Sheriff Pierce talks Aycock incident, race
By John Joyce
Published in News on December 6, 2014 11:58 PM
Less than a week after one of his deputies used his taser on a 15-year-old black male inside Charles B. Aycock High School -- and as protests of grand jury decisions in Ferguson, Mo., and Staten Island, N.Y., continue -- Wayne County Sheriff Larry Pierce opened up about the topic of race and the use of force by law enforcement officers during an interview with the News-Argus Friday.
The sheriff said race does not play a role in how he -- or the men and women under his command -- go about their business.
"As I said during my campaign, I am the people's sheriff. I am everybody's sheriff. Race does not play a (role) in anything. It does not play a part," he said. "I see a man a man, a woman a woman, a child a child. I don't see color."
And he remained steadfast in his support for Deputy Kenneth Grice, the school resource officer who he said was forced to use his taser to break up a fight that broke out inside CBA Wednesday.
"Far as we can tell from our investigation, everything was handled by the policy of the school and by the policy of our office," Pierce said.
Grice has been moved to a permanent assignment, as he was not the regular deputy assigned to the school to begin with, the sheriff said.
And despite what some have said, the incident at the school does not measure up with what took place in Ferguson or in New York, Pierce said -- but merely serves as an example of a situation that could have potentially gone awry.
But the incident -- and the protests unfolding across the country -- gave Pierce an opportunity to unwrap just what would happen should something akin to what unfolded in Ferguson and Staten Island occur in Wayne.
There are currently measures in place to ensure any investigation into the use of force by a local law enforcement officer is investigated with transparency, Pierce said.
"We have a couple of officers in our department who are internal affairs officers who have had extra training in that. If it becomes, or if it is obvious, that it is a criminal matter, or even if it doesn't appear to be a criminal matter, if it is actually where you have a death during a use of force, we're going to let the (State Bureau of Investigation) investigate it, as well as our own internal investigation," he said. "You start out, if there is any use of force, you call the SBI immediately. If it is just something internally that does not appear to be a use of force, you do an internal investigation. Then, if at any point it looks like there is any criminal involvement, you always call your SBI agents to come in and assist on that investigation."
Pierce said his hope is that there is never a need for such an investigation -- that deputies attend annual minority sensitivity training to learn how to deal with each person they encounter individually and professionally.
Asked if he were to review traffic stops conducted by his deputies involving white, black and Hispanic drivers, would he expect to see his officers conduct themselves the same way in each video, Pierce said it would depend on the scenarios.
"If the situations were all the same, yes," he said. "You have to look and see how the person that you are talking with or interviewing is responding back and you have to look at cultural differences. And so, yes, you want to respond (to all races) in the same professional manner, but it may appear different because of the way they are reacting back to you."
And it is not only the racial divide that poses a potential problem in a police-to-citizen interaction, Pierce noted.
"When you look at it, it is not only race issues or ethnic issues, it is also juvenile type issues we have to look at," he said. "The juveniles today are not the same juveniles there were even two or three years ago necessarily. Social media has come about. We learn about all of that. There are people who have social media who didn't have it four or five years ago."
In addition to social media, the prevalence of cell phone cameras and the call for mandatory body cameras to be worn by officers have added to the debate regarding police conduct.
Pierce quoted the popular NBC crime drama "Blue Bloods" when addressing the need for officers to be armed with audio/visual recording devices.
"You hate it has gotten to that point, but it is the reality that you have to deal with," he said. "It is bad that you can't take a man's word for what he says -- that you've got to have it documented all with audio and video."
The lack of video footage fueled speculation in the Ferguson case, whereas the presence of video footage in Staten Island is what fueled protests.
Pierce said that without knowing the specifics of either case, other than what the media has reported, he did not wish to second guess the officers involved.
"Until you have been there and your life is on the line, and you don't know from the next minute to this one if you are going to be living in just a few minutes, you don't know how you are going to react, so I don't want to second guess those officers, not knowing exactly what went down," he said. "From an administrative point of view, you try to be just as transparent as you can. You investigate and whatever plays out is what it is. But you base it on the facts and not propaganda."
Pierce did say, however, that a plan to order body cameras was already in place before the incident at CBA occurred -- and that officers assigned to schools would get them first.
"We are in the process of trying to get all our officers equipped that way, but I am going to start out with the SROs," he said. "They are dealing almost daily with confrontations with kids."
Cameras for patrol officers would soon follow.
"It is a sign of the times," Pierce said. "And we have to deal with it in that manner."