DISD police learn verbal tools to defuse confrontations

Dallas ISD police are in the classroom this week, learning before the school doors open. 

What they are learning will hopefully keep them out of physical altercations with students, parents and others. 

The officers are being schooled in what’s known as "verbal judo,” and it has nothing to do with martial arts.

The training involves role play for the officers who will be charged with keeping schools, students and staff safe. 

The training teaches officers how to respond to emotionally-charged situations. 

Dallas ISD Police Chief Craig Miller points to the trooper stop of Sandra Bland in Waller County and other police confrontations that he says shows a need for training.

“We're remiss if we don’t talk about that,” said Miller. “I think we need to learn from those things that happened across the country and in our own backyard and do better.”

The aim is to help cut down confrontations. 

“So, I want to equip the officers with some verbal tools that they can use,” said instructor Sgt. Roderick “Tre” Montgomery. “Nothing they have to take off their belt, nothing like that. Just a verbal tool that they can use by saying, ‘I see that you're upset and I understand that you're frustrated.’”