LAPD to Issue Manual on Use of Force : Police: Primer prepared by senior officials is the first comprehensive guide on subduing suspects. Officers have complained that lack of regulations has forced them to avoid confrontations.

The Los Angeles Police Department, grappling with problems triggered by the Rodney G. King beating and reignited by the explosive comments of former Detective Mark Fuhrman, has completed its first comprehensive manual on how and when police should use force to subdue suspects.

The manual, which was prepared by senior LAPD officials and is expected to be distributed in coming days, is a 52-page, glossy primer outlining every type of force available to LAPD officers: from so-called compliance techniques to the use of pepper spray to the discharge of firearms. Although some of the techniques have long been used in the department, others, such as pepper spray, are relatively new.

The modern-day LAPD has never before integrated all its use of force options into a single package, a failure that police officers have complained left them with little guidance in handling violent, dangerous situations such as the one confronted by the officers who were attempting to arrest King on March 3, 1991. Members of the police union and others have complained that without a manual, officers are forced to improvise during many situations that called for force.

As a result, some police officers say their uncertainty has caused them to back off from potential confrontations, preferring to let a suspect go rather than risk departmental discipline or criminal prosecution. In fact, use of the baton has all but disappeared in the LAPD, where some officers bitterly refer to the device as the “indictment stick.”

With so much attention internally focused on the production of a use of force manual, political leaders welcomed its publication and said they hoped that it would be available to all rank-and-file officers as soon as possible.

“I know that others will look at this as long overdue, but my focus is that it’s excellent and it’s here now,” said Councilwoman Laura Chick, who heads the City Council’s Public Safety Committee. “It presents a full-continuum approach, and it’s readable and easy to understand.”

In addition, Chick said she hoped that the manual would reassure members of the public that the department, which is reeling from the disclosure of the Fuhrman tapes and transcripts in connection with the murder trial of O.J. Simpson, takes seriously its commitment to regulate the use of force by its officers. In interviews with a screenwriter from 1985 to 1994, Fuhrman often boasted of using excessive force on suspects; in some cases, he alleged, with the approval of supervisors.

That has touched off considerable public alarm, but Chick said the manual might help show people outside the LAPD that the department is intent on regulating use of force by its officers.

“There is a clearly defined policy,” Chick said. “The department’s aim, and its officers’ aim, is to use lethal force and other force as infrequently as possible.”

The new manual, titled “Use of Force Handbook,” grows largely out of the King beating and its aftermath, but it never mentions the incident by name. Still, several of its passages reflect the circumstances of that historic confrontation.

In bold letters, the handbook informs officers that the baton “shall not be used in a striking movement to gain compliance to verbal commands absent combative or aggressive actions by the suspect.” In the King incident, officers were accused of continuing to strike King long after he had ceased to be combative.

The manual also for the first time explicitly authorizes officers to “swarm” suspects, essentially tackling them to the ground. Prosecutors and a police instructor suggested that that technique would have been appropriate in the King incident, but the officers maintained through two trials that the swarm was not approved by the LAPD for use anywhere except in jail situations.

At the same time, the manual presents officers with a few sample scenarios intended to illustrate how police should react when confronted with a variety of situations. One of those scenarios closely parallels the King incident, and the manual’s recommended course for officers in such a situation suggests that many of the initial steps taken by the officers in that case were appropriate.

Officers confronted with a suspect who charges in their direction “with his fists raised and verbally threatens the officers’ safety” should react by using Tasers, their batons or kicks and leg sweeps, the new handbook recommends. That mirrors the initial LAPD response to King’s actions.

Federal prosecutors acknowledged that those first blows were appropriate. They instead focused their case on the baton strikes and kicks administered to King after he was knocked to the ground and surrounded by police. Federal prosecutors argued, and a jury agreed, that at least some of those blows were excessive.

Laurence M. Powell, the officer who delivered most of the blows, is serving a federal prison sentence for his role in the incident. So is former Sgt. Stacey C. Koon, who supervised Powell and other officers at the scene.

The King beating was the impetus for a broad review of LAPD use of force policies, a topic addressed by the Christopher Commission and emphasized by the group of civilian police commissioners who oversee LAPD policy.

Assistant Chief Frank Piersol, who helped guide the document to its conclusion, said the LAPD’s senior staff launched the handbook in 1992 under the direction of then newly appointed Police Chief Willie L. Williams.

Among other things, Piersol said, the new manual will help officers better understand when to use pepper spray--a device that some have criticized but that LAPD officials say is helping to reduce injuries to suspects and officers.

The handbook, Piersol added, should also make it clear to officers that under certain circumstances they can wrestle a suspect to the ground rather than resort to the baton or other so-called impact devices.

“One of the things that came out of the King trial was a perception at least among some of our officers that we should never tie up with suspects,” he said. “This should help clear that up.”

On Thursday, Police Commission President Deirdre Hill said she welcomed the completion of the handbook, citing it as “one step toward in-service training that the department has done a woefully poor job of enacting.”

Hill said the handbook was completed only after extensive review at the upper reaches of the LAPD and input from the commission, which reviews all officer-involved shootings to determine whether the police acted appropriately. Piersol agreed, saying that part of the reason the process took years to complete was that suggestions were solicited from a wide-ranging group of officers and others.

Hill was particularly pleased by the inclusion of examples in the manual to provide concrete guidance for officers. She said she hoped that the department would follow up on the manual by providing roll-call briefings to officers and updating the list of examples with actual incidents involving uses of force.

“My expectation is that this would be discussed in roll calls and in other forums,” she said. “It needs to have some reinforcement to be most effective.”

Piersol pledged to provide that reinforcement and said several types of training are intended to accompany distribution of the handbook. A special session of the council’s Public Safety Committee is set for Sept. 11, and Piersol said police officials will brief the council at that time on the handbook and on the status of LAPD training programs.