Use of Deadly Force with Glenn Garrels

Speaker 1 (00:01.53)
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Hello everyone, we're here for another episode of the New Jersey Criminal Podcast. We're here with Mr. Glenn Garels. He was a former lieutenant in New Jersey State Police. He now works for his own company called Force Analysis LLC. He consulting and expert witness work on use of force and police-involved shootings. Glenn, why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself?

Good afternoon, glad to be here. Like I said, 22 years in the state police, just retired about a year and a half ago. Did about five years as a road trooper down South Jersey, Troop A. Made detective, investigating crimes against children in the Digital Technology Investigation Unit. Did that for about nine months and then moved on over to the major crime unit where I spent my next almost 14 years of my career.

investigating homicides, suspicious deaths, and officer-involved shootings slash in custody deaths. And then my last three years I spent down at the Cacito Gaming Bureau in Atlantic City.

So, I guess the main bulk of your career is spent in major crimes. Yeah. Tell us a more about your time in major crimes. What exactly did you do there and what types of cases did investigate?

Speaker 1 (01:20.258)
Correct, yes.

Speaker 1 (01:28.712)
We did suspicious deaths. know my squad, we probably did about 40 to 50 suspicious deaths a year. We did the homicides and that can range anywhere between five to 10 homicides a year. And then we did all the deadly force shootings and incursion deaths around the state. That could be anywhere between five and 15 cases a year. It was an enormous amount of work. But I'll tell you what, you couldn't ask for a better...

Not only time in major crimes, but my whole career. I I loved it. It was fantastic. Especially that major crime time. You want to be a detective. You join something like that, and you're involved in some of the biggest cases in the state going on. So was very fulfilling.

Yeah. I mean, your own call as well. Yeah, it never stops, right? So use of force during your time in the state police, tell us a little more about, you know, what your involvement was in reviewing use of force and maybe developing policies and different things like that.

all the time 24-7.

Speaker 1 (02:31.822)
Well, my time in major crime, just did, we investigated the officer involved in shootings. We weren't involved in the policy. We weren't involved whether the, if it was justification or not for the deadly force. We strictly did the investigation. I started out as the junior detective, worked my way up to the lieutenant in the unit. So, you know, being the low man in the pole, trying to do most of the investigative work to the person running and supervising the case. It could be anywhere between

I don't know, 10 to 15, 10, 20 detectives all kind of running around sign with fantasy to the person running the unit and overseas.

Gotcha. And what were you like when you did the officer involved shooting investigations? Like, was there a certain procedure that they had to follow and they used force that you had to keep in mind during the investigation?

Well, it certainly helps because for you to do interviews of officers involved, whether they're witnesses or the person's even the one using deadly force, you have to know the policy. You have to know force to better tailor your questions to get the information out of the officers. look, I'm not going to try to say that I know the stress of being involved in a shooting. never was, thank God. So I can't imagine what an officer is going through mentally and psychologically when he's involved in something like that.

Basically, their career and life is on the line at that point. But for you to understand the policy and the standard and the case law behind it just helps you formulate your questions to get the information out of the offices so they can articulate what they did and why they did it.

Speaker 2 (04:12.238)
And what were, like, what are the standards for the use of force? Well, let me ask you, let me back up a second. Is the standard for use of force, is it the Attorney General guidelines that set the standard for the entire state, or does each police department have their own use of force standard?

Well, in New Jersey, they have the Attorney General guidelines that rules the roof. All the police departments have to be in line with what they have. Now, there's the federal standard of Graham versus Connell, which every state has to have the minimum objective reasonableness, but then states can make their policies and guidelines stricter, which New Jersey has a little bit, especially with the new policies that came out a couple years ago.

But so their standard is basically reasonable, necessary, and proportional. Regardless of what the force option you use.

Can you tell us a little bit more about that standard for people who probably, people watching this who may not know anything at all about what exactly the guideline is or the policy is?

Well, if you start with Graham v. Connor, which is the federal standard of force under the case law, objective reason is they couldn't give a definition, but they understand that officers have to make split-second judgments under circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving about the amount of force used in each particular case. And it's what the officer knew at the time on scene, not the vision of 2020 hindsight, all based on the totality of the circumstances. And then they give the four Graham factors.

Speaker 1 (05:46.284)
that you kind of go through to kind of analyze the force, which is the severity of the crime, the immediacy of the threat, whether the person is resisting and whether they're evading by flight. That's the Graham standard in a nutshell. It's a little bit more complicated than that, but that's the breakdown of it. And then the attorney general's guidelines for reasonableness is basically an objective assessment based on someone with similar training and experience, would they have done the same thing in your situation?

Right. So it's very similar to sort of maybe the reasonable suspicion standard for making an investigative stop or something like that. It seems to be grounded in the same sort of general principles of, you know, what is a reasonable person, what will a reasonable officer do in the situation? Is that fair to say?

Yes, and they have to be able to articulate it for each particular incident. can't use like a boilerplate type incident. Every use of force, whether it's deadly or mechanical or whatever you, physical, whatever you're using, you have to articulate and explain what you did and why you did it. That's you need day and age. It's not, you know, 1980 anymore where, you know, police officers are kind of allowed to run kind of wild. There's strict guidelines now and you have to be prepared.

to answer those tough questions when you're asked, whether it's an internal investigation from your own department, whether it's a criminal case against you, or whether it's a civil case down the road.

And that, I mean, procedure that an officer, the procedure that an officer has to abide by where, you know, if there's some sort of shooting incident that they're involved in, regardless of how obvious it may be that, you know, force was necessary, you know, could be someone clearly had a gun was firing back at the officers and then they returned fire and he was shot or killed. Even in that situation, the same strict procedures are put into place as far as the investigative steps.

Speaker 2 (07:39.854)
and the things that the officer has to do to ensure that he keeps his job, right?

