Minneapolis officers told to watch their language

Whether dealing with an unruly suspect or an annoying onlooker, Minneapolis police officers for years have had a reputation for wringing every last curse word out of the dictionary to get people to comply.

But these days the department is pushing its officers to clean up their language, while also training them to use their mouths — rather than their muscle — to bring a dangerous person under control.

For nearly a decade, Minneapolis officers have received training designed to help them de-escalate potentially volatile situations. Crisis intervention training is now required for all cops.

"Ninety percent of what a cop does is communicating with people," said Michael Quinn, a former Minneapolis officer who now leads training sessions with police departments across the country. "Words have a lot of power; if you think about the kind of words that offend you, and if a cop uses them toward you, then it's going to produce feelings of anger."

Such training has become more common nationwide, Quinn said, as police agencies seek to avoid the kind of miscommunication between citizen and cop that resulted in the fatal shooting of Philando Castile during a traffic stop last summer in Falcon Heights.

In Minneapolis, the training teaches officers to keep their heads, even if they're being yelled at by frustrated 911 callers or people in the throes of mental crisis who may not understand an officer's commands.

Police are being trained to speak with citizens in a way that avoids escalating tense situations and to maintain authority without losing self-control.

At the urging of the U.S. Justice Department, Minneapolis police started procedural justice training — the idea that, in their dealings with police, people are more likely to accept the outcome if they feel as if they've been treated fairly.

Last fall, the Minneapolis police joined a handful of U.S. cities that have established transgender policies requiring officers to address people with their preferred names and pronouns.

But officials say it goes beyond simply being more courteous. Minneapolis police want to make sure that one officer handles communications rather five cops yelling at someone at the same time, Chief Janeé Harteau said in an interview last month.

"It means that we don't have to shoot somebody because they're not listening to us," she said.

Harteau has argued that penalties should be increased for officers who are unnecessarily disrespectful or use harsh language.

Critics say the department hasn't entirely shed its foul-mouthed reputation.

The Office of Police Conduct Review, a police watchdog group based in the city's civil rights department, has taken criticism for dismissing most language complaints logged against officers.

The group receives about 100 complaints a year about inappropriate language or attitude.

In one case in March, an officer used profanity after two men approached him to complain about being inadvertently sprayed with Mace. The officer referred to one of the men as "Puffy Eyes."

Another time, a cop was accused of using an expletive in addressing a nurse who had rushed to the aid of an unconscious man outside a bar.

"I'd rather have somebody use bad language to me or threaten me with things rather than do the things that they're probably authorized to do in the first place," said Lt. Bob Kroll, who heads the police union. "When I started, you didn't want to talk like a college-educated guy when you're booking somebody who's smoking crack."

The ubiquity of body cameras has encouraged better behavior of both officers and citizens, he said.

But Chuck Turchick, a longtime police observer, said that officials promote the kind of permissive culture that has led to past scandals by letting comparatively minor infractions like foul language slide.

"It sends a message that they're not taking language violations seriously," he said.

"We all need to think about the effect of our words on the people around us," said Swarthmore College linguistics professor Donna Jo Napoli, who has studied the use of taboo language.

"By using taboo language, you lower the register of the discourse and that can lower the register of the behavior," Napoli said.

"By using the language of the people that you're talking to, you might actually be saying to them, 'I am a low life, I am somebody that comes from a background who is comfortable with nasty behavior.' "

Quinn, the former cop-turned-instructor, said that more police departments are embracing the philosophy that people can be persuaded rather than forced to obey commands.

There are exceptions, he said, describing one encounter in which he was punched in the head while trying to arrest a robbery suspect.

"The first words out of my mouth was, 'Freeze, [expletive]!" he said recently. "The problem is, too many people are using it on a routine basis.