Evanston Police Chief Defends Use Of 'Force Science' Training

EVANSTON, IL — A panel on race and policing in Evanston addressed ideas for re-imagining institutions and reallocating investments in public safety and law enforcement. The roundtable discussion Tuesday featured Northwestern University law professor Sheila Bedi, Evanston Police Chief Demitrous Cook, Northwestern University post-doctoral fellow Chris Harris, local police abolitionist Adam Marquardt and former Chicago Ald. Ameya Pawar. It was moderated by Evanston City Clerk Devon Reid.

The 90-minute teleconference was hosted by the clerk's office amid nationwide protests against police violence and an emerging movement to "defund" the police to allow for increased investment in health and social programs.

About 20 minutes into the discussion, a pair of uninvited guests interrupted. For about a minute, they broadcast racist comments on the livestreamed videoconference, including slurs, calls for violence and a song with lyrics about the Ku Klux Klan.

Such incidents — dubbed "zoom-bombing" after the popular software — have increased in frequency as the coronavirus pandemic has prompted more public conversations to be conducted remotely.

Harris, a fellow in Northwestern's Department of African American Studies, said the increased prevalence of hateful infiltrators in online discussions is unfortunate but notable.

"It reinforces the necessity of conversation that we're having," Harris said. "It reinforces the need for us to name things as they are. That was violent. It was anti-Black. It was a reinforcement in the action of an entitlement to the sanctity of our space, to our ability to be in community and reflect in serious ways about the way the institutions and the structures that we live in, and under, do harm and make harm available to be enacted in ways, as it just was."

The panelists pointed to recommendations for police reform and outlined policy proposals that could increase public safety while decreasing the role of police.

Bedi, the civil rights attorney, said there had been repeated studies over the past century that have found police target black people for unnecessary violence and arrest. Despite reviews such as the one conducted in Chicago following race riots in 1919, the fundamental dynamic between police and communities of color remains unchanged.

"So I think it's important to remember that we've had task forces, we've had studies, we've had reform, after reform, after reform," Bedi said. "What has not happened are the types of reform necessary to redress the balance of power between police and the community and put more power in communities to police themselves."

Bedi also said police departments rely on "quack science analysis" — sometimes called "force science" or "warrior training" — to teach officers how to use and justify deadly force.

"Generally what it's used [for] is to justify the killings of unarmed people," she said. "It justifies the killing of unarmed people by using this sort of fake science to say, 'even if the individual was unarmed the police officer was unable — physically unable — to fully evaluate the nature of the harm and determine that the individual had a cellphone instead of a gun.'"

Cook, the Evanston chief and former commander of a 110-officer SWAT team in Cook County's south suburbs, defended his department's training at the Chicago-based Force Science Institute.

"No matter how long you're in this business, when there's gunfire you can blank a stare and not know what to do. This teaches you to recognize those type of things. It teaches you about our reaction to certain stimuli, such as someone firing at you," Cook said.

"So I haven't heard of it being debunked science," he said. "It may be debunked in your opinion because maybe you have an ulterior motive against that. But nevertheless, a lot of police departments still utilize that."

"With all due respect, sir," Bedi said. "If you're not familiar with the critiques of force science and the scientific studies that have found it to be bad science I don't know how familiar you can be with it."

"I've seen some of those," Cook said. "I don't think that's true. It's right here in Chicago. It's one of our home-grown institutes that serves just as good a purpose as Northwestern University."

Cook, who had nearly four decades of police experience before taking over the department last year, said it was long past time to address issues beyond policing that lead to racial disparities in the criminal justice system — issues like housing, education and financial equity.

"There are a lot of things that contribute to where law enforcement is today, and I'm not saying that to deflect from what's bad in law enforcement," he said. "Where we are now, we should have been there 50, 60 years ago. So now I'm glad we're here, and I'm hoping that we can sustain the momentum to bring about meaningful change."

Pawar, who represented Chicago's 47th Ward for two terms after becoming the first Asian American elected to the City Council in 2012, recalled that he, at the time, feared for his safety due to threats from representatives of police union, despite having a good relationship with the commanders in his Northwest Side ward.

"It doesn't matter how much you spend on training," said Pawar, now a fellow at the Open Society Institute. "When it seems to me that there's a cultural issue within the profession that demands loyalty in ways that make it dangerous for the public at times. And that culture needs to be addressed."

Cook said he had never heard of gangster-style threats from police unions, but he has had his own disagreements with them as a supervisor over the past 20 years.

"I also know that this is a profession and a lot of people think they know about law enforcement and the tactics and how unions actually work, and they've never dealt with it. You've watched it. I've dealt with it," the chief said.

"So I get frustrated with unions also but that's how it is in America," he said. "And I'm not going to let a union stop me from taking the action I need when an officer is out of pocket, or he's done something wrong, or he needs to be terminated."

Cook said there is still a significant level of street violence in the United States that police officers must confront on a daily basis. And residents of the mostly black neighborhoods where the violence most often occurs still want police officers to protect them.

"How we go about doing that is where we are now with reform," he said. "I think we should be doing a lot more problem-solving, a lot more communications with other entities that are more suited to handle these situations."

Harris put the movement to defund police into historical context.

"We know that as soon as Nixon initiates and Reagan accelerates the 'war on drugs' and 'law and order,' and more and more resources are being thrust in that direction, more and more resources were being taken out of communities, particularly black and brown communities — communities that couldn't afford to work on property taxes," he said.

That led to decades of chronic defunding of education budgets, public health initiatives, mental health treatment, while police budgets have continued to grow, Harris said.

"We're in a moment where we can look at those things and say collectively, 'That's just not right.'"