The Sacramento City Council has changed their definition of use-of-deadly-force for police officers.
Last month, the City Council adopted policy declaring deadly force shall only be used as a last resort, reading peace officers should first use deescalation techniques leading to voluntary compliance, mitigating the need for deadly force. The new policy adopted yesterday by the City Council claims an officer is justified in using deadly force as a last resort when reasonable alternatives have been exhausted or are not feasible, basing the need for deadly force on the totality of circumstances.
The new language aims to balance context and in-the-moment decision making for officers, as well as tie up loose ends in the former policy's language.