Stateside's conversation with Don Shelton and Juliette Roddy. Shelton and Roddy are co-directors of Alternatives to Violent Force.
When police officers are faced with potentially dangerous situations, the initial reaction is often to draw their weapon.
That, after all, is what their training suggests they do: A 2015 survey of training curriculum at more than 280 police agencies found that the typical agency devoted 58 hours to firearms training and 49 hours to defensive tactics, compared with 10 to communication and just eight to de-escalation.
This type of training, and the warrior mentality it creates, has been at the root of deadly confrontations between police and the people they're arresting in recent years.