WCCO Original: "State of Policing"

St. Paul Police gave WCCO full access to record quarterly Response to Resistance and Aggression (RRA) training. It is a requirement for all officers.

WCCO set up three cameras to capture different angles of training. We edited those cameras together to give you the full look at what we saw.

The training seen in the video above is complete, and nothing has been edited out.

Training typically starts with some work in the classroom. Trainers go over law or policy. They might review video of techniques from other departments where things didn't go well. And then they head downstairs to begin.

The first stop is at the lockers so officers can lock up the tools on their belt, like their service weapon and taser. Inside the mat room, they're checked. The officers replace those tools with training handcuffs, a replica handgun that's weighted to mimic the real thing, a taser and fake pepper spray. Then it's time for training to start.

Mat training goes about an hour each quarter. With each technique there's a demonstration says trainer Tom Menton.

"The techniques we use now more rely on what we call soft empty hand techniques. Techniques that are more scalable we call it. We rely on grappling, grappling meaning techniques that use timing and leverage designed for even a smaller officer to overcome even a larger more aggressive subject," Menton said.

Trainers offer guidance and corrections throughout.

WCCO We set up two static cameras to capture every angle of training. Plus photojournalist Grant Verdon rolled on the entire training with a third camera, moving around the room to capture the movements closer up. What you'll see are the camera shots edited together.

"My favorite thing about the things you saw would be the team techniques. We have used two officer handcuffing, our two officer take down, our two officer kind of ground control and handcuffing techniques to solve the vast majority of the situations that have arisen on the streets in the last few years, where we do have a subject who resists us but we do have those multiple officers on scene," Menton said.

Officer Brianna Kisch joined St. Paul Police 4 years ago.

"I've seen this since the beginning of my career here in St Paul. It starts with our academy. In the academy we get the small details when we're here it's just the repetitiveness of it," Kisch said.

She says learning these techniques makes her more confident in the field.

"For me being a female and a smaller stature female these techniques I love to take to the street because I can take down somebody bigger stronger than me and I can have the confidence to knowing 'hey I can do this without hurting myself and without hurting them as well,'" Kisch said.

The idea behind response to resistance or aggression or RRA training is to give officers options when they encounter people on the job. So they don't have to escalate to higher uses of force said Sgt. David McCabe.

"This is about control, engaging physically you know might look rough but in all actuality what we're doing are trained tactics that are very safe and the idea is we're doing them because we don't want to cause injury," McCabe said.

Sgt. David McCabe says he pays attention and knows what he's learning in the mat room can make a difference out there.

"We might have been smiling or giggling because we're with our friends but in the back of the mind everybody is picturing 'OK I'm at a bar and there's a bar fight and somebody comes at me.' Putting these tactics into context is really what takes it to the next level," McCabe said.

This type of RRA training is required for sworn officers four times a year. Menton says it's enough.

"We've made it very retainable, most of the techniques are very simple. Our two officer take down, somebody is grabbing the upper body of the subject, somebody is grabbing the legs of the subject, there's not much to it. Generally, the techniques are very forgiving meaning if you do forget 20, 30, 40-percent of the details it will still almost certainly work on the street," Menton said.

WCCO was also there to capture some of the latest academy class in mid-September. The class of 25 went through scenario training. We're told by the time this happens, the class has learned concepts and the reason behind them plus basic skills. Then they are put through scenarios, practicing RRA skills, de-escalation and crisis intervention in a real time but controlled atmosphere.

Several departments have modeled their training after St. Paul's RRA. St. Paul's trainers developed a way to train other agencies in the tactics. So far, more than 140 departments have sent someone to learn RRA.

WCCO looks at the State of Policing in Minnesota. We partnered with St. Paul Police to give you a rare, inside look at the department's response to resistance or aggression (RRA) training. And we learn the impact its having on use of force numbers, plus subject and officer injuries.  

 WCCO talked with Chief Todd Axtell before he retired about supporting the move and the progress made.

Todd Axtell says when he became police chief in St. Paul he knew training needed an update.

