to their families when their shift is completed,” Smith said in a statement. Sheriff’s officials said they were already moving toward canceling the seminar this week when they were contacted by several Bay Area social justice groups, who pointed to a recent New York Times article that tacitly connected the Calibre training with Castile’s fatal shooting during a July 6 traffic stop in Falcon Heights, Minnesota. Anthony Police Department officer who shot Castile, underwent the training in 2014. The agency was scheduled to host a two-day seminar in mid-August with the “Bulletproof” program by Illinois-based Calibre Press, which has been criticized for training officers to channel their feelings of being under constant threat into overly aggressive policing, with sometimes deadly results. SAN JOSE - Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith has nixed hosting a controversial police-training program that elicited outcry from community watchdogs angry over its purported influence on the officer who shot and killed Philando Castile in Minnesota earlier this month.
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