Philando Castile was shot by a police officer during a traffic stop. His girlfriend, Lavish Reynolds, broadcast the aftermath of the shooting live on Facebook. The video leaves a trail of questions about the sequence of events, and the actions that led to Castile’s death. It also reinforces a broader question: How can police better train and equip officers to serve and protect the public?
In search of some answers, I turned to some people who have deep expertise in these matters. Two of them are former police chiefs, and another is a leading authority on police training in the United States. Ronal Serpas, a former New Orleans police chief, is a professor at Loyola University New Orleans and the chair of Law Enforcement Leaders to Reduce Crime and Incarceration, which advocates for the end to widespread incarceration. Tracey Meares, a professor at Yale Law School and a member of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, has trained thousands of police officers around the country, including in Chicago and Oakland, via the Trust & Justice initiative. Donald Grady II, a retired police chief with over 30 years in uniform, served in multiple cities. (I also reached out to the Justice Department. A spokesperson declined to comment on police training in general, or on the Castile case specifically.)
[For more of this story, written by Juleyka Lantigua-Williams, go to http://www.theatlantic.com/pol...ice-training/490556/]
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