NEW IBERIA, La (KLFY) — New Iberia Police are learning to recognize police misconduct and put a stop to it.
The training program is called ABLE, or Active Bystandership for Law Enforcement.
Officers learn how to intervene and address risky or dangerous behaviors of other officers in high-stress situations.
The training is all about police officers recognizing and learning how and when to intervene in situations with people and officers that may be getting out of hand.
“One of the biggest things that the training focused on was police mistakes, police misconduct usually being a result of poor mental, physcial state due to neglect, working too hard, just all of the human ways we can get compromised and being on the lookout for that,” officer Tyler Helms said.
“We are just as human as anybody else and we have feelings, we have emotions,” Sergeant Joshua Chipman said. “Just like anybody else on the street, sometimes we can let those emotions get the best of us. The purpose of this program is so that if another officer on the outside looking in, can sit back watch and recognize hey, you know, this person is getting the best of him, I better step in and intervene so he doesn’t say or do something that is going to be harmful to himself or the department.”
During training, officers re-enact scenarios and watch videos from real-life situations, like Minnesota officers using excessive force on people during protests for George Floyd.
They learn how to step in when it comes to these kinds of situations, and how to hold officers accountable for their actions if they see wrongdoing.
“How to intervene – whether it’s delegating an officer to do something else, directing an officer to go do something else, or pretty much pulling them off to the side saying ‘hey look you need to stop this is getting out of control I got it from here,'” Sergeant Daesha Hughes said.
“We’ve seen that plenty of times around the country with these viral videos of police brutality,” Chipman added. “If only somebody had done something physical to stop this particular situation from taking place, perhaps the name of police today could be in a different area in people’s minds.”
When police are finished with their training, they will receive a small badge they will wear on their uniform every day. That badge will let people in the community know that officer is dedicated to stopping any kind of police misconduct they see.
