Require All Police Officers To Be Trained BEFORE Given Powers

When police at Ball State University, Indiana killed an unarmed man, family and friends demanded to know why the officer didn’t use less lethal options such as pepper spray or de-escalation techniques. The answer is simple. The fully armed and empowered police officer had yet to attend basic training.

Shockingly, allowing untrained officers to work is perfectly legal. These nonsensical laws allow police in 37 states to have full authority to detain, arrest, incarcerate, or even kill without ever attending basic police training.

As a former police officer who attended academies in three states, I learned the value of good training. While I find much of the training in need of improvement, there is nothing more troubling to me that the fact that police officers in more than 2/3rd of the US are permitted to work before the attending the basic academy.

These states include: AL, AK, AR, FL, HI, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, ME, MD, MA, MS, MO, MT, NB, NV, NH, NJ, NM, NY, ND, OK, OR, SC, SD, TN, TX, VT, VA, WA, WV, WI and WY

The consequences of untrained police officers are too grave. Not only are these practices unsafe for the community but for the officers as well.

I hope you’ll join me by signing this petition for congress to eliminate these exceptions and require police to receive the training they need before giving them power over life and death.