Trenton,
NJ – The Attorney General’s
Advisory Committee on Less-Lethal Force
has recommended that the Attorney General’s
Use of Force Policy be revised to authorize
the use of less-lethal ammunition.
The
recommendation, incorporated in a 12-page
report to Attorney General Anne Milgram,
proposes establishing specific guidelines
to law enforcement officials about when
and under what circumstances the use of
less-lethal ammunition would be appropriate.
The State Police, in consultation with county
prosecutors and the Division of Criminal
Justice in the Department of Law & Public
Safety, would compile a list identifying
specific types of less-lethal ammunition
that could be used.
The
advisory committee recommends that officers
be permitted to fire less-lethal ammunition
at a person only when such force is reasonably
necessary to prevent that person from causing
death or serious bodily injury to himself,
an officer, or any other person. Less-lethal
ammunition should be used only to address
the threat of physical injury posed by the
person who is to be struck by a less-lethal
projectile, the committee concluded.
The
proposed standard for using less-lethal
ammunition is different from the current
policy concerning deadly force. Under current
law, deadly force may only be used when
immediately necessary to protect an officer
or another person from imminent danger of
death or serious bodily injury.
The
proposed policy would not require that the
risk be imminent, but contemplates a situation
where the risk is reasonably foreseeable,
as in the case where officers confront a
suspect who is armed with a knife and refuses
to disarm. In other words, the risk of death
or injury is real, but not imminent until
an officer is within striking distance of
the suspect.
In
another example, less-lethal ammunition
might be used to prevent an escape where
the risk that the targeted suspect might
kill or seriously injure another person
is foreseeable, but may not be imminent
because no potential victim is as yet in
harm’s way.
The
report is the first part of a two-stage
examination of the use of less-than-lethal
force by law enforcement officers. The Attorney
General asked the committee to examine the
state’s current use of force policy
and whether it should be revised to authorize
the use of less lethal ammunition in specific
circumstances where deadly force might not
be justified under current law.
The
committee’s second task is to specifically
examine the legal and policy issues concerning
stun guns. The advisory committee will hold
a public hearing and make recommendations
on the use of stun guns and Tasers in a
future report.
Milgram
thanked the committee for their initial
report and for their detailed examination
of the issue of less-than-lethal force.
She said she would review the recommendations
with an eye towards formally adopting new
policies. Milgram had appointed the committee
in July, asking the advisory group to analyze
alternatives to deadly force options that
police may use to protect the public and
officer safety.
The committee recommended a policy change
that would authorize officers to use less-lethal
ammunition against a person who is threatening
or actively engaged in suicidal or other
self-destructive behavior.
The committee also recommended that no officer
should be permitted to use less-lethal ammunition
unless he or she had completed a training
course approved by the Police Training Commission,
and further stated that training include
instruction on how law enforcement officers
should deal with person s who appear to
be suffering from mental illness.
The
advisory committee to study less-lethal
force is co-chaired by the Dennis J. Braithwaite,
a retired Superior Court appellate judge,
and Mitchell C. Sklar, the executive director
of the New Jersey Association of Chiefs
of Police.
Other
committee members are Robert N. Davison,
the executive director of the Mental Health
Association of Essex County. Essex County
Prosecutor Paula Dow; Middlesex County Prosecutor
Bruce Kaplan; Dermot O’Grady, the
acting director of the Office of State Police
Affairs in the Office of the Attorney General’
and Ricardo Solano Jr., a director in the
criminal practice group at the Gibbons law
firm in Newark.
The committee is staffed by Assistant Attorney
General Ronald Susswein.
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