100%. Again, I'm not going to try to sit here and tell you that I know what it's like to be involved in deadly force. I never was, thank God. But I have seen the officers that have been involved in those shootings. And I sat across the table and interviewed them for their cases. And the emotional and psychological stress that they go through from the time that happens, probably for the rest of their lives, if not at least their careers, of having that hanging over their head, whether they shot and hit someone or not, or whether they shot and killed them.

It's unbelievable the amount of stress and pressure that they're under. And you can tell some of never get older. Some of them retire shortly after the incident due to the emotional stress caused by that. Some still stay working, but you can tell sometimes they're not the same person anymore.

And I mean, all of these investigations, not just IA investigations. They're all, is it fair to say, they're all treated as criminal investigations, potentially.

Ours, when we're doing it in major crimes, ours was basically a criminal investigation.

Speaker 2 (08:49.772)
Right. And in New Jersey, if I'm not mistaken, in New Jersey, every single officer involved shooting has to be presented to a grand jury, regardless of whether or not the prosecutor assesses that this is self-defense or this was justified, that has to be presented to the grand jury in the most up-to-date law that's been passed in recent years.

think it's only if it's a deadly...

If it's a death, yeah, I think you're right. If it's deadly, even if the prosecutor in review and everything says, you know, I don't believe this is a criminal homicide, I believe that this is covered by self-defense or other justification, even if the prosecutor feels that way, they have to present it to the grand jury. And when that went into effect, were you still working in major crimes?

Speaker 2 (09:56.48)
In your brief time at the tail end, when they changed that, like was there a, for lack of a better term, was there like a culture shift in, in, in everything? I mean, obviously it puts the final decision in the hands of, you know, 12 random people instead of someone, you know, in, within the system that makes these decisions day to day. How did that change impact your unit and, and even the, people you investigated, like can you describe anything?

in that area.

Well, you could definitely feel the difference because it was more pressure on us now and it wasn't meant to get the officer cleared. It was just making sure that we had everything done investigatively to make sure that whatever the trial or fact is to decide, it was based on a totality of the circumstance, that we did everything that we could have done investigatively. Because I'll tell you what, when we did police-involved shootings, we leave no stone left unturned. I we do absolutely everything we can to gather the facts.

And that's all our job is. Our job was not for us to provide our opinions on whether we felt the deadly force was justified or not. That's not what a detective's job is, whether you're handling police shootings or burglaries or sexual assaults. Your job is to gather the facts. And that's what we did to the best of our possible ability that we could do that. And I think we were the best at doing it.

And has there been an increase in the number of officers prosecuted since that new law, since they have to be presented to the grand jury instead of, you know, those decisions being made by, you know, people in the attorney general's office?

Speaker 1 (11:31.614)
I've certainly seen definitely police officers getting charged in the last couple of years. I didn't know everything about the case. I can't tell you if I thought the case was justified not because I wasn't handling the investigation. I didn't know the totality of the circumstances. Right. All I'm going on is what I saw on video on like the five o'clock news or maybe word being passed to other people. This is what happened. But this definitely seemed like there was an uptick in those.

Yeah.

Do you, in your opinion, without really knowing the facts of the case, do you agree with that new law that you have to present everything to the grand jury? Obviously it's meant to increase transparency and to make sure that people in the public are, it's obviously there so that people in the public don't think that these things are being swept under the rug, right? Because every case has to be presented to the grand jury.

of 15 random people from the community for them to decide. In your opinion though, having done this so many years before that, was this like a solution looking for a problem or was there an actual problem there that this was passed to address?

That was just the usual political game that goes on. Some of the cases are so obvious when you look at the totality of the circumstances between the videos, statements from witnesses, whether it's shooting, reconstruction, and crime scene evidence, it's so obvious that it was justified. There'd be no reason to put it in front of a grand jury. And then when you do that, you're putting it, you're putting a police involved shooting in front of a bunch of civilians who know absolutely nothing about how to analyze force.

Speaker 1 (13:17.09)
don't know what it's like to be a police officer in the moment at the time force is used and basically your life is in their hands and basically depends on how the attorney presents it to the grand jury of what's going to happen.

Right, I mean, when they present these cases, have you testified in grand jury for these investigations before? Okay, and it was that testimony you gave, was that after that law change?

Yes.

Speaker 1 (13:48.096)
It was before. By the the law changed, I was already in higher rank, so the younger detectives are the ones doing the testifying.

before.

Speaker 2 (13:56.246)
When you testified before that law was passed, is it fair to say that those were cases that the attorney general had decided that they wanted to prosecute? Or was it situations where they said, you know, we're not really sure, let's let the grand jury decide, even before they changed the law?

No, I think it was more or less let the grand jury decide.

So when they presented those cases, did they do it in a way that was way more detailed than they usually would in other grand jury matters?

See, you know what's weird about grand juries or any type of trial environment? You know, being an attorney, you can read your case in all the reports and you're like, wow, this is so obvious of what happened here. But when you put it in front of a jury, it comes in choppy, like it's all broken up in pieces. And when you look at it that way, things don't seem as clear as they used to be because it's not going in at a nice even flow.

Sure.

Speaker 1 (14:54.19)
right

I guess to play a devil's advocate though, in our criminal justice process, we have at the end of the day, civilians, middle ones deciding guilt and innocence. What's the difference here making sure that all these cases are presented to the grand jury instead of decided by attorney generals in the higher ranks?

No, I have no problem with the transparency. think that it's a good thing to have. You've to be careful what you wish for sometimes. You can have an officer indict it. To me, someone like me, the force is adamantly clear what happened.

Right. And just, I guess to just give the viewers a little more substance on this. I was a prosecutor for seven years. Generally, you go into a grand jury proceeding as a prosecutor, you're bringing a file in there that you already want to indict. And mainly what these things, mainly when you're indicting a case as a prosecutor, you're dealing with a witness getting on the stand and you ask that witness about five to 10 leading questions that are yet for no answers, right? And then...

