By TOMMY REZAC
St. Joseph Post
Paul Luster was named St. Joseph’s police chief in late May 2023.
Even before he was selected, Luster brought up a key topic in his interview; de-escalation of situations when interacting with citizens.
"It seems like it always comes up that officers could have done more to deescalate the situation," Luster said on KFEQ's The Hotline with Barry Birr.
"Sometimes, that's accurate. Other times, it's not. But, that seems to be a narrative that gets formed really quickly. So, I wanted to look for a program that would give our officers the best opportunity and best skillset to deescalate situations and to have better outcomes."
This past summer, four St. Joseph police officers were sent to Decatur, Illinois for a training session put on by the Police Executive Research Forum - PERF for short.
The training was centered on de-escalation.
"They developed training called Integrating, Communications, Assessment and Tactics," Luster explained. "We had the opportunity, right after I got here, to send four department members out to Decatur, Illinois out to their national training center."
These four officers spent August through December of last year, training all St. Joseph officers and dispatchers on how to have better outcomes when responding to emergencies and engaging with citizens.
"We worked every week to get everyone through (the training)," Luster said, "and get the officers those skillsets so they can have better results when they're out serving our community St. Joseph. So, I'm really excited about it."
Luster says this de-escalation focuses on two main areas - one is better educating officers on what they’re dealing with before they respond to a call.
"It really gets the officers in the mindset of, what information do I have, what information would I like to have, is that information available and can I get it before we have to go and engage in this situation?"
The other part, Luster says, is assessment of the situation and knowing options are available once on scene.
"Once they're there, it's this constant revolving model of assessing the situation and then identifying options, identifying the best course of action, but knowing that could change at any second."
Luster says when he first trained as an officer, the mantra was “make sure you get home safe at night.”
Now, Luster says, de-escalation training takes it one step further.
"The most important thing is we all go home safely," he said. "It really challenges some traditional mindsets. A lot of times, you can go into training and, 'Oh we already do this stuff.'"
"Sure, you do part of this stuff, but this puts all into a really well designed package and gives the officers a good skillset."
You can follow Tommy on Twitter @TommyKFEQ and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.