On January 13, 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice published the Investigation of the Chicago Police Department.1 The report focused heavily on the need for the Chicago, Illinois, Police Department (CPD) to improve not only the way policing in Chicago is conducted, but also the way policing is reported and evaluated. The CPD responded to this report and the findings of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Police Accountability Task Force by releasing Next Steps for Reform, a framework for addressing several high-priority recommendations.2 The agency immediately started work to implement the promised reforms; aided by staff members from the nonprofit organization Civic Consulting Alliance, the agency began to break both reports into manageable projects where specific individuals were held accountable for tasks and outcomes.
One of the promised reforms included the creation of a Force Review Unit. The Chicago Police Department Force Review Unit was established in April 2017 under the direction of one captain and two sergeants. These leaders were tasked with creating a new unit within the department to review use-of-force incidents for the primary purpose of enhancing the skills of police officers to keep civilians and officers safe, as well as to reduce civil liability. After site visits to other large police departments including Los Angeles, California; Baltimore, Maryland; and Washington, DC, it became clear that Chicago’s Force Review Unit would need to be different than its peers in those cities. The CPD Force Review Unit assesses incidents involving use of force and is authorized to make recommendations to the superintendent on systemic issues that may affect the use of force. Although these recommendations usually address the need for tactical improvements and new or revised training, they may also include recommendations for new or improved equipment and any other matters that could improve the future performance of CPD officers or the CPD as a whole. However, what makes the CPD Force Review Unit unusual is that it does not make determinations about whether a use-of-force incident was in policy or out of policy.
Partitioned Responsibility
| COPA’s Investigation Responsibilities
n bias-based verbal abuse n coercion n death or serious bodily injury in custody n domestic violence n excessive force n improper search and seizure n firearm discharge n electronic control weapon discharge that results in death or serious bodily injury n pattern or practices of misconduct n unlawful denial of access to counsel CPD’s Bureau of Internal Affairs Investigation Responsibilities n criminal misconduct n operational violations n theft of money or property n planting of drugs n substance abuse n residency violations n medical role abuse n all other complaints of police misconduct not under the purview of COPA |
The CPD Force Review Unit is separate from both the Bureau of Internal Affairs and the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA). With the exception of rare circumstances, the recommendations of the Force Review Unit are never disciplinary.
The CPD Bureau of Internal Affairs limits its investigations primarily to allegations of criminal conduct and serious municipal code violations. Unlike other municipalities, the CPD does not internally investigate allegations of excessive force or deadly force incidents by its members. Instead, the municipal code places the responsibility for investigating deadly force and serious accusations of excessive force on the COPA.
As a result, it became apparent that Chicago was missing an opportunity to provide feedback to its members on lower-level use-of-force incidents that could be turned into training opportunities to make both officers and civilians safer and to reduce the likelihood of civil litigation. The scope of the CPD Force Review Unit would, therefore, become specifically narrow to meet that specific need.
Tactical Training Opportunities vs. Discipline
With the COPA responsible for disciplinary investigations into allegations of excessive force, the CPD Force Review Unit was designed to bridge the gap that occurs when actions fall within the lines of policy but nonetheless present opportunities to improve tactical execution. These actions are deemed “tactical training opportunities,” and officers now receive timely feedback that helps them hone their skills, limit civil liability, and keep themselves and members of the public safe during a use-of-force incident. Although Force Review Unit personnel are trained to identify specific actions and behaviors deemed tactical training opportunities, they are still bound—as are all CPD members—to report to COPA any conduct that rises to the level of a formal complaint if that action has not already been taken at the district level.
Prior to the launch of the Force Review Unit, the CPD did not have a formal after-action review process in place where its members regularly received feedback on their performance during use-of-force incidents. Officers would occasionally debrief with their partners after an especially unpredictable incident, or supervisors would occasionally offer informal feedback. However, there was no streamlined process to help officers become more proficient at tactics or learn to articulate with specificity the necessity of their actions. Officers needed a way to be able to practice mechanics absent the stress of discipline; thus, creating a feedback loop among officers, their supervisors, the Force Review Unit, and the Education and Training Division became a priority.
Use-of-Force Reporting Requirements
CPD members are responsible at all times for truthfully and completely describing the facts and circumstances concerning any incident involving the use of force. Department members thoroughly document each reportable use-of-force incident through the Tactical Response Report (TRR), which saw an overhaul in recent months. In a significant change to policy aimed at improving transparency and accountability, the CPD now requires each officer who completes a TRR to write a narrative describing with specificity the use-of-force incident, the subject’s actions, and the involved member’s response, including force mitigation efforts and the specific type and amount of force used. However, officers involved in firearms discharge incidents (with or without injury) or in any use-of-force incident resulting in death are not required to complete the narrative portion of the TRR, as their statement will be documented by the COPA.
Department members forward their TRRs through the chain of command to a reviewing supervisor who is typically a sergeant. Sergeants ensure that the TRR is complete, locate and interview any available witnesses when appropriate, and ensure that an evidence technician is assigned to document any injury or allegation of injury to either the subject or the officer.
In keeping with recommendations made by the Department of Justice, lower-level use-of-force incidents are investigated at the district level by a supervisor at the rank of lieutenant or above. A great deal of responsibility rests with the lieutenant in that he or she is tasked with reviewing the entire use-of-force incident to determine not only if the TRR is complete, but also if the reporting member is in compliance with CPD policy.
Honing the Skills of Policing for Improved Safety and Decreased Liability
TRRs that have been completed and reviewed at the district level are forwarded to the Force Review Unit for an after-action review. The unusual approach to force review in Chicago is possible because, for the most part, the comingling of discipline with tactical reviews has been eliminated. To date, the Force Review Unit has completed in excess of 500 reviews. Less than 1 percent of the reviews have been forwarded to the COPA for further investigation because appropriate action had already been taken at the district level.