99.9 % of the time the grand jury returns the indictment because the grand jury is not deciding guilt or innocence. The grand jury is deciding whether or not there's probable cause to proceed with a criminal charge. And here where you have a mandatory presentment to the grand jury, what gets a little odd, you tell me if you agree Glenn, is usually when you present a case to grand jury, you're not bringing up defenses like self-defense.

Speaker 2 (17:00.948)
or any type of justification because that's something a trial jury decides. So in these police shooting cases, is it fair to say that when they're presented to the grand jury, especially now that it's mandatory, that the prosecutor is getting way more into the detail of New Jersey law, specifically maybe self-defense or other justifications?

Well, they're certainly going more in depth about the facts of the case. It's not the, like you said, the 10 leading questions and saying, all right, who votes to indict and who votes not to? It's a whole day, day and a half, maybe two days of testimony of bringing everything in from playing all the witness statements, playing the officer's statements, introducing all the crime scene evidence, whether it's shooting reconstruction, blood stain pattern analysis, whatever it may be. It's definitely more in depth.

Yeah. Well, yeah, mean, it sounds like it's beyond more than, I mean, they're basically putting on the whole trial in front of the grand jury and saying, Hey, do you think we should go to think this should go to court? and, I, and I guess, I mean, do you feel that that's justified?

Yeah, I mean, they deserve to know all the facts of the case.

Yeah. Well, I guess particularly where they're required to present the case to the grand jury. So otherwise if the case is indicted where they don't really want to prosecute the case. Well, let me ask you this. mean, has that, have you seen that happen even post retirement through talking to colleagues? Like, like here's this case that we thought was pretty clear justified. And now all of sudden we have an indictment and we don't know what to do with this. Is that something that they've seen happen?

Speaker 1 (18:38.926)
I think it's fair to say yes without going into details.

the prosecuting agency had a duty to probably decline going further after an indictment because they didn't have no other couple they definitely didn't have the probable cause but that's up and under the side you know I can't

So in these situations, I don't know if we'll get into specific people or names of cases, but in these situations, have you seen the attorney general's office come back with an indictment that they really didn't want and then down the road dismiss it?

Well, for when I was in major crimes, no, they did not. No, I'm talking, this is stopped after the fact.

After you, after you retired, have you seen that happen even just through talking to colleagues where like, Hey, you know, this case got indicted. We thought it was going to be a pretty clear, you know, no bill and no bill means they didn't, they're not indicting. it was going to be a clear no bill and they come back out with an indictment that they know they can't prove. and, and so do they, in those situations, have they been just trucking along with that indictment?

Speaker 2 (19:49.27)
regardless or have they been acknowledging that it shouldn't have been indicted and dismissing it?

they going forward

They're going forward.

That's unfortunate. That's unfortunate.

Yeah. yeah, I mean, has there been, let me ask you this, like, you know, when you were working there, before they passed this law change, what was the general attitude like towards you and your colleagues who investigated these cases from the rank and file? I mean, did you, did you kind of, was there sort of a, I don't want to say like retreated differently, but like,

Speaker 2 (20:29.656)
Did they kind of not treat you the same way they might treat their other fellow officers?

No, I'll tell you what, my entire time in major crime unit, we had a great relationship with the state police unions. Right. Which makes your investigation run so much smoother because you can get stuff done a lot quicker and easier. And we had great relationships with the union attorneys. They knew us. We know them. They knew how we were doing our investigation. They knew how the interviews went. So I'll tell you what.

in my almost 14 years of handling police shootings, I think maybe one or maybe two cases where an officer involved in a deadly force incident did not provide a statement. Typically, they always did. And I don't think that was a state police case.

What about now? that, has that attitude changed towards like the unit? Well, now to be clear, there's a specific unit that handles these investigations separate from other major crime instances, right?

Well, when you're in the major crime unit, you're automatically in the attorney general's shooting response team. Those are the ones that handle the shootings. Because I know. And that's a co-op investigation between the state police major crime unit and the detectives from the Division of Criminal Justice.

Speaker 2 (21:42.049)
Okay.

Speaker 2 (21:49.89)
I got you. got you. but I guess back to my other question, since they changed the law, has there been a shift in those attitudes and in the general response from the rank and file and the union?

I think it's definitely more difficult around the state for when I'm being told that officers to give statements from them. The witnesses have to give statements or they're going to be subpoenaed in front of a grand jury. Right. So that's never happened. But I think officers are now like in the unions are kind of like, well, you know what? This is what you're doing around the state here. So we'll just go we'll let the evidence speak for itself. And I think that's unfortunate. That's just my opinion.

Because now that I'm in the consultant expert testimony part of my career I see other departments in other states doing things completely different and I try to tell them I like my opinion is if I'm involved in the deadly force Incident I am providing a statement Because I want a bunch of civilians who are going to decide my fate hear my reasoning for what I did why I did it otherwise They're going on on video and potential witnesses who may

be good witnesses or bad witnesses and the evidence and that necessarily doesn't tell the whole story.

And it, you know, just a little more background, you know, from my perspective, you know, as a prosecutor, you, don't have to believe that you had, you can prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt to go to trial. The ethically, you have to believe there's a well-grounded suspicion. And at that point it's, it's up to a jury to decide. Right. So, you know, here you have these cases where ethically they may not believe there's well-grounded suspicion and yet.

Speaker 2 (23:38.478)
They're forced by law to present the case to the grand jury. Do you think that there's enough review going on from, you know, for the cases that are being indicted that they didn't intend to indict? Do you think there's enough of a review going on where they're like, well, are we properly prosecuting this case from an objective standpoint? Or do you think that they're simply,

the grand jury indicted it and we're just gonna take it to the end zone and either get tackled beforehand or not. And that's the end.

