RI – Use of Force Investigation and Analysis for Police Leaders and Trainers

Rhode Island Municipal Police Academy
Presents
Use of Force Investigation and Analysis for Police Leaders and Trainers
April 25 – 26, 2023
0830 – 1630 Hours 

It was a pleasure and honor to be able to present our professional development program on Use of Force Analysis and Investigation for Law Enforcement Leaders April 25 – 26, 2023 to the officers of Rhode Island. 24 officers represented by Cranston, Cumberland, Narragansett, North Kingston, North Providence, Pawtucket, Scituate, Woonsocket, Rhode Island State Police Departments and Rhode Island Department of Corrections attended the training. The training was extremely well received, and all the officers participated actively throughout the two-day presentation.  The officers displayed high levels of enthusiasm, dedication, and professionalism throughout the class. A review of the course evaluations revealed an overwhelmingly high satisfaction rating from the attending students of the course.

This what the attending students had to say:

Please rate the overall presentation.
21 out of 22 students, evaluations collected rated this course presentation at the highest level – Excellent, 1 rated it Very good.

• Good mix of PowerPoint, videos, personal stories and experiences.
• K.D. (Lt. Kevin F Dillon Ret.) has obviously been teaching for a long time and is engaging and makes the material interesting.
• Great job, very engaging, very informative
• Pacing excellent and content was perfect
• Great points that could apply
• Very informative
• Very informative and well presented
• Excellent
• Well organized. Kept attention throughout
• KD presents the material very well
• Videos and examples complemented the objectives

Was this program relevant to your work assignment?
19 out of 22 students, evaluations collected rated this course presentation at the highest level – Excellent, 3 rated it Very good. 

• I am in professional standards
• Yes
• Use of force instructor for the department
• Exactly what was needed
• Mostly
• Very relevant, important info provided on importance of departmental training
• Good to use as use of force instructor hopefully be able to use and increase tracking and trending at our department
• Extremely
• Very revealing to current IA assignment
• Will bring back material to administration with agency. Very relevant 

Please comment on the instruction of this program. (Training aids, multimedia etc.)
19 out of 22 students, evaluations collected rated this course presentation at the highest level – Excellent, 3 rated it Very good.

• Good use of video
• Additional case studies would be beneficial
• K.D. is excellent at making info relate to job and keep / maintain attention.
• Some of the more detailed forms/slides could be added in the manual where the slide is.
• More videos
• Stories, several different media outlets were informative and related to law enforcement currently.
• Some slides different from handout.
• Always great presentation, very knowledgeable, great info.
• Training aides worked very well with presentation.
• Instruction was quite informative
• Relevant and relatable
• K.D. – excellent information provided
• K.D. uses lots of visual aids (media /video) which help put things in perspective.
• Very relevant.

Would you recommend this training to other officers?
100% stated they recommend this course to their peers. 

• All the officers should be sent to this for use of force refresher. This training would be good for many levels of the PD.
• This particular training would be very useful and should be taken by administrators
• Absolutely
• Highly
• Definitely, in a heartbeat
• Senior staff
• Very much so great class for upper management
• Yes, would be good for all to have a better understanding of body reactions to use of force in how to report it
• It should be mandatory for all supervisors and trainers
• Useful to any law enforcement officer, regardless of rank assignment
• Highly recommend
• Would recommend my admin to participate and get them up to speed 

Please assess the instructors of this program. Instructors – Lt. Kevin Dillon (Ret)
100% of attending students rated this instructor at the highest level of Excellent. 

• K.D versed in the topic
• K.D. is a great presenter and instructor
• excellent, one of if not the best trainings I’ve attended in my career. Look forward to attending more training given by K.D.
• K.D. always keeps the attendees alert and attentive, always delivering the highest level of training
• K.D. always very interesting
• Impactful, energetic, passionate informative world class 15 years in dozens of use of force classes K.D. is the metric.
• Always great info great presenter
• The instructor knows material well and engages with class.
• Very knowledgeable
• K.D., one of the best instructors I have ever had the knowledge delivery with presentations are always on point
• K.D. is well informed, intelligent in the optimum of a subject matter expert
• very knowledgeable great program
• K.D. presents very well and keeps attention of audience
• K.D. brings his experience into the classroom  

Please explain how this training will enable you to change or improve your present assignment?
18 out of 22 students, evaluations collected rated this course presentation at the highest level – Excellent, 4 rated it Very good.

• Allows me to examine response to resistance and aggression forms /investigations.
• More awareness of factors to keep in mind while evaluating use of force reports
• Allow to better review UoF and ID patterns in areas requiring retraining
• Helpful to review you are UoF incidents
• Develop streamline system to track and trend UoF incidents
• We will adapt and include several points discussed in this training
• Helps integrate with department
• More case studies this class will make my assignment
• This will change things in which I deliver and train. I will be able to take this information back to my PD and give officers the tools they need to improve daily activities
• Failure drills added to training
• It will be used in my shift now, spreading it department wide
• It will help our department with guidance on how to improve our tracking and trending and use of force investigation
• Now have tools knowledge to properly examine and analyze use of force data
• We will request change for more training within the department, update policy and use of force procedures
• I will continue to pressure admin with an agency to make necessary policy and training changes

Today every use of force incident is scrutinized frame by frame on a video and judged by untrained individuals creating distrust and false narratives. Use of force analysis, investigation, and training is a complex continually evolving issue.   This 2-day training session is designed for Police Leaders who, review, report, instruct, or investigates police use of force incidents. The training will examine the most recent and up to date issues that specifically impact Leaders, IA investigators, and Trainers concerning police use of force incidents. This course breaks down multiple issues ranging from daily officer citizen complaints, curriculum design, use of force reporting, tracking and trending, and investigation involving police use of force encounters. Instruction uses lectures, case studies, and demonstrations.  “One improper technique changed the county!”

INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVES:

• Legal applications of use of force – What is being reported
• Early intervention tracking for use of force
• Reducing liability in use of force by deploying de-escalation strategies and documentation
• Quantification of force mitigation tactics and de-escalation
• Reducing liability and increasing officer safety by deploying tactical strategies
• Strategies on responding to individuals that are considered special populations
• Identify 5 steps to of reviewing use of force incidents.
• How to avoid an “Eric Garner or George Floyd Incident”
• What steps have you taken to identify foreseeable incidents?
• Define and categorize sixteen definitions pertaining to police use of force
• Discuss human performance factors that occur under stressful encounters
• What to look for when tracking police use of force
• Training curriculum selection and review
• Coordination and strategies dealing with multiple officer engagements
• Training measurements and performance – You can’t manage what you don’t measure.
• Video recording issues regarding viewing and reporting
• Immediate press release strategies ……Plus more.

Course Flier

REGISTER HERE

Rhode Island Municipal Police Training Academy
1762 Louisquisset Pike – Lincoln, RI 02865

Contact – Stephen A. Lombardi
Director of Continuing Education
stephen.lombardi@risp.gov       401-205-1678 

St. Louis County Police Department
Use of Force Investigation and Analysis for Police Leaders

Evaluations:

Course Evaluations and Student Feedback – Session 1, Sept. 13 – 16, 2022

• I enjoyed this class and felt like I learned a lot from the material. I like how he related to real life scenarios to teach.
• A lot of information was presented. Most information was valuable This course could have been three-day class.
• Among the best I’ve ever attended. Instructors knowledge is profound in the content is relevant, useful and needed by this agency.
• The information is relevant to law enforcement and should be taught to all officers within this department.
• Excellent course and material. Dynamic and knowledgeable instructor.
• Excellent training, completely applicable to the target audience. This training will definitely help me to review the content and verbiage that is used in the use of force reporting. The instructor did an outstanding job of presenting the material.
• The instructor of this course was definitely knowledgeable and had a genuine concern for the topic and how it impacts officers. His material was current and relevant. This is a course that all supervisors from sergeant to chief need to attend.
• Excellent description of the biological human response to use of force.
• Great information from an instructor who has an obvious passion in talent to teach it.
• Excellent energy, relevant content. Timely examples that drove conversation.
• Instructor is an expert in his field, very informative. Held the attention of all students attending. Recommend all supervisors attend this class.
• Great information and a wealth of knowledge.
• Good videos to back up material.
• Excellent class, wish it was longer.
• Great content and great speaker. Kept the audience engaged information was extremely relevant and up-to-date.
• Fantastic
• Much needed training every officer should attend.
• I really enjoyed the class and appreciated that the instructor made it fun. The instructor displayed his wisdom, expertise and personable personality. The information given is very useful. I Particularly like the enthusiasm and passion from the instructor. Information given is very beneficial and the entire department should take the training.
• Excellent course. Information is extremely valuable and pertinent should be offered to frontline supervisors and officer Kevin is obviously an expert in the field of use of force.
• This is excellent training. It should be taught in some manner to all commissioned officers. The material covered is highly relevant and timely. The instructor is very well informed and presented the material in an engaging enthusiastic manner
• Excellent course. Needs to be part of first-line supervision process and Leadership for Commanders.
• Outstanding class! Good information and suggestions to improve our organization to protect against liability. Great recommendations on documenting use of force reports.
• Material was insightful, timely, and applicable to use the force investigations within the department. The instructor had several suggestions that could be implemented to reduce liability for the department, such as tracking positive citizen interaction and de-escalations.
• Dynamic course. Excellent information. of course that officers and sergeants should attend kept my interest throughout the day.
• Outstanding presenter that did a great job covering lots of important topics. Very informative.
• Much needed refresher!
• All officers should attend this class not just supervisors.
• Provided a clear understanding of the investigative techniques for use of force.
• Great class and on point for the type of information most officers do not get during a typical end service.
• Very useful information instructor was very informative
• Very knowledgeable instructor a ton of relatable information definitely information that I will recall refer to in the future when reviewing use of force situations.
• The material is very relative to the job and I believe this will help in continuing to develop my subordinates.
• Topic was very pertinent instructor was knowledgeable and engaging. I would have included sergeants in this training.
• Information on what to take in consideration when investigating use of force
• As an officer trying to become a Sergeant, I found this class to be a great review for documenting use of force and consider all circumstances.
• Great course and informative.
• Instructor was very knowledgeable about use of force the science behind in how the brain works. He knows how to keep the class interesting and fun to learn.
• Excellent course would be suitable for police officers and sergeants. Instructor was fantastic. Good course appropriate for the department leadership
• Very good class, knowledgeable and engaging instructor

• good information for evaluating incidents and situations. Department needs to evaluate operational suggestions.
• (Lt. Dillon) presents his material in an interesting and entertaining manner for a relatively dry subject topic, he does a good job of keeping our attention.
• Great course. Provides a great deal of perspective towards use of force incidents. Instructor has a lot of knowledge and it has done hours upon hours of research relative to subject.
• Very smart on the topic he instructed.
• Through this course I was able to gain insight into considerations I need take on calls. In terms of use of force reports it helped with terms I should use and the level of detail that needs to be used.
• Highly recommend should be offered to all levels in department.
• Good program – lots of material.
• Instructor is obvious expert and use of force situations. Instructor provided valuable information for these investigations and training methods.