At the Force Review Unit level, specially trained reviewers concentrate on providing timely feedback to officers regarding their use-of-force incidents. Reviewers are trained to be objective; there is no “Monday-morning quarterbacking,” and reviewers are prohibited from inserting individual bias as to how a use-of-force incident was handled. Instead, department members are pointed to specific department orders, training bulletins, or e-learning modules for clarification and direction. Feedback is useful only if it is timely. To that end, the Force Review Unit has a goal of a 30-day turnaround for all reviews. In this way, officers can promptly practice tactical skills, which enhance muscle memory, as well as learn to eliminate the perpetuation of inconsistencies throughout their TRRs.
Currently, debriefing on identified tactical training opportunities takes place in two different ways, depending on the issue that is identified. If the issue affects officer or civilian safety, department members are referred to the Education and Training Division. Staff at the Education and Training Division review each referral to determine what type of training would most benefit the officer. Some officers receive individual training based on the actual incident with a certified use-of-force instructor. This allows officers to verbalize what they were thinking at the time of the incident and allows the instructor to probe for officers’ understanding of the use-of-force policy. Some officers receive training in small groups when appropriate. Issues that are referred to the Education and Training Division typically include electronic control weapon training, control tactics skills training, and force mitigation training.
Whenever possible, it is preferable to have officers debriefed on tactical training opportunities at the district level by their immediate supervisors. The purpose behind this practice is three-fold. First, it alerts district-level supervisors to topics that can be discussed during roll call training. Second, it ensures that all supervisors in the officer’s chain of command are alerted to training opportunities specific to individual officers. This allows supervisors to coach officers in real time moving forward. Last, it returns responsibility for supervision to frontline supervisors as required by the consent decree. Issues that are referred back to the district level for debriefing include articulation errors in the narrative portion of the TRR where an officer uses the correct level of force but describes incorrectly the force options that were used, and one-on-one review of General and Special Orders and department-issued training bulletins.
Regardless of whether debriefing or training takes place at the Education and Training Division or at the district level, it is customized for the individual officer and is done on a one-to-one basis whenever possible. Despite the size of the CPD and the number of TRRs that are processed, completing one-on-one debriefings or trainings for individual officers has not proven to be as labor intensive as it might sound. Absent extenuating circumstances, districts have 14 days to complete required debriefings and the Education and Training Division has 30 days to complete required retraining. An audit of outstanding debriefings and retrainings has shown compliance rising on a monthly basis. Over a six-month period, the number of late compliances fell from over 20 per month to an average of 7 as members become more familiar with both the debriefing and training process as well as the documentation steps that are necessary to record compliance.
Improving Accountability and Transparency
A robust and well-functioning accountability and transparency system in which CPD members are held to the highest standards of integrity is critical to the CPD’s legitimacy and is a priority of the agency. To that end, the CPD Force Review Unit is exploring the use of software to produce interactive visualization dashboards of data on use-of-force incidents that are collected from TRRs. The goal of this effort is to create dashboards that allow the Force Review Unit to customize reports and drill down to officer, district-, or citywide data to better identify significant trends regarding use-of-force incidents. These trends will then be used to project future training needs and, more importantly, will allow comprehensive data on use-of-force incidents to be disseminated in the CPD Annual Report for the first time.
Lessons Learned and Early Successes
The feedback loop that allows individual department members to access their own Force Review Unit recommendations has been well received in the department. Members are able to read a comprehensive summary of not only their use-of-force incident, but also the recommendations from the Force Review Unit that allow them to better hone their skills, improve officer and public safety, and decrease the potential for civil liability. When officers display the utmost professionalism and describe with specificity their use of force on the TRR, they receive positive feedback. Small gestures like this go a long way toward improving morale. Officers who receive one-on-one training for a tactical training opportunity see a noticeable improvement in their skills moving forward.
| IACP Resources
n Electronic Control Weapons Model Policy n Reporting Use of Force Model Policy n “Evaluating Use-of-Force Training Systems” (Tech Talk) |
Perhaps the biggest success of the Force Review Unit to date has been identifying a citywide trend of officers failing to properly secure an electronic control weapon after it was deployed. After this trend was identified, the Force Review Unit was able to work directly with the Education and Training Division to identify the cause of the deficiency and to immediately begin to take measures to correct it. As officers received training on proper electronic control weapon handling, the number of errors in the field dropped dramatically. Removing discipline for tactical errors from the training process greatly increased the CPD’s ability to take immediate action to ensure improved officer and public safety.
The success of the Force Review Unit moving forward is directly linked to effective communication between major department stakeholders. The Education and Training Division and the Research and Development Division have committed to providing resources to work in concert with the Force Review Unit not only to provide timely training, but also to examine existing CPD policy to determine if changes are warranted and substantiated by data. However, the most significant and noticeable change is the department’s commitment to provide an avenue of two-way communication between individual department members and the Force Review Unit. There is now a dedicated unit within the CPD that members can turn to with questions regarding use-of-force incidents that will provide clear and comprehensive answers. For the first time, department members are able to hone their skills absent the stress of discipline. d
Notes:
1 U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, and U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Illinois, Investigation of the Chicago Police Department, January 13, 2017.
2 Chicago Police Department, “CPD Next Steps for Reform—Public Update,” 2017.
Please cite as
Eve M. Gushes, “Enhanced Skills, Improved Safety, and Reduced Liability: A New Perspective on Force Review,” Police Chief 86, no. 6 (June 2019): 46–51.
