Vetro’s program has the blessing of the committee the town formed to implement Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Executive Order 203 policing reforms.
Bernard Bowen, a member of the town’s 203 Committee and the town’s chief financial officer, said he thinks the program will teach officers different techniques that could help them understand how to handle and defuse potentially violent situations.
“And hopefully, not have to escalate and put people in a position to be injured,” Bowen said.
Preventing injuries
In 2019, 56,034 state and local police officers were assaulted in the U.S., a rate of 11.8 per 100 sworn officers, according to the FBI’s most recent annual report of line-of-duty injuries and deaths of police officers. Of the assaulted officers, 17,188 suffered injuries.