The Tribune

By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Tribune Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

POLICE Commissioner Paul Rolle said yesterday he was in the process of writing material for the force’s manual that focuses on training officers in sensitisation and de-escalation methods.

He said it was his observation that the Royal Bahamas Police Force was headed down a trajectory of officers against civilians, adding he had to do a lot to “neutralise” the issue.

The addition of material in the manual is in response to concern from members of the public and complaints against police officers that increased 46 percent in 2021.

The Commissioner said there was a need to “fix” how some officers related to the public.

He was speaking on the Royal Bahamas Police Force’s show Cop Talk, where he told the show’s host that simply locking up officers and prosecuting them for wrong doing was not good enough.

He said it was necessary to fix the internal issues within the force, before seeking compliance from the general public.

 “We have criticisms and I want to encourage all of my officers to listen to the criticism,” Commissioner Rolle said.

 “Listen to what our customers and our employers are saying to us because we were hired by the public to work for them (and) keep them safe and I would ask the question, how many of you would hire me to beat you up every day? I don’t believe no police officer would say ‘yes you could take me’ and it’s the same attitude I am saying.

 “We were hired to provide safety and if the public do not feel comfortable with their police officers you become irrelevant and we were heading down a trajectory where it was this us and them over the last – I think, 2020 when I came into office – and moving on and you saw this... I had to do a lot of things to neutralise that and to try and change the commentary, but you do it incrementally.

 “So, I said that we would start here and then as we move on, I am saying now that, yes, there is this philosophy of hard cop, soft cop. I am not saying that if you are challenged by the bad guy that you don’t take action. My position is that if you are challenged, yes, I expect the police officers to address that and deal with it, but when you work towards partnership, I believe you have less confrontation and so there is this other train of thought. You heard other criticism about the training in de-escalation and, yeah, we have to do more training in that and teaching our officers and sensitising our officers how to de-escalate.”

 He continued: “I am writing material right now which is going to be incorporated into the training manual.

 “You look at Robert Peel’s policing principles and we have been doing a lot of it. But one of those principles is (that) the police are there to build relationships and the more you have to use force to get compliance the less cooperation you get.

 “If you look at the complaints, I gave my stats. I didn’t hide it,” Commissioner Rolle said.

 “Complaints against police in 2021 jumped 46 percent and any police officer who doesn’t understand what I am trying to say needs to come and have a conversation and let’s talk because there is a problem.

 “I am saying we have to start somewhere to fix that problem. Just simply locking up police officers and prosecuting police officers that’s not good enough. We have to try to prevent that.

 “So, I am saying before we try to fix the public, let’s fix ourselves.”

 Last month, the police chief said he was committed to removing the “warrior mentality” from officers as they interact with people.

 That mentality, he said at the time, breeds confrontation.

 His comment came after several high-profile incidents of police using deadly force, including January’s police shooting of a decorated Royal Bahamas Defence Force officer who allegedly tried to disarm a police officer, among other incidents.