policeone.comConn. police worried by ambush assaults, social media hostility
Police say every error or misjudgment is broadcast endlessly, creating hostility towards cops
Today at 12:03 PM
By Gregory B. Hladky
The Hartford Courant
The Hartford Courant
HARTFORD, Conn. – A series of ambush-style attacks on cops around the nation and a barrage of anti-police commentary on social media has left officers stressed and "hyper-vigilant," police in Hartford and across the state say.
"New York City has lost four officers in just 10 months," said New Haven Police Chief Dean Esserman. "It has to have an impact on every officer, on every police chief … on every member of an officer's family."
Just last week, a Hartford officer was forced to shoot a man who tried to drive his car into the officer, according to police. The individual, who had a history of mental illness and addiction, was shot twice in the arm but survived.
In some cases, police officers in this state and around the nation have blamed news media and social media, at least in part, for a "post-Ferguson" atmosphere. They say every police error or fatal misjudgment is broadcast endlessly on television and the Internet, blowing those incidents out of proportion and creating a more hostile environment for police.
Sgt. Richard Holton III, president of the Hartford Police Union, said that kind of intense media and "interest group" pressure "has brought fuel to the fire and made it more socially acceptable" to attack officers simply for wearing the uniform.
The debate over what impact cellphone videos and social media are having on police, and whether they are creating an atmosphere that may put more cops at risk, is intensifying.
A recent Gallup poll found that the confidence Americans have in their police to protect them from violent crime has plunged to its lowest level since 1995. The survey found that just 52 percent of those polled have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in police. Confidence in law enforcement has been near or above 60 percent since 1998, according to Gallup.
Last month, FBI Director James Comey said police officers across the nation have similar feelings of frustration at the constant play across the Internet of cellphone videos of officers making mistakes and sometimes fatal errors. He said cops tell him they feel "under siege" and threatened.
John DeCarlo, a former Branford police chief and an associate professor of criminology at the University of New Haven, said there is as yet no hard evidence that the pressure of social media and cell videos is endangering police officers. He said there are now studies underway to look at whether there is a connection between this new communications phenomenon and what appears to be "a small spike in officer assaults" in recent years.
According to a report by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Foundation last December, 15 officers were killed by "ambush assault" in 2014, a death toll that matched 2012 "for the highest total since 1995."
The last time a Connecticut police officer was shot and killed was December 2004, when Newington Officer Peter Lavery was gunned down by a man armed with an assault rifle. In 2002, New Haven Officer Robert Fumiatti was severely wounded attempting to make an arrest, and he died in 2007 of complications relating to that gunshot wound.
DeCarlo said the big question being asked is about the impact of omnipresent cellphone videos and social media on policing.
"Is it making policing more dangerous?" DeCarlo asked. Anecdotal reports from cops would appear to suggest the answer is yes, he said, "but we have to wait for the numbers."
DeCarlo said it is statistically likely that about 10 percent of this nation's approximately 700,000 police officers aren't cut out for the job, and that those are the cops who are most often caught on video making sometimes terrible errors.
"If you look at just that 10 percent, and that's what we seem to be doing now in social media … you find that people are concentrating on this tiny minority of police who make mistakes," DeCarlo said.
Holton said his officers are increasingly frustrated by situations in which they are blamed even when they're doing their job correctly. "They say, 'What I did was 100 percent right, and now I'm being questioned about what I did,'" said Holton.
Holton said cops have to deal with the unpleasant reality that, "whenever a police officer uses force, it's never pretty."
Esserman and other top law enforcement officials, like Southington Chief Jack Daly, are reluctant to make blanket judgments that social media and cellphone videos are contributing to an increase in attacks on police officers.
"I don't know yet whether it is picking up or not," Esserman said of the possibility that more ambush assaults on police are now taking place.
He pointed out that the number of police officers killed on the job is dramatically lower than in the 1960s and 1970s, when more than 200 officers a year died on duty.
In 2014, 96 officers were killed on the job. So far this year, 103 officers around the nation have lost their lives while on duty, including 32 by gunfire and three by vehicular assault.
The head of Connecticut's NAACP, Scott X. Esdaile, said he can understand that police "have legitimate concerns" about these kinds of ambush assaults on officers and whether social media is involved.
"But it goes two ways," Esdaile said. "The people in the community are seeing police officers badly beating and killing people in the community. … The police also have to understand the negativity and raw feelings within our community from all the factual things they are seeing on these videos."
"The elephant in the room is that the majority of this is happening in the black community," Esdaile added.
Michael Lawlor, Gov. Dannel Malloy's top criminal justice adviser, said there is "trepidation on both sides," from police on the street and from the minority community.
"I think it's pretty clear that the interaction between police officers and African Americans generally seems to be more tension-filled than ever before," Lawlor said.
David McGuire, a lawyer with the Connecticut chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said, "Nobody has been able to show any marked increase in crime or violent acts against police" as a result of cellphone videos and social media.
"I'm sure it's having some effect on police officers," he said of the recent spate of ambush assaults, "but it's probably more on morale than anything else."
"This is a complicated time for policing," McGuire said. "But the problem is not technology." He said cellphone videos and police body cameras are the best way for police "to regain the public's trust" by showing cops doing their jobs right.
Esserman and DeCarlo say the new technology that is producing all these videos of police is also providing cops with new tools to help their job of protecting the public.
Many Connecticut police chiefs, including Southington's Daly, support the use of police body cameras. "In the vast majority of cases, [body camera videos] exonerates the officer," Daly said.
Esserman said he believes that "the greatest safety officers develop is the support of their community," and that cellphones are now a critical tool for cops trying to communicate with the people on their beat.
"We are not an army of occupation," he said, adding a cop is part of the surrounding community and every time a police officer is killed "is a wound for the entire community."
As for police officers feeling threatened by all the scrutiny of the new communications system, Esserman said, "We're all under the microscope these days: police, teachers, doctors, politicians. … We're all under increased scrutiny in this new world of technology."
Copyright 2015 The Hartford Courant
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
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