It's tough to say because I've been out of that realm for the investigatory aspect for the last what five six seven years, but Yeah, it's just like problem is that the laws that are made are made by You know the people who don't Investigate force they don't investigate Officer involved shootings. Yeah, they're the lawyers for the state and the Senate and stuff like that who make the laws and they don't understand what the gang themselves into by passing these laws

know, Attorney General's not making the laws to do all that stuff. He has to go by what he's told.

And did you, I mean, like, to pivot off of like the officer involved shootings. I mean, let's just talk about like the regular major crimes cases that you investigated that were not police involved shootings. I mean, in your career, did you ever feel that there was a dual standard in the way that the attorney general's office would make final determinations of like final charging decisions for police officers involved in a shooting versus like, you know, a homicide investigation where

Speaker 2 (25:17.486)
You know, was the police weren't involved

Well, it's crazy because as much as we did the investigatory work and did everything for the officer involved shooting, the attorney didn't really speak to us too much about what they were thinking about cases. That was all stuff that was done on the higher ups of the attorney general's office. They weren't going to include us.

They didn't talk to you guys like, hey, you know, Glenn, what do you, like, they didn't talk to you about, well, not so much, I guess, your personal opinion on the matter or your professional opinion. But did they, I mean, I imagine that they, didn't they talk to you about the facts or like asked for clarification on different things and hear, you know what I mean?

The Deputy Attorney General that was handling the case would. Right. But as soon as you got up to the higher ups in the Attorney General's office, nah, they wouldn't, they wouldn't.

They were all that. I just want ask you to warm out the higher ups, guess. How many layers of higher ups was there before you hit the person who had to decide whether or not to charge?

Speaker 1 (26:27.726)
That's beyond my scope. don't know. was never privy to that type of information. you know what? I really didn't want to be. My job was to do the investigation to the best of our ability. And we turned over at the end and said, here you go. This is what we did.

Was there ever any police shooting case where you felt that they should have been charged and they weren't?

There was probably a couple gray area ones that it could have went either way. But for the most part, one, police officers probably use force, whether it's deadly or whatever, what, 1 % of the time with the public. And when it comes to deadly force, it's probably a 1 % of the 1%. So for them to have got to that point, I don't want to say it was clear after the investigation was over. But I don't think that officers were indiscriminately using

deadly force that I saw from, know, as anything happened since then or a case that I wasn't involved with, it definitely could have been.

And just to clarify, were you investigating any discharge of a firearm or a police officer discharged firearm or was it only ones that resulted in death?

Speaker 1 (27:40.243)
state police we handle all all you're here now and now in the watching

Regardless of whether the suspect was in killed or not, that you investigate all of them. I got you. And as part of the investigation, would you also talk to the suspect or try to?

Yes.

Speaker 2 (28:00.654)
And I mean, I guess normally they would probably invoke their right to silence.

well a lot of the times they were deceased, unfortunately. Well, ones that weren't hit or the ones that weren't hit, no, some of them talked. Some of them talked.

And I'm curious, like in your experience, did the one, like in the, the police involved shootings where the person did not die, the suspect did not die and they gave a statement to you. What was the, mean, did, maybe this is a dumb question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. How many of them were, you know, how many of them basically gave a statement and saying that they didn't agree with how the officer used force or versus.

in having time, I guess, to contemplate what happened that they said, you know, maybe I shouldn't have put my hand in my pocket or what have you. Like, what was the overall attitude from the people involved in these shootings that did not die?

the fire went both ways on that so when the Macaulay you had a couple of them were like yeah you know I could probably understand why the office of thought yeah that's you but some of them you know they completely disagreed and gave party contradictory statements against what the officer was given yeah so you have that's why you have to be so diligent and leave no stone unturned when you do your investigation because you know if there's no you know there's no video or if there's no witnesses you know what do have here

Speaker 1 (29:28.27)
You have to do the best you can and the best thing comes with the crime scene stuff, which that was a whole separate unit that handled the shooting reconstruction and crime scene management aspect of it. But that's why it was all so important. You only have one shot to get this right. And when I say right, not to have the opposite justify the shooting, have it right, meaning you gather all the right information so the trier of fact can make a determination when you compare it against the facts of the case and the totality of the circumstances against the standard and the law.

I guess to circle back to my other question from before, because I'm not sure what your answer was. Did you feel that there was a different standard applied by the people who made those final charging decisions when it came to officers being charged versus just, you know, like a member of the public who's being investigated for a homicide?

Well, I don't think any of my 14 years of major crimes, I don't think we ever had an officer charged that I could think of off the top of my head. like said, the detectives didn't decide that. We don't give our opinions. We hand the case over to the prosecutors and then whatever it goes from there, they decide whether it's signing off on it altogether or putting it front of a grand jury. But I don't think anyone's been charged. When it comes to the standard, certainly looked at very closely.

There were situations where we weren't charged, but they were disciplined.

I wasn't aware of anyone for when it comes to a state police shooting. I don't recall everyone getting disciplined after the fact. We always turned our investigation over to the Office of Professional Standards. They're the internal affairs element of the state police. Right. I don't remember. Well, at least when it came to deadly force, there might have been some ancillary other stuff involved that they may have been disciplined on. And then when it comes to the other departments, I wouldn't know.

Speaker 1 (31:27.566)
they would get the investigation after the criminal charges are concluded, if there were any, you know, whether they were cleared or not. And then the AG's, as far as I know, the AG's office would turn over the investigation to their internal affairs and they would decide, I never heard anything back. I don't know. I remember, I don't know what happened after that.

So you're saying that I just want to make sure I understood you. So in the 14 years that you were in major crimes, you were saying that there was never a time when an officer was charged in a shooting incident.

