The Bench and the Badge

First ten minutes - the person in custody outranks the chain of command.

1. Intervene if the force is still happening or excessive. Verbal first, physical if needed. Get the youth off his chest and into a seated or recovery position.
2. Treat "I can't breathe" as a medical emergency - check breathing and responsiveness, request EMS, and stay with him.
3. Preserve your body camera. Do not delete, do not dock it in a way that overwrites, do not hand it to the senior officer.
4. Separate yourself from the senior officer's narrative. Do not discuss "what we're going to say." Not one sentence.

By end of shift: 5. Write your own report, whether asked to or not. Time-ordered facts: who was present, what was said, the takedown as you saw it, the two statements verbatim, the medical response, and the fact that the other officer's camera was not activated. 6. Report the force and the camera failure up the chain in writing. If the supervisor is the officer, his friend, or the person who tells you to let it go, go up one more level. Most agencies and contracts have a specific use-of-force reporting channel; use the channel, not a hallway conversation. 7. Photograph and log everything - the youth's injuries, the tile, the camera status, the times.

The thing that gets cadets fired: the assumption that "the report is the senior officer's job." It isn't. Every officer who saw it writes it. A takedown of a calm, hands-empty 15-year-old on a noise call is a proportionality problem on its face, and it is not your call to decide whether it was lawful - it is your call to make sure the facts exist for whoever does.

In:

• Times, location, the call as dispatched, who was present by name and badge.
• What you personally saw: the youth's posture and words before contact, the collar grab, the leg sweep, the face-down position on tile.
• The youth's statements verbatim and in quotes, with who said them and how many times.
• What you heard and did not hear ("I did not hear the youth threaten or strike anyone").
• Your own actions, including the intervention and the EMS request, and the times.
• The camera status: yours activated, the other officer's not activated, and when you became aware of it.
• The condition of the youth afterward and any medical follow-up.

Out:

• Legal conclusions ("the force was excessive," "he assaulted the youth"). You describe; others decide.
• Characterizations of the officer ("he lost his temper," "he always does this").
• Speculation about intent, and any inference you did not personally observe.
• Hearsay written as fact. "Another officer told me..." is identified as such.
• Apologies, hedge words, and "approximately" on anything a camera can timestamp.

One more rule: if the senior officer's report says "resisted" and yours says the youth had his hands on his knees and was apologizing, do not reconcile the two by softening yours. A discrepancy that is documented is evidence. A discrepancy that is smoothed over is a cover-up with two signatures on it.

The reporter:

• Do not confirm, deny, characterize, or name anyone. You are not the public information officer. "I'm not the person who can speak to that. Here's the number for our public information office, and I'll make sure your call is logged" is a complete and professional answer.
• Do not confirm a minor's identity, injuries, or even that a minor was involved.
• Be courteous. Courtesy is not the same as disclosure, and how you handle the call will be part of the story whether or not you give them anything.
• Document the contact: time, name, outlet, the exact questions, and what you said. Route it up immediately, because the agency needs to hear it from you before it hears it from the news.

The internal pressure - "you're new, don't make this a thing," "his camera glitched," "nobody got hurt" - is the actual test:

• Seniority is not authority over a factual report. Your obligation is owed to the person who was on that tile and to the record, not to a colleague's pension.
• Answer pressure the same way every time: "I'm writing what I saw. If I'm wrong about something, tell my supervisor and it gets corrected in a supplement." Then stop talking.
• Document the pressure itself if it becomes an instruction to omit or alter - who said it, when, in what words - and route it with the original report.
• Expect to be unpopular. The version of this story where you stay quiet is the version where you are the second person on the video, and the only one who can be shown to have known better.