Montgomery County enacted a new policy last week requiring police officers to intervene if when see other officers use excessive force. The policy took effect on Thursday.
The policy states that “it shall be the duty of every officer present at any scene where physical force is being applied to either stop, or attempt to stop, another officer when force is being inappropriately applied or is no longer required,” according to Barry Hudson, a county spokesman.
County Executive Marc Elrich, Police Chief Marcus Jones and Torrie Cooke, the president of the county’s police union, worked together on the intervention policy, according to a county press release.
During a virtual press conference Tuesday afternoon, Elrich said that during a community forum on policing last summer, the topic of excessive use of force by some officers frequently came up.
Elrich said he then asked Jones to work with the union to negotiate a change to the use-of-force law.
Jones said that if an officer “goes outside of their training” or the “force that’s allowable,” another officer has a duty to “stop or attempt to stop” that officer from using force.
When asked about penalties, Jones said the duty to intervene is an administrative matter that could be handled with “a range of penalties” depending on the circumstances and the officer’s record. Criminal charges would have to come from the State’s Attorney’s Office, he said.
Separately, the County Council is also considering legislation that would restrict officers from using deadly force or neck and carotid restraints unless there is an “imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury.”
The council bill would “prohibit a member of the police from using deadly force, including a neck restraint or carotid restraint, against a person.” It defines carotid restraint as “a technique applied in an effort to control or disable a subject by applying pressure to the carotid artery, the jugular vein, or the neck with the purpose or effect of controlling a subject’s movement or rendering a subject unconscious by constricting the flow of blood to and from the brain.”
A neck restraint is defined in the bill as “a technique involving the use of an arm, leg, or other firm object to attempt to control or disable a subject by applying pressure against the windpipe or the neck with the purpose or effect of controlling a subject’s movement or rendering a subject unconscious by blocking the passage of air through the windpipe.”
The section of the bill that deals with officer interventions states that officers would be required “to stop, or attempt to stop, another officer who is using excessive force, violating the use of force policy, or committing a crime.”
The bill would protect officers from retaliation if they intervene when another officer is seen violating the use-of-force policy.
Council Member Will Jawando, one of the bill’s sponsors, said in an interview Tuesday afternoon that he supports the police department’s new intervention policy, but thinks the council bill goes further.
Jawando noted that the council’s bill protects officers who intervene from facing retaliation later.
“They cannot then be disciplined for doing so, even if they were incorrect. We want them to err on the side of intervention,” he said.
Jawando said the council bill changes an officer’s use-of-force standard by raising it from “reasonable” to “necessary.” Necessary, according to the bill means that “a reasonable law enforcement officer would objectively conclude, under the totality of the circumstances, that there was no reasonable alternative to the use of force.”
“It also says as a last resort, after all other reasonable alternatives have been exhausted,” Jawando said of the use-of-force standard in the council bill.
During the press conference on Tuesday, Jones said he thinks the council’s bill is similar to the police department’s new officer intervention policy.
“It’s my belief that the council is working on something similar, though they are putting it into legislation. This is a policy that County Executive Elrich and I have been working on since last summer,” he said.
A department policy can be changed more easily than a county law, which requires the council to take action.
Cooke said the council’s bill “reinforces” policies the police department already adopted. He said officers stopped using chokeholds about 20 years ago.
“We haven’t been doing those, and we haven’t supported those in training,” he said.
Jawando later said that carotid restraints and chokeholds are about the same thing.
Asked whether they would support the council’s bill, both Jones and Cooke said they wanted to study it more before taking a position.
At the council’s meeting on Tuesday, Council Member Hans Riemer said he is working on legislation that focuses on disciplinary processes for the police department.
“We need to ensure that the department can enforce its policies and I certainly believe that there has been undue influence by the FOP (Fraternal Order of Police) in the internal decision making and disciplinary procedures of the MCPD,” he said. “We need to fix that. We need to be open about that. We need to be not afraid to say that. We need to take it on.”
The council’s legislation comes after the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man in Minneapolis. Floyd died May 25 after a white police officer pinned him to the ground and pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, even though Floyd was having trouble breathing.
Floyd later died at a hospital. The officer and three others who were present and watched what happened have been fired and criminally charged.
This story will be updated.
Dan Schere can be reached at daniel.schere@moco360.media