Not that I can recall. Probably 99.9%. I don't recall that. I don't think so that I can remember. Gotcha. again, officers aren't indiscriminately just using deadly force every day either.

Has the number over the years, and since you retired, have the number of police-involved shootings gone up or down or stayed the same?

I'll know all because I'm not in that realm anymore. I'm not keeping track of how many shootings there are because I'm not involved in the investigations. just I go by what I hear on the news. I go by what attorneys call me if they want me to review a case. Right. And usually if an attorney calls me at least up into a year or two ago to review a deadly force case, there's a good chance I was involved in the investigation. So I had to I had to conflict myself out. At least from the time.

Speaker 2 (32:50.318)
During the time you were there though, during the 14 years, did you see an increase over time in the number of police shootings or did it stay the same?

it know what it very you could have five one year you could have fifteen the next year you could have three or four in a month you might not have any for six months it was just it was so random you had no idea what we went and how it was going to come you could have two or three in a weekend right and then you might not be called for six months for a police shooting you just never do

But you don't think there's any type, as far as you recall, was any type of like slope up or down. was kind of just all over the place as far as there's, was it, was it, was there a certain time of year where you'd see more of them? Like.

It wouldn't matter. could be the dead of winter, you could have five in a month. It wouldn't, you know, was the middle of summer. It's just, you honestly never knew.

Gotcha. All right. Well, let's let's let's pivot to a slightly different topic.

Speaker 2 (33:52.408)
The use of force over like your tenure, you know, working in the state police and then, and now after, what has changed in either the policy, the procedure, or just simply like the level of enforcement in these standards, the strictness in which they're enforced? What have you, what shift have you seen in the time that you've been either in the state police or working as an expert?

Well, I think it was January 1st of 21 that the new AG's guidelines went into effect when it comes to use of force. So it went from, I think before that it was probably about an eight page document that was pretty bland. Right. It had a lot to it. Now it's probably like a 35, 40 page document with all types of definitions and seven core principles. And it's pretty in depth now. It's very difficult.

for an officer to think about what he can do and what he can't do in the moment on scene when he's got to think about this humongous policy that's now in effect now.

If you had, if I asked you like, name one positive change and one negative change in the policy that has been altered now, what would you?

I think for the negative, they've kind of limited force options now to some degree about, you know, using strikes to the head and face when you're talking about active resistors and stuff like that. For a positive one, I mean, I don't think the policy is that bad in general. It's just long and wordy. A lot of it, you it didn't really change too much when it comes to the standard of when you can do something. It's still reasonable.

Speaker 1 (35:41.07)
According to Graham versus Carnob, the AG's office just added a necessary and proportional, which they were kind of there anyway. You can't just use force and think you can use it for as long as you want. As soon as the threat begins to desist, you have to till back the force. They're just kind of putting it out in more detail now. But it's not a bad policy. It's just long and wordy.

And why, why do you, for the negative side, why, why do you list the strikes to the head and face?

I just that's that's one of them. Um, I don't know I mean if you can use if you're if it's reasonable for you to use physical force I mean now we're gonna start arguing. Let's just can't punch him with the face. You can punch him in the ribs That's

What is the restriction on use of force to the head and face?

Well, you have these, you you're either a passive resistor, an active resistor, threatening assailant or an active assailant. So if someone's an active resistor, you technically can't punch them in the head and face area. So they can be actively. They're trying to get away from you. They're trying, you know, they're not whether they're flailing their arms and legs, they're not allowing you to get them in custody. They can be running away. You know, you can be justified in tackling them to the ground.

Speaker 2 (36:49.482)
Active Resist.

Speaker 1 (37:03.214)
and punching them, just can't punch them in the head or face. And you know, when you're in the heat of the moment, you know, look, I don't make those decisions, that's the policy that came out.

That would be more

I'm sorry, say that again and I kind of... Say that one more time, I've talked to every other...

You know like I said, I don't think the policy, all the oppositions, we just have to, or not me anymore, but everyone just has to kind of abide by it. Whether you like it or not, that's the way it goes.

And, and like as far as the active resistor, so that would be more someone who's just trying to get away. Versus, versus then like the higher up would be someone who's trying to attack the officer.

Speaker 1 (37:46.796)
Yeah, you're basically fighting with them. Right. And they're trying to assault and hurt you.

it. So I mean at that point, at that point then you're allowed to make face and head strikes. And what's the like the threshold like how do they word it as far as when that changes?

Yes.

Speaker 1 (38:07.746)
That's the problem. Like you could have someone flailing their arm just trying to get away from you. And then with a tenth of a second, they're turning around and trying to punch you. And then all of a sudden you have to make that line of declaration. All right, now I can strike him and now I can't in the face. It's like when you're in a moment, the adrenaline's pumping. You don't have the time to call time out and go, all right, let me look at the policy and see what I can do. It's mono-mono at that point.

What about the use of non-lethal weapons such as pepper spray and a taser?

Yeah, I mean, you have to go a specialized training for TASers in New Jersey. That's a very, higher threshold for an enhanced mechanical force, but there is plenty of officers that train that. Not everyone gets trained in TASers.

Okay.

But everyone else carries, most probably carries OC spray, some sort of batons.

Speaker 2 (39:04.418)
When is an officer allowed to use the OC spray or the taser? what, like active resistor? Can I tase this person or ocean or, pepper spray them.

Yes, you can for an active resist. All force options are on the table when it comes to active resistors. If you're to use deadly, you have to make sure it's according to that. You think you're in fear of serious bodily injury to yourself or someone else.

So the only thing off limits for an active resistor is obviously deadly force. Obviously that's not part, but if you're actively resisting, the only thing off limits is strikes to the face and head. And then what about somebody who

I gotcha.

That might be little higher.

