Use of Voice not Force | Fred Jones | TEDxEustis

[Applause] [Music] registration well I put your speed use of force what is it in terms of law enforcement it is the amount of force used to compel an unwilling subject to comply what if we could live in a society where law enforcement did not have to use force doesn't that sound great it's never going to happen and I'll tell you why it's never going to happen it's never going to happen because there will always be those that will not comply with the laws of society and they would do anything not to be taken into custody even killing those pursuing them and then there are those that will hurt and torture others for no other reason but to watch them suffer those are the evil ones and yes they do exist but let's set those scenarios aside there's Wallis and others what if we could live in a society where law enforcement agencies across the nation can have their officer use less force on any given day and what if we could live in a society where a simple encounter between a law enforcement officer and a citizen doesn't become a confrontation you know like the ones we've seen on television so how do we change the narrative the philosopher Socrates he put it best when he said know thyself is the beginning of wisdom so I'm going to talk about how nor now R selves can make officers better decision-makers and I'm going to talk about how understanding our own weaknesses and our own struggles can help us empathize with those that we make contact with in a community so let's get started so how did I get here was in 1997 I joined the law enforcement community and at the end of the Academy we had to take a human diversity class or I used to call it a how to treat people that don't look like you class so in my class you know we had white folks and we had black folks and we had Hispanic folks and and we talked about stereotypes and well why can't you say that I can't say that anything and there was a lot of tension but we survived it we learn from it and moving forward I continue to take those classes and I did benefit but I always felt like there was an element missing in 2016 a supervisor approached me and said he wanted me to take another human diversity class and I'm thinking to myself 97 98 99 I'm probably the most our first person I know but he promised me that this one was different and so I went and he was right this one was different because it was inclusive it wasn't just about how to treat them but how to treat ourselves it was called the right training racial intelligence training and engagement and it dealt with emotional intelligence plus social intelligence equals racial intelligence in essence looking at our own emotions first understanding where we are at all times emotionally plus have an understanding of those that we make contact in the community when equal to equal to better outcomes and that's what we all want and so we did this training the officers were engaged and we talked about things like you know what to do what to do when when you're headed to that call of a horrific child of his case a child neglect and and he talked about the emotions that you go through to when you your head to that next call that's the tragic suicide you know and one of the the things that really stood out in this training to me was one about the emotional ladder it utilizes a picture of a ladder and on each rung of a ladder there's an emotion at the very top of the ladder we have emotions such as happiness and joy and gratitude as you make your way down to the bottom we have emotions such as hate anger anxiety fear at the top is where we want to stay at the bottom is where some of us live even us the law enforcement so we did some training we talked about what to do when you find yourself at the bottom of the ladder we use visuals how many of you have cell phones all of us so what's on your cell phone see we talked about helping pictures that will bring us back to the top of that ladder and for me I have a picture of my beautiful family plus my dogs I have a picture of our great vacation experiences and I have a pitch of my pension because that keeps me on the top of the ladder but we also talked about doing things that take us from the bottom in and keeps us up here toward the top and for me it's music now when I have a very frustrating day at work I leave the office and walking down the sidewalk and I don't care who's around me I think of music cuz I love music so I'm thinking one of my favorite artists don't be great and there's some drift away and I'll just kind of go right to the verse that I love when my mind is free he no melody can move me when I'm feeling blue get sauce coming through to soothe me see y'all go to church right some of you nod your head but that's what it does for me it gives me back to where I am and I understand where I'm where I'm at at all times you know so what are we talking about as far as understanding our emotions identifying where we at at all times imagine your best friend calls you in the middle of the night they say they're broken down they need you to come get them and so being a good friend you are you call out of bed you get dressed you jump in your car and you're driving down the road to pick your friend up a couple miles down the road you hear this knocking sound in the engine you know you know something's wrong and it's not the first time you've heard it so what do you do you probably do what you always do you turn up the radio you drown it out and you keep driving you know there are those of us in law enforcement we have that same kind of knocking sound going on inside of us but it's an emotional one you know be it