The Syracuse Police Department [11] introduced a new way to discuss the divide between police officers and the general public: They gathered together members of local community groups, handed them a pair of handcuffs and a prop gun and asked, "Now what would you do?"
Civilian Training Day casts Syracuse locals as arresting officers while trained officers pretended to be everyday citizens resisting arrest. The scenarios they acted out, were everyday scenes that officers say they're called to all the time, including a protester blocking the sidewalk, a man on the street who may or may not have a gun and a domestic dispute at which the officer has to bring both the husband and wife under control.
Lt. Roger McReynolds, the officer who conducted the event, says that these scenarios are usually used for training officers and this was the first time they put civilians to the same tests.
"We wanted them to see what we go through on a daily basis," McReynolds said. "You go from one dangerous situation to another, you've got people shouting at you, not cooperating with you, even situations where you don't know if someone's hands are going to come up empty or if they're about to pull out a weapon.
"An officer has to make split-second decisions that the rest of the world is going to second guess for the remainder of time, whether or not they did the right thing."
Shiu-Kai Chin, a member of the board of directors at Interfaith Works [12] said that even with his own problem-solving skills as a computer engineering teacher, it was hard to make the right decision in the heat of a moment.
"By the time I got to the third scenario, I could really feel the frustration in the moment," Chin said. "And I have to admit there was an instance where if I was really in that situation, I might have shot someone who didn't have a weapon. And that would be all over the news."
Joseph Lipari, the administrator of the Citizen's Review Board [13], said even though he'd participated in police training scenarios like these before, he still found himself getting too narrowly focused.
"When you have the one task of getting someone's hands behind their back, and they're not cooperating, your ego comes into play, and you're tempted to strike at them just to get that one task done, when what you really should be doing is figuring out an alternative safe solution."
But while Lipari acknowledges the importance of understanding the officer's point of view, events like Civilian Training Day work both ways.
"We need more instances where officers and civilians meet together, in a non-enforcement setting and talk these issues out. That would benefit both sides, and certainly did today."