Speaker 1 (40:01.262)
Yeah, like I said, I mean, I look at the policy all the time. I'd be a liar if I haven't memorized because I do not have it memorized. It's 40 pages long.

short.

And what restriction, like what if somebody is, what if there's not a physical tussle going on? What if that person has actually successfully gotten out of the grasp of the officer and is running and his back is to the officer? Like what restrictions does the officer have in that scenario?

I mean basically all force options are on the table except for the deadly force and possibly the enhanced mechanical with the taser. I'm to have to look at that one. But if you know, got baton strikes, OC spray, tactical and physical force, that's all in play.

I got you. And does the use of force, I'm going to pivot a little bit now too. Does the use of force policy take into account like mental illness or anything like that?

Speaker 1 (40:55.288)
Yes, there's a whole section on it when it comes to de-escalation, which is the big hot word in New Jersey the last three or four years. Every officer has to be trained in de-escalation, and that includes trying to understand the person that you're dealing with. There could be some mental issues going on.

Tell me more about de-escalation. What exactly does that unpack that word for me?

It's basically if possible and if feasible, you want to try to eliminate or reduce the need to have to use force in general. So they want you to try to use communication skills, listening skills, know, warnings, trying to understand the person that you're dealing with. There may be some sort of disability going on there. Just try to keep that stuff in mind and using force as a last resort, if possible. You know, I will say that I completely agree with de-escalation techniques.

It's just sometimes it's not possible and it's not feasible to be able to do that. Right. It's just not. And sometimes whether it's command staff or attorneys or the public media, they don't understand that. You don't have that ability all the time to be able to deescalate. Things happen quickly. And so someone could turn from a passive resistor to now an active assailant, just attacking you and trying to hurt you. It's just not possible in every situation.

And what is the standard for when de-escalation is no longer... like is there... well, in the use of force manual, when it talks about de-escalation, does it mandate when de-escalation is necessary before force can be used? Or how... what is the interplay between de-escalation and force and when force can... is authorized versus when you need to try to de-escalate?

Speaker 1 (42:41.528)
They want you to always try to deescalate first if possible. I think they use if feasible in the guidelines.

And so what, like, how do they define if feasible? Is it left very much to the what's reasonable?

Well, to me, that should be up to the police officer on scene. He's going to have to articulate. If he did not de-escalate, he's going to have to explain why. But sometimes, as you know, the attorneys and the public and media, they want to decide, even though they weren't there, whether it was feasible for not to be able to do that. And look, I teach use of force to first-line supervisors, and I tell them, you you guys are the ones correcting your officers' reports. You're teaching them.

If they don't deescalate, you have to have them explain why they didn't deescalate. Because that's the first thing that's going to come up. Whether it's an internal review through your department, whether it's a civil case or whether it's criminal. Did you or did you not have a chance to deescalate? If you didn't, why didn't you? And it can be explained. You just have to explain that. But you have to do it. It starts right then in your investigation report. Because if you don't explain it then, you're in trouble right from the get-go.

And I mean, I guess from my perspective, having done this as a and having done this as a defense attorney now is the real variation between one officer to the next when it comes to deescalation is how long they try to deescalate. You might have officer A, he may spend 20, 30 minutes trying to deescalate. He may be successful, he may not. You may have officer B, he may put

Speaker 2 (44:21.698)
you know, five minutes into trying to deescalate and say, all right, well, I tried. And now he's going to move into, you know, trying to, you know, grab, take, get control of the arm and put the arm. And then it turns into a fight. is there any type of guideline as to like how long you have to try to deescalate? Like if the person is, is, is still a passive resistor where they're just like arguing with the officer and there's no indication that they're going to step it up.

At what point does the officer say, okay, I've tried and now I'm going to use some, some proportional force to put them in handcuffs or whatever it may be in that situation.

You know what, it comes down to every case is absolutely 100 % different. The officers are different, the other involved person is different, the totality of the circumstances and the factors of each case are different. And I'll give you an example. If you're a, let's just say a 5 foot 200 pound female, how long are you gonna sit there and try to deescalate with a 6 foot 8, 300 pound muscle guy before they're actually going to kill you?

You can only do it so long. At the same time, you could be a 6'8", 300-pound muscle officer dealing with a 5'2'' female. mean, are you really going to go in and start doing strikes on her or could you easily manage this situation? It's just so different on every case. That's why it's so important under the Grand Verse Connors Standard and the AG's guileage. You have to understand the totality of the circumstance because every case is different.

And this is one of the biggest point I want to make throughout this entire podcast. You can't determine the reasonableness of force just by watching a stupid video. You have to understand everything. You know, what they were called to and what did it turn into when they got there. If the person was resisting, how were they resisting? And you have to start looking at it. And these are factors that are considered throughout the country. And they're also listed in the AG's guidelines. You start talking about

Speaker 1 (46:26.254)
Number of officers versus number of suspect. Size, weight, and shape of suspect versus officer. Do you know the person personally? If you've dealt with him before, does he know to be violent? Does he have mental illness? Do you think he's on the influence of drugs or alcohol? Do you have the availability of other force options available? Are there innocent bystanders around? There is just so much information that you need to understand. especially when it comes to

the perception of the officer on scene, because that's making the determination of force. And it's not just what happens that scene. A lot of it can come through his training and experience. So you have to understand the officer's perception, but at the same time, he has to articulate it and explain it. If he doesn't, that's to his own peril down the line. Like I said, for instance, if he deals with the same person all the time, he's fought with this guy.

Numbers, times before the guy has resisted. He knows should have weapons. All that could come into play when it comes to his reasonable perception on scene. Right, right.

And

Let me just take a look at my notes, see what else you wanna go over.

Speaker 2 (47:41.806)
So well, you know, here I didn't cover this.

