Capstone: reviewing the Tidewater Park call

For the final class, Desjardins arranges the room as the Port Ardent use-of-force review committee would: a long table, the three body-worn camera videos queued on a screen, the reports, the medical record summary and Haddad's supervisor review in a binder at each seat. The students sit as the committee. Haddad, Ivey and, by video link, Kerr, the crisis worker, take questions. 'You have everything the real committee had,' Desjardins says. 'Your job is not to decide whether these officers are good or bad people. Your job is to understand what happened, judge each part against the law and policy, and decide what should change so the next call goes better.'

The method

The committee uses a structured after-action review built around four questions, adapted from the method the United States Army developed in the 1970s and now used widely in policing, health care and firefighting. What was supposed to happen? What actually happened? Why was there a difference? What will we sustain and what will we change? The review looks at the whole call, from the 911 call to the meeting with Pelley a week later, not only at the moments of force. It separates findings about individual officers from findings about training, policy and equipment, because most problems in a call have causes at more than one level.

Desjardins sets three ground rules. First, judge decisions by what the officers knew and could reasonably have known at the time, not by what the video later showed. Second, give credit where it is due as carefully as you identify problems, because what went well is just as important to repeat. Third, every recommendation needs an owner and a date, or it is not a recommendation.

The timeline

Phase one: arrival and communication

What was supposed to happen: policy called for officers to use time, distance and communication with a person in crisis, to request a crisis team where available and to keep the public safe. What happened: the officers did all of this, and did it well. Malhotra introduced himself, listened, named emotions and offered choices, as lesson 2 described. Reyes took cover without being asked. Brody managed bystanders and transit without adding a voice. Haddad supported the slow approach on the radio. The bottle came down after nine minutes without force.

The committee found that this phase should be sustained in full and used as a training example. Students point out that it is the part of the call most likely to be forgotten, because nothing dramatic happened. 'That's exactly why we have to put it in front of every recruit,' Haddad says. 'If all anyone remembers from Tidewater Park is the knee, we will have learned the wrong lesson.'

Phase two: the handover

What was supposed to happen: a calm handover to the crisis worker, with a plan for transport to hospital. What happened: Kerr arrived, the conversation went well, and then the hospital was raised without the officers having agreed with her where they would stand or what they would do if Pelley tried to leave. Nobody was between Pelley and the road. Why the difference: the handover felt like the end of the call, so the officers relaxed, and the platoon had no habit of a short planning huddle with crisis workers. Kerr told the committee she would have welcomed one.

The committee found that this was a system gap rather than an individual failing. It recommended that the service and the crisis program agree on a short handover checklist, as lesson 4 described, and train on it jointly.

Phase three: the curb and the ground

What was supposed to happen: if Pelley tried to leave and posed a risk to himself, officers could lawfully apprehend him and use the force reasonably necessary to do so. What happened: the officers stopped him at the curb with the least force that could work, and when he pulled and kicked, they brought him to the ground and handcuffed him in twenty seconds. The committee found the apprehension and the grounding lawful and within policy, as lesson 5 explained. It noted that closing the distance at a run, with no roles agreed, led to an uncontrolled fall that could easily have been onto the sidewalk or the road, and that nobody spoke to Pelley for the first fifteen seconds on the ground except to shout 'Stop resisting.'

Phase four: after the handcuffs

What was supposed to happen: policy required that a person handcuffed in a prone position be moved onto their side or sitting up as soon as practicable, with someone monitoring breathing. What happened: Brody's knee stayed on Pelley's upper back for about 40 seconds after handcuffing, while Pelley said twice that he could not breathe. Reyes intervened after 26 seconds of the first warning, and Pelley was on his side 46 seconds after the handcuffs went on. Why the difference: as lesson 8 explained, Brody arrived into the struggle at peak arousal, experienced auditory exclusion and task fixation, and nobody announced that the handcuffs were on.

The committee found that the weight after handcuffing was outside policy, created real medical risk and was the most serious issue in the call. It also found that the main causes were ones training could address, that Brody's corrected report was honest and that his response to the review was constructive. It found Reyes's intervention exemplary. It did not find that Brody had intended to harm Pelley, and it agreed with Haddad's decision to deal with the matter through additional training rather than discipline.

Phase five: aftercare, reporting and follow-up

Medical care, once paramedics were called, was good, and Malhotra stayed with Pelley at the hospital. The committee noted that paramedics were requested 52 seconds after handcuffing, which it considered reasonable, but recommended that paramedics be requested before going hands on with a person in crisis whenever possible. Explanation to Pelley at the scene was minimal. Reports were completed on time, but one was incomplete. Haddad's meeting with Pelley a week later, though not required, was found to be good practice.

Recommendations

Students debate whether the recommendations go far enough. Marco DiSanto argues that Brody should have been disciplined. Jesse Morningstar argues that discipline would have taught every officer to write shorter reports and stay quiet. Desjardins lets the debate run, then points out that both concerns are legitimate and that accountability can take different forms. 'What matters is that the outcome is fair, that it is explained, and that the same thing is less likely to happen again,' he says. 'That last test is the hardest one, and it is the one the public cares about most.'

What the people involved said

Malhotra told the committee that the nine minutes of conversation were the most satisfying part of his career so far, and the curb the most frightening. Reyes said she would remember the four words she said to Brody for the rest of her career, and that she wished she had said them twenty seconds sooner. Brody said he had watched the video more times than he could count, and that what bothered him most was not that he had been told to move but that he had not heard Pelley. Kerr said she now huddles with officers before every handover. Ivey said the call was a reminder that the line between a routine apprehension and a death in custody can be a matter of seconds.

Pelley, through his sister, gave permission for the call to be used in training. His sister said he was doing better, back on his medication and living with her. She asked that the course include one thing: that the officers who talked to him at the start were kind, and that he remembers that part too.

Taking it forward

Desjardins ends the course where it began, with the still image of two officers standing well back from a man holding a bottle. 'Everything in this course is in that picture,' he says. 'The talking, the distance, the patience, the crisis worker on the way. And everything after it, the curb, the ground, the knee, the words that stopped it, the care, the report, the review, is what happens when even a well-handled call reaches the point where force is needed. You will all be in that picture one day. When you are, talk first, wait if you can, get help if you can, use the least force that will work, stop the moment it is no longer needed, look after the person afterward, and speak up when a colleague needs you to.'

The next courses in the program build on this one. The arrest and control course covers handcuffing, escorts and searching people after arrest in practical detail. The firearms course covers deadly force and judgment under stress. In the spring term, the less-lethal weapons course covers conducted energy weapons, OC spray and batons, and the high-risk calls course covers felony stops, building searches and active threats.