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Park Ridge Police Officers Getting Training To De-Escalate Situations Without Using Force

(CBS) -- Police officers in northwest suburban Park Ridge are getting training in ways to de-escalate situations, and avoid the use of force.

Each officer is being put through classes that outline how to create additional time and space while answering calls, to de-escalate potentially volatile situations.

"There are times when we can slow it down and negotiate," said Park Ridge Police Sgt. Erick Hilderbrant, one of the trainers. "We're trying to stress that this is a thinking game."

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One call may be about a drunk in a train station, another a shoplifter. But then there is the man who was just fired or another who was told he has weeks to live. Hilderbrant said the "go-in and get-it-done" mentality is gone, unless directly confronted by a drawn weapon. Hilderbrant said policing today is done in "shades of gray, instead of plunging in the way the officer fired Wednesday in South Carolina did.

Policing today is not black and white," he said. "It's situational."

Police Chief Frank Kaminski said the approach can minimize the threat to officers, and in the end can save both the lives of officers and those with whom they deal.

"What's most important in the training id the de-escalation, and the techniques officers use to de-escalate situations," the chief said.

Bottom line, they said, is that the use of force is the last resort, although sometimes unavoidable.
The training, done in a former Park Ridge public works facility, is realistic. The officers and trainers use rubber knives and a special Sexauer pistol that fires dummy plastic bullets that leave a small paint mark. Part of the situational training also includes using sights when firing instead of shooting wildly from the hip.

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