"We had more uses of force and more injuries of officers and suspects, and things just weren't working to the standard that we needed at the time," Axtell said.

As he came up in the ranks over his 33-year career, Axtell says initially there were three steps in using force: "you ask them, you tell them, and then you make them. And it really didn't matter how long it took to get between each of those steps."

He says that was in line with training and policy.

"Over the decades our training unit has really found out that officers need scenarios where they can win without laying hands on. Where you can talk your way out of a situation. Where you can deescalate successfully," Axtell said.

He knows in certain instances force will be necessary.  In those cases, he expects three things to be true.

"It has to be reasonable, necessary and done with respect," Axtell said.

He shared why he wanted the department to be at the forefront of change when it comes to police training.

"This topic is one of the biggest topics of policing in America today. When we use force, how we use force, how we treat people, how we approach situations. And it's the biggest liability. Cities across this country and counties across this country are paying millions upon millions of dollars as a result of unnecessary uses of force," Axtell said.

The highest year payout for St. Paul was 2017 at $2.3 million. It's gone down every year since.

"The proof is in the pudding, this is working. It's not just about the money. It's about the trust, the confidence and the way people view the police department, not the police department, their police department," Axtell said.

He says that's part of the strategy behind response to resistance or aggression. A mindset shift Axtell says that was originally met with pushback. Then acceptance and buy in.

"We made a commitment. We are going to invest more time and more money into our training unit to make sure that we reduce the likelihood that those things will happen. They will happen, it's not a matter of if but when, but if you can reduce the number of times, you build trust and you save your city money at the same time," Axtell said.

Sgt. Sean Zauhar oversees the RRA training program.

"If you want different performance, you have to give people the tools to do that. We primarily used concepts from Brazilian jujitsu and some wrestling techniques where we could take officers of smaller statute and could use them against people a lot larger than them using less force," Zauhar said.

He walked us through the reasoning behind RRA. And says academy training went from 80 hours to 120.

"Now our focus is leverage based control. Using your body weight to physically control somebody. Not waiting for compliance necessarily to get them into custody so just our ability to control somebody and get them into handcuffs quicker is safer for everybody," Zauhar said.

And he shared stats. Sgt. Zauhar has his PhD and worked with an outside analyst to look at use of force before and after shifting to RRA.

"We had 37% reduction in force overall. Strikes down nearly 69% over 5-year average, use of pepper spray, and taser were down and when they had to use force, they relied on those empty hand control techniques," Zauhar said.

The study shows officers came into contact with more people who aggressively resisted, including a 15% increase in people with weapons. At the same time, other training complemented RRA like: implicit bias, moral courage and crisis intervention. Zauhar says subject injuries went down, so did officer injuries.

"We have such a limited amount of time to do training, it has to be beneficial and has to be impactful," Zauhar said.

To stay on top of use of force there's a weekly review meeting by the command staff. The training unit looks at body worn camera videos.

"We don't need our community to come to us to say something went bad. That's our job," Axtell said.

Axtell says it all adds up to better and safer interactions between police and the community they serve.

They're ok showing what they're doing to make improvements.

"Every interaction with community, every deposit with the media where we can show the work in a transparent way that we're doing is a deposit into that very important bank of trust," Axtell said.

Use of force calls account for two-tenths of a percent of the calls in St. Paul. Last year that was 575 for 240,104 incidents.

WCCO listens to the community and its calls for transparency in police training. We hear what's important to them when it comes to training and use of force. We also share updates on police reform legislation, and lawsuits that led to more training.

The state licensing board for officers in Minnesota came under fire after the police killing of George Floyd.

The executive director of the Peace Officers Standards and Training Board called it a watershed moment. The POST Board sets licensing and training requirements across the state, and updates them based on state law. WCCO learned about changes made, and what's still to come.

Minnesota's POST Board meets four times a year.  Made up of community members, those in higher education, and law enforcement. All appointed by the Governor. Mendota Heights Police Chief Kelly McCarthy is the Chair.

"The challenges of a statewide board is how do you make policy, how do you make rules that give as much local autonomy to the communities but maintain a statewide standard," McCarthy said.