Let's talk about, like private citizens and use of force in maybe their job, like maybe security guard or, or, you know, someone. The best sample I have is casino security, right? Like they're dealing with people. And I have a lot of clients that, you know, it kind of seems to me that they don't have the same,

guidelines or the same restrictions on the use of force sometimes and then they're calling the police to say, this guy resisted. Tell me any experience you've had with the use of force within the private sector, especially now you're doing it, you know, working as an expert.

I haven't had any cases yet. I've had a couple of attorneys call me and say they're get back to me. They wanted to pick my brain and stuff. it comes to like the security down the casino, as far as I know, they don't wanna go hands on with people unless they absolutely have to, as in either they're being attacked or they're trying to save someone else from being attacked or in the process of being assaulted. Because that's huge liability on the casino.

Are they bound by the same guidelines as the one they can use force or is it different for them?

Speaker 1 (49:02.752)
It's still going to be reasonable. When it comes to security, it's different. Like if you're talking about a private citizen out in the world, people have a duty. They have a law to retreat if they can. Right.

Right, right. And for everyone watching, as a private person, if you're involved in an altercation, if you're going to claim self-defense, one of the elements is that there is no ability to retreat to absolute safety. And the only time it doesn't apply is when you're in residence. You don't have a duty to retreat in that situation. That's what Glenn's talking about. So as far as private security though, do they...

Is there a standard that they have to abide by the same as police officers or is it really just based off of whatever the company policy is?

it's still going to be reasonable force, which they're allowed to do under certain circumstances. They can use force, but again, they're going to be scrutinized pretty well after that incident.

Have you ever been involved in an investigation where there was some sort of shooting or fatal incident involving either, not necessarily casino security, but other private security or some security guard or anything like that?

Speaker 1 (50:20.526)
I have not. I said, think last week I could call them all two specific cases, something like that, where security used deftly force. And I'm just going by what the attorney told me on the phone. I don't know the facts on the totality of the circumstances of the case yet. So if I get the case, I'll have to review that. And then you start looking at the security departments, their policies, their trainings, their lesson plans. How well are they training their officers to understand the law and what they can do when they can't do something?

I gotcha. And do you, if, mean, if you were ever to be retained on a case like that, would you use the attorney general guidelines as sort of a starting point in whether or not that private security person acted reasonably or would you put the, okay, you would. I would. So essentially if you're in private security, you should probably take a look at that guideline and make sure that you're, you keep it somewhat in mind in your job.

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean this this this liability is there right absolutely Absolutely. Yes

criminally and civilly. Obviously, police officers have to, they're there to enforce the law and make arrests if necessary. In terms of just normal self-defense for what a private citizen would claim in his own defense, how does that differ from the officer's use of force restrictions?

Well again, the private citizen has a duty to retreat if they're able to do so. And if they don't do so, they're gonna have to explain why they didn't do so and understand the totality of the circumstances that happened just prior to the force being utilized. It's definitely a little bit trickier to handle stuff like that. You get the self-defense. We've had murder cases where people are trying to claim self-defense. The totality of the circumstances have understood what happened prior, what led up to them coming together.

Speaker 2 (52:21.046)
Right. Did you ever have, I mean, I guess you're absolutely right. There's no duty to retreat. In addition, know, self-defense, the purpose has to be to protect yourself from serious injury or death in a law enforcement scenario though, that's not necessarily the case because they could be trying to make an arrest of what they deem to be a dangerous offender. And during the course of that, talk about that. Is there more...

Is there a justification for deadly force? Not so much necessarily for self preservation, but to protect the public. Like if you have someone who, let's say, let's say there's a serial killer and they're going to make an arrest and this guy's running away and it looks like he might get away. Is there an argument to be made that they can justifiably open fire on him to prevent him from escaping?

right

Right.

So obviously that has significant impact on the use of force versus self-defense. Glenn, is there anything else? Well, you know, we talked about, so we talked about a lot about the attorney general guidelines. We talked about the recent law change and how they present these cases to grand jury in these police shootings. We talked about...

Speaker 2 (54:14.286)
policy changes that you've seen over your career and what has gone into effect since you retired and we talked about mental health and security, private security and the use of force by them. Is there anything that we haven't covered that you would want to talk about?

Like I said a minute ago, when it comes to everyone judging and analyzing force just from watching video, it's so much more than that. I mean, you have the public and the media scrutinizing police officers just from watching a video when they don't understand the totality of the circumstances. That's the standard of force, understanding everything that happened leading up to the force. If you don't know that, you just have a small piece of the puzzle just by looking at the video.

And I'm not saying it's going to be justified for the officer. I'm saying for you to determine that you have to understand everything that happened by not doing so. You're giving the officer a huge disjustice of not doing it. You're handling it properly. And I have that since I've had my company, I'll tell you what, for all, the, not all, but the majority of the administrative cases I have where a department is looking to discipline an officer on force. I mean, it's unbelievable.

what these internal affairs units around the state do. They'll look at the video, they won't interview the officer, they won't interview any of the witness officers. They'll look at the video and they think they can open up a policy to determine whether the force was reasonable according to the policy and there's so much more. mean, to not even interview the officers and give them an opportunity to explain and articulate their perception of what they did and why they did it is...

This is not understanding how to do investigations as far as I'm concerned. You don't know how to analyze force. And it's like I said, it's more than just video.

Speaker 2 (56:12.184)
So yeah, I think we could talk about that a little more in depth. mean, obviously the video we're talking about mostly body worn camera footage, right?

Correct, yeah. And I'll be the first one to say, the standard of force is you're not supposed to look at something in 2020 hindsight. You try to put yourself in the officer's position at the time his force is used. Now, as soon as the incident is over, whoever's looking at it is looking at it in 2020 hindsight, including me. When I'm providing an expert opinion on a case, I'm looking at it in 2020 hindsight. But when I give my opinions at the end, I know the totality of the circumstances, and I try to put myself in the officer's position at that time and say,

Was it reasonable and necessary, proportional, for him to do what he had done? And sometimes it's easier to know that after knowing everything, and sometimes it's still a gray area. Force is not black and white. By any means of the imagination, there are cases that, even after you understand everything that happened, you're kind of still scratching your head going, wow, you can make arguments for both sides of whether you thought it was reasonable or not. And that's just the way it is. It's not.

