NYPD integrates de-escalation training for cops as way to defuse potential violence

All NYPD officers over the next two years will be trained in emerging tactics aimed at cooling off dangerous confrontations and avoiding the use of deadly force, officials said Wednesday.

The training, known in police circles as ICAT [Integrating Communications, Assessment, and Tactics], has been in development within the department since 2015 and builds upon tactics already used by the NYPD emergency services unit when cops are confronted with disturbed or violent people — who may nor may not be armed.

"ICAT training enhances our efforts to always try and resolve potentially volatile situations, hopefully without any use of force," NYPD commissioner Dermot Shea told reporters at a briefing detailing the new training program. "In instances where some level of force unfortunately becomes necessary, we focus on the minimum amount of force possible to realize a successful outcome."

Suffolk police implemented ICAT training as part of the recruit curriculum beginning in 2021, a spokeswoman said in a statement Wednesday.

"The department also provides a specialized 40-hour Crisis Intervention Training for police officers . As of today, there are 220 officers trained in CIT with 13 currently participating in a class. Additional CIT classes are planned," the Suffolk statement said.

A Nassau police spokesman said in a statement that the department had been training officers in de-escalation techniques since 2015, including an eight-hour course.

"We also integrate this training into the entire recruit program...[and] It is present in Roleplay, Interview and verbal skills and Fundamental Crisis Intervention, " the statement said.

The introduction of the NYPD training comes at a time when state Attorney General Letitia James has proposed legislation to change the laws on police use of deadly force, requiring it only be used as an absolute last resort. It also comes at a time when the NYPD's use of force and its relationship with communities is in the spotlight and some critics are calling for the department's defunding.

"This is going to change policing in the country," opined Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Foundation, the nonprofit body which has worked with the NYPD to develop the training curriculum.

Under the ICAT curriculum, police are being taught to move beyond tactics such as using pepper sprays and weapons. Instead, they are told, they can slow down a volatile situation through talk and persuasion, said Chief Kenneth Corey, who runs training for the NYPD.

"We teach them how to use the Taser effectively, we teach them how to use the baton, pepper spray and all of these other less lethal options effectively," Corey said. "Now what we need to do is to bring all that together in this [training] space and show them they have different options in different situations other than resorting to the use of force and that there is nothing wrong with slowing it down, taking extra time."

To illustrate the point, Wexler showed a police body camera video taken in Baltimore in 2017 in which a disturbed man wielding a knife who wanted to be shot by officers in a "suicide by cop" situation was talked into dropping the knife and allowing himself to be handcuffed.

To push back against skepticism over the de-escalation training effectiveness, Wexler pointed to a study done on the Louisville, Kentucky police department which found that it reduced instances of cops and civilians alike being hurt by an average of 25%.

"Cops are actually safer by using time, distance and standing back," said Wexler of the study results.

Corey said that de-escalation training is already used in certain crisis intervention units and that this week a core group of 40 training officers will bring the curriculum to recruits in the police academy, where it will be a standard part of the training.

The rest of the department uniformed force will receive two days of in-service training so that in two years time all cops will have been instructed on the de-escalation program, Corey said.

By Anthony M. DeStefano

tony.destefano@newsday.comtonynewsday

Anthony M. DeStefano has been a reporter for Newsday since 1986 and covers law enforcement, criminal justice and legal affairs from its New York City offices.