McCarthy came into the role in 2019 months before the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

And testified about training standards during the federal trial of three ex-MPD officers. 

Now she's open in getting uncomfortable while talking about where the state of training is in Minnesota.

"This is going to sound really counterintuitive. We have some of the best trained officers. When you look at use of force. We have so many contacts every day that are violent in nature that Minnesota officers deescalate. I think why we are having this conversation now is we're not consistent. And we're certainly not consistent when it comes to people who look different from us, or who come from different backgrounds from us. So if you're a person of color in Minnesota you're seeing videos of officers deescalating situations where they're getting hit in the head with hammers and yet you're seeing officers unable or moving to a higher level of force with people that don't look like that officer. And so that's the really difficult conversation to have and its scary. It's certainly scary to have on a statewide level because it gets to a lot of societal things so it's much easier to say train them better," McCarthy said.

McCarthy believes even with standards of training, it only goes so far.

"Not all training is quality training and if you do have quality training not everyone takes away the same things. So you have all those variables and then you're respond to somebody who is in crisis, maybe violent, most likely armed. So yeah, if it was simple we would have solved it," McCarthy said.

"So how do we become more consistent? Because you said we're good but we're not consistent," reporter Jennifer Mayerle asked.

"I think we've started by bringing in the focus on crisis intervention, by bringing in quality equity training, emphasis on the quality, where we give everybody an opportunity to really reflect on what are the biases you come to the profession with, and you may come to calls with," McCarthy said.

For the first time, the POST Board is taking a full look at its responsibilities.

"We are looking at every function that the POST Board does from who is eligible to be a peace officer, to standards of conduct to training to model policies," McCarthy said.

Erik Misselt is on staff as the executive director.

"Any statis that was the case for many years at the post board is gone. Somewhere along the line the expectations for the policing profession have changed and then by consequence the expectations of the POST Board have changed and now we are getting up to speed," Misselt said.

He says right now they're going through rule making. Looking at what needs to change. Along with a discussion with stakeholders about what its role should be.

"We can offer training we can put police in place and do all of in place and do all of those things we should be doing and yet these instances may still happen, and it may come down to a particular agency or how they carry out their mission and figuring out where the post board fits in to that scenario is the crux of the argument right now," Misselt said.

The board and staff say they want to be part of the solution. And that's what they're working toward.

"It's going to take all of us to figure out how we get better. I have a lot of confidence, and I have the optimism of a toddler and I know that. But these are conversations we would have never had 5 years ago two years ago," McCarthy said.

In October the POST Board rolled out a way to search peace officer licenses online. It will show if the board has taken any disciplinary action against an officer. Right now, it can only take action after a conviction. The board wants to be able to act on a license if an officer violates the standard of conduct, whether there's been a conviction or not.

Here's a link to the public portal and proposed rule changes. And here you'll find a link to the first-ever post board audit done in 2020. 

WCCO brought together police chiefs from around the state. Leaders who for the first time talk candidly about use of force, challenges and what they think can help build community trust and deliver better outcomes.  

WCCO spoke with St. Paul Interim Chief Jeremy Ellison, Eagan Chief Roger New, Maple Grove Chief Eric Werner, Minnetonka Chief Scott Boerboom and Waite Park Chief Dave Bentrud.

WCCO takes a look at the state of police training in Minnesota and where it stands today. The regulatory agency over training and standards shares how its changing to keep up with community demands.  

St. Paul names its next police chief. What the commander selected to lead the department says about RRA training and why he plans to continue what the previous administration started.

Chief Axel Henry has 24 years of experience in law enforcement. He joined St. Paul police in '98, after starting with Roseville police. He's gone through the quarterly response to resistance or aggression training and says he's seen the progression over the past few years. He supports continuing RRA training in the department.

"We've always been very progressive in that and tried to get better and better and the latest most current iteration is the evolution of everything we've learned. And so it's something we always have to look at and make sure we're doing the best possible version for our community and for our officers," Henry said.

He hopes other departments in the state and around the country will use their training as a model.

Henry will begin his six-year term this weekend.