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2023 MAY BRUSH COLLECTION

Tuesday, May 23, 2023

The monthly brush pickup will begin on the week of May 29, 2023. During scheduled brush collections, the Street Department will make only one pass through the city to pick up brush. Please have your brush by the front curb, but not in the street, by that first day in the morning at 7 a.m.... more

BOIL WATER ORDER CANCELED - S. MAIN STREET & CARTER ROAD

Monday, May 22, 2023

The Boil Order for South Main Street and Carter Road was canceled on Friday, May 19th. The samples have been taken, test results are satisfactory, and boiling your water is no longer necessary. Thank you for your patience and for the water conservation measures you followed. If you have any questions,... more

NOTICE OF ADOPTION OF CITY OF GOSHEN ORDINANCE 5159

Thursday, May 18, 2023

Notice is given that Ordinance 5159, Amending Ordinance Violations Bureau, was passed by the Goshen Common Council on May 15, 2023, and approved and adopted by Mayor Stutsman.  Ordinance 5159 describes and continues the operation of previously established City of Goshen Ordinance Violations Bureau;... more

Upcoming Events All »

Downtown Goshen EID

Thursday, June 1, 2023, 7:30am

Downtown Goshen Economic Improvement District

Cemetery Board

Thursday, June 1, 2023, 2:00pm

Board of Works

Monday, June 5, 2023, 2:00pm

To join the webinar please copy and paste this link on your browser: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82986722338 or call 309-205-3325. Webinar ID: 829 8672 2338. Comments are no longer taken online.

About De-Escalation

Verbal Skills for De-Escalation

The first thing to know about de-escalation training is that the term itself is somewhat of a misnomer. De-escalation is an outcome, not one specific skill, but to get there our officers must employ a set of verbal—and sometimes physical—skills.

During training, we refer to ‘de-escalation’ as persuasion. Our goal is to persuade people to comply voluntarily with lawful commands. This is the goal of law enforcement across the country, and it’s the type of skill set used most at any given time. The Goshen Police Department encountered more than 30,000 people in 2019, with less than 50 incidents in which anything over compliant handcuffing was required. That means physical force was used just over .1 percent of the time. 

Our officers receive the persuasion class every year as part of training on officer/citizen interactions. We teach de-escalation as an outcome, and that persuasion is an integration of communication combined with physical tactics when necessary. During training, our officers learn to recognize what kind of situation they are responding to and when a situation allows persuasion to be used as a means to de-escalate.

In any given scenario, the officer(s) and person (s) interacting all have influence on the zone between them. The influence can be:

  • Physical: We discuss knowing when distance is helping the issue, and recognizing when it is not. 
  • Temporal: Time allows us to decide between courses of action and pick the best choice. When you take away distance, you start to take away time. 
  • Psychological: Our officers learn the importance of communication of all types, including body language. We discuss the fact that most people, unwittingly or no, develop an impression of someone within 2-7 seconds of meeting them, whether any words were spoken or not.

We teach our officers to try to maintain influence in all three zones, which allows options for resolution. This may allow our officers time to establish contact, build rapport, and establish influence. If our officers they cannot establish rapport with an individual, they cannot influence the individual. 

The course also includes learning about:

  • The OODA loop: The four stage thought process that everyone MUST go through before acting.  Observe, Orient, Decide, Act
  • Recognition Primed Decision Making:  Decisions made in less than two seconds fall into this category.  Rapid decisions made based on previous experiences.
  • Five Universal Truths: A series of principles developed by police trainer Dr. Greg Thompson:
    • All people want to be treated with dignity and respect
    • All people want to be asked rather and told to do something
    • All people want to be told why they are being asked to do something
    • All people want to be given options rather than threats
    • All people want a second chance
  • Assessing the situation to determine what is needed. Is this a criminal issue and ultimately an arrest must be made? Is this a civil issue? Does a person need help?
  • Contaminated Thinking: a condition of thinking in which the person has lost the ability (either temporarily or permanently) to clearly, logically, and / or rationally understand their environment due to mental or physical illness, injury, intoxication, developmental disabilities, or any combination of the above (Azar-Dickens, 2017)

After an initial assessment of the situation and taking action, the officer must then evaluate if what they are doing is working. If it is not, they need to change tactics—all in the span of seconds or fractions of seconds. Sometimes an officer can do everything right and still not be able to influence someone.

In addition to the persuasion course, officers learn verbal skills in the traffic S.T.O.P.S. program.

With scenario training multiple times a year, officers are always emphasized the importance of correctly reading a situation, using verbal communication and proper tactics.  This is carried through our firearms and physical tactics training as well.