May 29, 2009 7:49 pm US/Eastern
Was NYPD Code Ignored In Fatal Cop Shooting?
Off-Duty Cop Fatally Shot By Fellow Officer; Questions Abound About Excessive Force
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
Omar Edwards has joined the sad list of local off-duty cops recently killed by one of their own.
Off-duty Mount Vernon police officer Christopher Ridley was shot and killed in 2008. Officer Eric Hernandez was killed while off-duty in the Bronx in 2006. All tragedies occurred despite training by the NYPD and other agencies in "off-duty confrontations."
At defensive tactics training for recruits at the Rockland Police Academy, the friendly fire death in East Harlem was a prime topic of discussion.
"It's a tragic event for all officers involved," academy director Hugh Lennon said.
Lennon spent 30 years with the NYPD, and still uses a 1993 video produced by the department to train cops in off-duty confrontations.
Both the officer being challenged and the officer who challenges have a role to play to make sure that these tragic events don't happen.
The NYPD patrol guide clearly states that the burden of proving identity rests on the confronted officer – on Thursday night, that person was Omar Edwards.
"Displaying a badge is critical if at all possible, [though] sometimes time doesn't permit," Peter Tarley, use of force expert, says.
Use of force instructor Tarley says Edwards would have been trained to obey the officer challenging him.
"Automatically, we want them to follow the instructions of the challenging officer," he says.
However, the patrol guide also directs the challenging officer to use sound tactics and judgment.
For the on-duty challenging officer, the confrontation training emphasizes buying time by taking cover behind, for example, a car.
"Once they're behind some form of cover, they have the luxury of asking questions and determining what's going on," Tarley says.
But Tarley says training only goes so far, and only means so much, in the heat of the moment.
The patrol guide requires challenging officers to shout the specific words "police, don't move."
It's not clear if that requirement was followed Thursday night.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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