through burnout from the job is there some kind of family illness that we're going through and what do we do we turn up the volume of life and we drown it out we ignore it and agencies across the nation they tell their officers to take your vehicles there person and I want you to go out there and I want you to help those who are broken down now imagine there's these agencies they would see thousands of calls of service it could be a novel one call simple hang up call or it can be a homicide and everything in between armed robbery sexual battery and they send them out there to try and fix those things but they have to start with themselves and that's where emotion comes in comes in it teaches us how to identify our emotions and you know when I'm speaking with my deputies about this they love the training they thought it was the one of the greatest things they've experienced and so we talked about what happens when we make contact with an individual that can help short-term and long-term effects on our community for example that if you would travel back in time with me I am a 17 year old on the cross-country team it is a beautiful Saturday morning and I'm out for an 8 mile run and about mallow sticks I see all these police cars converge in front of me they jump out they ask me where I'm coming from I said I'm on an 8 mile run I I'm at mile six right now so you're saying that you wasn't over there or late it was just broken into no sir it wasn't me well Allah you fit you fit the description of the suspect so they placed me in the back of a patrol car they took me back to the scene they took me out of the patrol car they went upstairs to the house and they escorted an elderly lady out to the yard and asked her is that the guy that broke into your house and I remember her Squiggy and I'm thinking to myself I'm about to go to jail something I didn't do but she said no it wasn't him and so it plays me back in the patrol car they took me back to where they met me at they dropped me off they didn't say anything they they took off to find the culprit and I remember being angry and being confused now I remember running those last two miles with tears streaming down my face and for the next 11 years or so before I got to law enforcement every time I would see an officer coming my way I will go the other way because they took me back to that 17 year old and then when I did become a law enforcement officer I realized that they were just doing their job but I also know it's not just what you do it's how you do it what if these officers have been trained in the emotional intelligence could they have utilized some empathy maybe walked in my shoes could they have even apologized for the misunderstanding that could have had a different impact on me than had now fast forward to today imagine an officer he said it to a violent domestic violence call lights and sirens this officer is going through a divorce his teenage son was just expelled from school he just recently filed for bankruptcy what do you think he would be on that ladder could it affect him when he Rob's it Rod's at the scene could it affect him on a traffic stop you know we carry a lot of emotional baggage and we must learn how to process it when we hear about these instances of excessive use of force officer misconduct it is easy to drive the narrative of race now I know it's something you're going to say well oh you know of course you're an officer sergeant Jones you're gonna take you're gonna take up for your officers you know I've been in law enforcement for about 21 years but I've been black for 50 years and in both cases by some I've been painted with that broad brush of you people and nobody likes it so why don't we work on getting to the root of the problem that I don't know what happened in each of those instances that you may see on television but what I do know is a seasoned law enforcement officer and as a supervisor in Internal Affairs that a light of emotional intelligence plays a role in officers behavior we are not robots this emotional intelligence training isn't just about how we treat other people it's about how we treat ourselves and we are not robots people may think south they're doing our jobs with just machines but underneath these badges there are humans and a lot of times there are humans that are crying out for help in 2017 USA Today released the report and it brought to the light that 46 law enforcement officers were fatally shot in the line of duty 140 committed suicide you know I'm I'm proud of the men and women that I work with every day I'm proud of this profession I'm even prouder of the leadership that brought emotional intelligence training to us I think we're better agency because of it I received positive feedback from our deputies and I get calls from the community about how professional our officers are and I think every agency should train their officers and emotional intelligence training I think it serves multiple purposes for one as the agency here's your opportunity to show your officer that I care about you more than just as an officer but also as a person and it allows that officer to be aware and stay aware of where they are emotionally at all times especially when they make contact with the community and last but not least it gives an officer a great opportunity to use their voice instead of force you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 90,622

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Social Science, Body language, Career, Communication, Criminal justice, Empathy, Race, Society

Id: 4tCJPEiIi80

Length: 15min 33sec (933 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 28 2019