SAN FRANCISCO – Police officers replying to an auto burglary in development right here last week found the suspect sitting in the lower back of a Ford van with a machete in hand. Over the following three hours, a developing regulation enforcement organization covering a crisis negotiation crew and tactical operations professionals turned around the man who is under suspicion. He refused to come out of the van, so they engaged him in dialogue. At 8:37 p.m., the suspect, Marcel King, a 34-year-old Black guy, exited the van without his machete and surrendered.
“By setting apart the scene, calling for backup, and typically de-escalating the situation, we were given a non-violent resolution,” stated Lt. Michael Nevin, who heads training at the San Francisco Police Department’s Field Tactics Force Options Unit.
“No-information incidents are the great news accidents.” The calm standoff in San Francisco stands in evaluation to the various high-profile police actions that have resulted in violence in recent years, notably the death of George Floyd, even as in police custody in May, lead to a worldwide issue against racism, injustice, and immoderate use of unjustified actions by police.
More recently, there has been the killing this month of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man shot by a white police officer in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota.
The death at a shooting last month of 13-year-old Adam Toledo by Chicago police officers. Those incidents have caused many deaths, and others have sparked renewed calls for law enforcement training specializing in serving
all participants of a community, particularly people of color inclined due to systemic racism, and places a top class on de-escalation methods that reduce violence. But specialists say a patchwork method to police reform has left the country at a crucial crossroad and without a clear route forward.
