Shootings Raise Police Training Questions

N E W   Y O R K, Sept. 28 -- In late August, a police officer shot and killed a man after he mistook the man’s cigarette lighter for a gun. That same week in Detroit, a deaf and mute man wielding a garden rake was shot and killed by an officer.

A Detroit police officer was charged with manslaughter Wednesday in that city’s slaying, and an investigation is under way in the other.

The shootings in two very different communities have heightened questions about whether police officers, in small towns and larger cities, are properly trained about when to — and not to — use deadly force.

In Boise, Idaho, a spate of recent deadly shootings in an otherwise tranquil Western city brings the issue to a public debate.

“Officers can begin to see everybody they deal with as being a threat,” said Pierce Murphy, a community ombudsman in Boise. “Not a potential threat but a real threat.”

Shootings on Rise in Small Towns

While high-profile shootings, like the 1998 slaying of Amadou Diallo, who was killed by four New York City officers who mistook his wallet for a gun, have brought the issue of police shootings to the national forefront, there is an indication that such shootings are happening more often in small-town America.

The U.S. Department of Justice does not require police departments to report deadly shootings statistics. Some FBI statistics indicate the number of people fatally shot by police each year has changed little in the past five years, with about 360 dying at the hands of police in one recent year.

But researchers who study trends in crime suspect an important shift may be under way: Police-related fatalities and instances of abuse, which have traditionally been associated with large urban areas, are occurring in smaller cities and towns.

In the Colorado case, Eric Vantslot, 30, was shot and killed by sheriffs’ deputies in the town of Lyons after the man aimed what appeared to be a gun at them. After the shooting, investigators discovered the object was a cigarette lighter that resembled a semiautomatic handgun.