Again, it splits like a judgment on the circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolved. That comes right from Grant. And even in the attorney general's directive that precipitated the new use of force policy, they even acknowledged that no policy can cover every incident that a law enforcement officer is going to be involved in. It's not black and white all.

And, know, I guess going back to the bodywork camera footage, before you finished your career was that, well, remind me, what year did you retire?

Speaker 1 (57:56.75)
June of 2023.

Okay, I mean, bioware camera footage at that point was pretty prevalent. I believe the attorney general guideline came out that all departments should have body cameras. When did that come out? In like 20...

It was like only one, but then maybe a year before I retired, all the detectives had a where to. Not just the patrol officers, everyone.

Did you have to towards the of your career? Did you have to wear body camera?

Luckily I was more of an administrator at that point so I wasn't out handling cases that much. If I did I was just out helping my guys but yeah everyone had a learn. And sometimes that's uncomfortable because you have to have conversations with your detectives and you're allowed to turn it off to have those conversations but it looks like you're trying to hide something when you're doing it.

Speaker 2 (58:35.404)
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (58:41.763)
Sure.

Speaker 2 (58:48.046)
Well, assuming everybody remembers to turn them off again with, right? So I mean, in your, in your time then investigating these cases and, and, know, living through the rise of the body or camera, um, what would you say overall? It's, it's, it's a, it's a pro that these incidents are captured on camera and that the officers involved are able to say, look, this is what happened. Or, or at least look at these.

The video certainly captures a large portion of what you need to know in regards to these shootings and obviously just things that they don't capture, like what's going on in an officer's mind, knowledge of different circumstances. But I mean, would you agree that it is a positive thing that this technology has been developed and is being used throughout the state?

Absolutely, I agree 100%. The body-worn cameras help the officers more than it ever hurts them. And you just kneel on the head there by saying, even though the body-worn camera may capture something, it's not capturing the perception of the officer at the time. It might not even be focused on the same thing that the officer is focused on when force is used. You're just getting the focus of the body-worn camera. That's completely different from the eyes of the officer in what he's thinking and why he's thinking that. So again.

That's why cameras not the end all be all. It's a small piece of a very large puzzle. That's why you also have to look for exterior video, CCT, the TV video around, or body worn cameras from different perspectives and witness statements because the body worn camera, the officer on the time, if he's involved in a fight with someone, that body worn camera is going to be shaking all over the place. It might fall on the ground. may completely block everything that's being seen.

So you can't just rely on that video. You have to look for other video as well and other and still talk to the witnesses on scene and understand the crime scene and the evidence that's there that's showing what may or may not have happened.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48.566)
Right. Do you have any opinion on how they could improve the body cameras? I always kind of think to myself, what if they, instead of being on their chest, it was somehow mounted on something they wore on their head so that if they turn their head, it's looking at what they're looking at? Because that was oftentimes some of the issues I would find in reviewing cases, either when I was prosecutor or now as defense attorney, especially in

You know, incidents where the officer and the other party are like right next to each other. And then there's some sort of scuffle and this camera is on their chest. So it's not really capturing like what exactly is going on. Uh, and I often wonder like, would it be better to put it somewhere else? And maybe, maybe that exists and it's being used elsewhere in, in the country, but I know in New Jersey, you know, pretty much everyone's using Axon, uh, camera right on the chest and that's where it mounts. Uh, do you have, do have any comment on that?

No, there's other cameras that I've seen in my training that I've had throughout my career. Cameras that kind of like, like you said, almost like wearing glasses that come out from the side of their head. So I've seen it happen, how good they are. I've never seen them firsthand or seen a video that I've been involved in investigation with, but they're out there. But they could probably get marked off pretty easy too.

Yeah, I've definitely seen, even with the chest ones, I've seen them fall off, get knocked off during the altercation and then, you know, sometimes they land on the back, sometimes they on hammer side and then they're useless and you just, you know, you're just listening to the audio. But so I guess though, like you don't have enough experience with these other ones to even recommend pros and cons of the other.

Yeah, but I mean it's definitely better to have some sort of camera there

Speaker 2 (01:02:36.366)
I mean, I would say just, you know, from my perspective at this point in time, you know, it used to, I lived through in the seven years that I was a prosecutor, I lived through like sort of like the beginnings of body camera or some departments had them, some departments didn't have them. And then as time went on more and more had them. And now it's the point where if they don't have a body camera footage in a case, everybody like has their eyebrow go up like, Ooh, they don't have body camera. Like, Oh, what happened? Like, Ooh, something, something like, like, you know.

unsavory happened in this case. So now it's expected that you have body camera footage and even the most simplest of cases. I mean, I traffic ticket cases where I'm getting body camera and it's like literally a five minute clip of the officer saying like you were speeding, here's your ticket. But it's like every case now has body camera footage. Do you have any thoughts or feelings on that?

Yeah.

Alright, any final comments Glenn on anything we talked about or anything we might not have covered?

I think we we flew for a lot of stuff and well a little bit over an hour. Man, I really appreciate being on. It was a great time. I could talk about Force all day long.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55.864)
Thanks for coming on, Glen.

I appreciate it. Thank you.

Take care.

Speaker 1 (01:04:10.318)
For more information or to contact Louis Casedia, can go to LaceLaw.com. That's L-A-C-E-L-A-W.com.

Speaker 1 (01:04:23.544)
To launch a podcast or to upgrade a podcast to video, go to nichepodcastpodcast.com.