ASHEVILLE - Tackling and pointing a stun gun are among actions city police routinely have not considered "use of force," said Chief David Zack, a deficiency that could make it hard to track early warning signs in officer behavior.
Zack, who earlier this week said the Asheville Police Department had been underreporting use of force, expanded on that June 11-12. He gave examples and raised questions about the accuracy of a reported 61% drop in use of force heralded as a sign of improved policing in 2017.
Zack, who started as chief Feb. 4, said the undercount was a result of high leadership turnover. He also said that officers were frustrated and supported his plan to expand what was considered use of force.
It is important to know when officers have a notable number of even minor uses of force, he said, since that can be a good time to intervene and head off a potential serious incident.
"Force is part of police work. People are not going to cooperate. But we want to make sure that the force we use is necessary and proportional in addition to justifiable."
Revelation made after week of unrest
Zack made his initial public statement about an undercount June 9 at his first appearance before the City Council. Asheville was reeling from more than a week of protests that resulted in 57 arrests and allegations that officers used tear gas and rubber bullets against peaceful protesters and destroyed a medic tent without cause.
The demonstrations were part of national outrage over the death of George Floyd after a Minneapolis police officer placed his knee on the neck of the handcuffed Floyd, a Black man for nearly 9 minutes.
Following a call by two members of the council's public safety committee, Chair Bryan Haynes, and Sheneika Smith, one of two Black council members, for an investigation into APD's handling of the protests, City Manager Debra Campbell agreed to start a probe.
A day after Zack's revelation, Smith noted constituents who had raised questions about force used against them and wondered if it was reported. Smith also pointed to a potential problem with "leadership at the time" of the undercounts.
Two months - zero uses of force?
More recently, Zack told the Citizen Times he saw flaws in reporting even before he started as chief. Reviewing APD's 2019 Professional Standards Annual Report, Zack saw two months, August and September, with no uses of force but high numbers of arrests: 456 and 427, respectively. Zack said he spoke with staff about it shortly after he became chief.
"I said, 'I think I would have a hard time going to a community meeting and saying that in August and September, which are two extremely busy months, that we didn't use force in two months.' I said, 'I don’t think I would have any credibility stating that, because I don’t believe it.'"
Zack said he had planned to make a public statement after talking to officers and rolling out reform plans, but the coronavirus pandemic and protests overwhelmed the department.
61% drop reported in 2017
Asked about the large drop in use of force shown in annual reports from 2016 to 2017 — a 61% decline from 70 incidents to 27 incidents — Zack said it may have been due at least in part to "a change in data collection." The chief said he would likely not examine those numbers because he didn't want to spend time "going backwards."
The 2017 numbers were heralded at the time by APD which had created a Community Police Policy Work Group to help reduce officer violence in the wake of the fatal shooting of a Black man, Jai "Jerry" Williams. The killing was ruled justified but led to protests.
"In 2016 and 2017 we worked with the community to revise our use of force policy and focus on de-escalation training," then-chief Tammy Hooper said in a 2018 APD announcement. "The work the department has done in these areas is demonstrated in this report."
Former long-time Asheville Housing Authority director was part of the work group and said it concerned him that actions such as tackling were not included in reports.
Bell said, "as a black male," he's had experiences being stopped by police and knows pretty quickly how they are going to treat him. The bad experiences, he said, have the potential for being even worse.
"It's important to have that data, to know specifically what the patterns are and help identify if you might have a rogue officer," he said.
"I can't think of any other profession where that type of thing is so important."
Leadership turnover
Hooper, who started in 2015, resigned less than four years later in Jan. 2, 2019 after criticism over her handling of the investigation into the officer beating of Black pedestrian Johnnie Rush and a police operation monitoring civil rights groups that was exposed in 2018. She was replaced by Chris Bailey, who stayed at the job only two months, citing a need to return to Indianapolis to deal with family issues, though some pointed to problems that may have arisen from a 2004 domestic incident that came to light.
When he took the job Zack said examples of force that were not typically reported included brandishing a stun gun and tackling a person, things that would be included going forward.
Excessive force incidents have been reported, he said.
Expanding what is 'force' means automatic rise in numbers
Asheville Fraternal Order of Police President Rondell Lance agreed with Zack that officers would be fine with an expanded policy.
"If you make it clear and put it in policy what officers are supposed to do, 99.9% will do that," he said.
Lance said that it would be important to judge officers though based on the context of larger events and where they work. Recent protests are expected to show spike in reported uses of force. Officers working in high crime areas would also have more cause to use force, he said.
Both Lance and Zack noted that expanding the definition would also lead to what looks like a rise in use of force, though it might not be an actual rise.
"What this does by including more criteria is you get an idea that a problem might be looming far earlier by having more data to look at," the chief said. "And that is the idea behind looking at more stuff."
Joel Burgess has lived in WNC for more than 20 years, covering politics, government and other news. He's written award-winning stories on topics ranging from gerrymandering to police use of force. Please help support this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.
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