Eugene Police Chief Says Killing Veteran "Tragedy for family and community"

Police chief rules officers followed policy in Brian Babb shooting, announces more reforms
But Eugene Police Chief Pete Kerns also says his officers followed department policy
The Register-Guard
By Christian Hill
OCT. 9, 2015

The deadly encounter occurred less than an hour after Babb’s therapist called 911 to report that Babb, who suffered from severe post-traumatic stress disorder and a traumatic brain injury, was suicidal and had fired a gun in the house.

Eugene Police Chief Pete Kerns announced Thursday that his sworn officers followed department policies during their response to a 911 call that ended when an officer fatally shot a veteran in emotional crisis.

The March 30 killing of Brian Babb, a former captain in the Oregon Army National Guard who deployed to Afghanistan, prompted many questions in the community about the department’s handling of the call and prompted the department to make a series of reforms to improve its response to residents in emotional crisis.

Kerns again called Babb’s killing a “tragedy for his family and our community.”

“The experience of this incident has caused us to re-examine our practices and philosophies thoroughly and to advance our performance in high-risk complex calls for service,” Kerns wrote in concluding the 16-page report of his findings after the months-long internal review of the officer-involved shooting.

Kerns said the shift of the initial dispatcher ended during the police response and another dispatcher took her place. Kerns said he didn’t know the exact time of the shift change, and his report is silent on what effect, if any, it had on the police response.

His report said a dispatcher also erroneously reported over the radio to responding officers that Babb had fired his gun into a window, confirming what The Register-Guard had previously reported.

The Eugene Police Department has announced nearly a dozen policy changes and directives in the wake of the March 30 fatal shooting of Brian Babb to improve its response to veterans and other residents in emotional crisis:
1. Organize program to provide support for struggling veterans before they reach crisis.
2. Instruct supervisors to not interrupt if a resident is talking with a mental health professional.
3. Have at least 2 crisis negotiators respond to calls involving mental health crises.
4. Require that officers be sent to the location of a therapist if they are engaged with a barricaded subject to work together to resolve crisis.
5. Develop a decision-making model, similar to one in Scotland, to help officers navigate dangerous encounters.
6. Track the deployment of department’s armored vehicle.
7. Study the use of armored vehicles audio and video equipment so it — rather than an exposed officer — can monitor surroundings.
8. Instruct officers who completed 40-hour crisis intervention instruction to take refresher course.
9. Develop crisis intervention training program for 911 center personnel.
10. Require 911 call takers and dispatchers who initially take “high-risk” call to remain on it until conclusion.
11. Allow officers to wear emblems on uniforms denoting their military service to help connect with veterans.
read more here