SPD investigates officers' de-escalation comments

Mary Bruno

Mary Bruno Feb 6, 2018

Feb 6, 2018

Republish Article

You can republish articles in print or online. Simply copy the HTML below, which includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline, and credit to Cascade PBS. Republishing of the photos or videos embedded in an article can occur only if the photo or video is a copyright of Cascade Public Media ("CPM") and not of a third party. Photos and videos that are a copyright of CPM are not required to appear in the republished article, but if they are used, they must be embedded where they appear in the original article and must include the attribution to the CPM photographer.

You may reprint in any medium
You may edit only for tense and timeliness
If republishing in print you can edit for length if you follow our print republishing guidelines.
You may write your own headline
Include a byline and shirttail with credit and link to Cascade PBS
Include our tracking pixel
Remove if we ask

          <article>
            <header>
              <hgroup>
                <h1>SPD investigates officers' de-escalation comments</h1>
                <h2><p>The Seattle Police Department's internal investigations unit is reviewing the remarks made by two SPD officers in a de-escalation training session. The training is designed to help officer reduce, rather than inflame tensions in the interactions with civilians. The officers' comments were captured in this New York</p></h2>
              </hgroup>
               <p>By <a href="/author/mary-bruno-crosscut-com/">Mary Bruno</a></p> 
              <p><time datetime="2025-02-04T05:00:00-08:00">Feb 6, 2018</time></p>
            </header>
            <p>The Seattle Police Department's internal investigations unit is reviewing the remarks made by two SPD officers in a de-escalation training session. The training is designed to help officer reduce, rather than inflame tensions in the interactions with civilians. The officers' comments were captured in this <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/us/long-taught-to-use-force-police-warily-learn-to-de-escalate.html?ref=topics"><em>New York Times</em> video</a> and don't bode well for a kindler, gentler approach from Seattle police. One officer in the training session describes his approach to de-escalation this way: “I pulled my gun out and stuck it right in his nose and I go, ‘show me your hands now.’ He showed me his hands. I just de-escalated him from doing something.”</p><figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/bcvideo/1.0/iframe/embed.html?videoId=100000003738518&amp;playerType=embed" title="New York Times Video - Embed Player" width="500"></iframe></figure>
          </article>

The Seattle Police Department's internal investigations unit is reviewing the remarks made by two SPD officers in a de-escalation training session. The training is designed to help officer reduce, rather than inflame tensions in the interactions with civilians. The officers' comments were captured in this New York Times video and don't bode well for a kindler, gentler approach from Seattle police. One officer in the training session describes his approach to de-escalation this way: “I pulled my gun out and stuck it right in his nose and I go, ‘show me your hands now.’ He showed me his hands. I just de-escalated him from doing something.”

Our members' donations make local journalism happen.

Support once for $1

Support monthly for $7

Cascade PBS Passport
Mossback members-only newsletter
Monthly Viewer Guide

Support monthly for $25

Invitation to quarterly news and original programming video conference
Annual in-person meet-up with news & programming teams
Special event perks (reduced price or free tickets, cocktails, etc.)

Continue

By Mary Bruno

Mary was Crosscut's Editor-in-Chief and Interim Publisher. In more than 25 years as a journalist, she has worked as a writer, editor and editorial director for a variety of print and web publications,