Arkansas brutality claims are nation's latest to put police training under microscope

For about 30 seconds, a bystander records a video as three officers punch, strike and knee a man while struggling to arrest him outside an Arkansas convenience store. The video ends after one of the officers looks up at the camera, points a finger and appears to tell the person to stop filming.

For many, the incident is a clear example of excessive force.

But what led up to that encounter is unclear, and that context — as well as how the officers were trained to restrain suspects — will be key as federal, state and local agencies investigate, law enforcement experts told USA TODAY.

"We only see a very, very brief snippet of what the officers did, which doesn't look good, but there may be a justification for it," said Geoff Alpert, a criminologist at the University of South Carolina.

Alpert said if a suspect is reaching for a weapon use of force would be reasonable. But as soon as a suspect is under control, Alpert said force is no longer justified, even if an officer is injured.

He questioned what kind of threat the suspect posed.

"With three officers and so many other opportunities, the strike to the head just doesn't seem justified based on what the video shows," he said.

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The situation unfolded Sunday afternoon when police were called to a report of a man making threats against a convenience store clerk in Alma, Arkansas. The suspect, Randal Worcester, then rode a bike 11 miles to Mulberry where he encountered Crawford County sheriff's deputies Zack King and Levi White and Mulberry police officer Thell Riddle.

Sheriff Jimmy Damante said Worcester handed over a weapon to officers but became violent. As officers struck him, a bystander in a nearby car began recording the video. It was shared online and quickly garnered outrage.

Worcester suffered injuries to his head, elbows and knees, according to one of his attorneys, David Powell, who called the experience "horrific." Attorney Russell A. Wood, who is representing the deputies, said White suffered a concussion after he was "attacked" by Worcester, who was released on bond Monday.

The three officers have been suspended. In addition to the local and state probes, federal officials have launched a civil rights investigation into the beating. Officers are rarely charged or convicted even in high profile cases of police violence.

Before the federal convictions in Floyd's death, one of the most well known examples came after a state court acquitted a senior officer who failed to stop the police beating of Rodney King in 1991. Stacey Koon was later convicted in federal court of violating King's civil rights.

More recently, the Justice Department decided not to charge the officers involved in the high-profile deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Tamir Rice.

"When you see videos like this it just reminds you how much work we have to do," said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum. "One of the things that we advocate is that departments do have training on de-escalation."

Wexler said the officers used "what appears to be excessive force."

"Look, if someone doesn't want to be arrested, it can be challenging. OK. We know that. This man is on the ground," he said. "There's no training that I'm aware of that would have someone smashing someone's head into the ground."

After the murder of George Floyd and 2020 protests over police brutality, many departments, including those in Arkansas according to the governor, made changes to training and policies.

But video often shot by bystanders of violent interactions with police like this continue to emerge, and experts say national standards for de-escalation training could help reduce future use-of-force incidents.

Officers undergo 24 mandatory hours of training on their duty to intervene, said J.R. Hankins, director of the Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and Training, on Monday.

Wood, the deputies' attorney, said the "compliance strikes" used by officers in the video "were used exactly as trained."

But that contradicted what Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Monday at a press conference, when he called their conduct "reprehensible" and "not the proper response."

"That response was not consistent with the training that they receive," Hutchinson said.

'Culture of urgency' leads to violence: Police training cited as defense in many use-of-force cases, but experts say it's outdated.

Changing police training may reduce use of force incidents

Even when officers follow it correctly, police training has been criticized for creating a culture that encourages officers to fear for their lives in every interaction leading them to react with immediate violence to protect themselves. That culture compounded with racial bias can have deadly consequences.

Wexler and David Dyer, chief operating officer of the National De-Escalation Training Center, said better instruction on de-escalation could help prevent violent incidents like this

Wexler said he believes police culture is changing, but acknowledged the challenges of trying to standardize training and attitudes across the country's 18,000 police departments.

"We no longer say the most important thing is for officers to come home at night. What we say is the most important thing is for everybody to be able to go home at night," he said. "Change comes incrementally for some, and not at all for others."

Dyer said while there are times use of force is necessary, research shows de-escalation training and tactics can help prevent interactions from becoming violent.

Dyer's organization offers a 16 hour de-escalation training to departments around the country that he hopes will become a nationwide standard.

His program is currently being studied to gauge it's efficacy, but he cited as proof of concept a study of the Louisville Metro Police Department published earlier this year that found that de-escalation training developed by the Police Executive Research Forum led to significant reductions in use of force, citizen and officer injuries.

"If we can provide enough time, between officers and subjects, to establish good communication, then we can try to prevent any use of force," he said. "We just need to give them all the tools to do their job effectively, efficiently and safely for everybody."

Contributing: The Associated Press; Robert Medley, Fort Smith Times Record; Celina Tebor, USA TODAY

Contact Breaking News Reporter N'dea Yancey-Bragg at nyanceybra@gannett.com or follow her on Twitter @NdeaYanceyBragg

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Arkansas police beating: Was it justified? What experts say.