Dr. John Peters of IPICD to be Featured on CUTV News Radio

PALM DESERT, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES, August 9, 2018 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Police officers have one-half the power of God: they have the power to take a life, but they can't restore it.

Dr. John Peters is the president and chief learning officer of the Institute for the Prevention and Management of In-Custody Deaths. A former Pennsylvania police officer and deputy sheriff, Peters trains law enforcement, legal attorneys, paramedics, and even medical examiners on the handling of arrest-related and sudden in-custody deaths.

“Arrest-related deaths involve anyone who's in the process of being arrested,” says Dr. Peters. “If someone were chasing a suspect and the suspect had a heart attack and died, that would be an arrest-related death. An in-custody death traditionally meant jail suicide, but it can mean a lot of different things when you have confrontations in jail. If correctional officers had to use lethal force, that would be an in-custody death (Definitions are based on the Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2000). It's quite extreme.”

Along with his training associate and vice president David Berman, IPICD has been teaching the subject since 1996, though Peters says their real interest in the subject began around 2005, following the introduction of Taser stun guns.

“Before any first responder can do anything to help these folks, they first have to be captured and controlled,” says Dr. Peters. “Therein lies some of the problems. Some of the capturing methods historically have involved pepper spray. More recently it's involved the use of electronic control devices, primarily the Taser.”

“With mental illness issues, the opioid pandemic, officers are confronting wildly out-of-control people,” says Dr. Peters. “So one of our primary goals is to provide scientific and evidence-based information and practices to help first responders intervene with this category of individual and try to save their lives, or at least minimize any significant serious injury.”

IPICD takes a rigorous approach to identifying, reviewing, and teaching the scientific findings on pepper spray, putting people face-down during restraint, on Taser, and works with the medical community to teach appropriate interventions.

“When we started the institute back in 2005, very little of this was known on a national basis,” says Dr. Peters. “You had dots all over the board: The medical community understood breathing issues and heart issues and those types of things, but law enforcement did not. We really connected the dots. That's one of the things we've been fairly successful at doing.”

Still, says Peters, what is ultimately needed is a change in organizational culture.

“It starts at the top. It starts with the administration,” says Dr, Peters. “We find that if the folks are well trained they have a more professional approach.”

CUTV News Radio will feature Dr. John Peters in an interview with Doug Llewelyn on August 13th at 2pm EDT and August 20th at 2pm EDT.

Listen to the show on BlogTalkRadio.

If you have a question for our guest, call (347) 996-3389.

For more information on IPICD, visit http://www.ipicd.com

Lou Ceparano
CUTV News
(631) 850-3314
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