Kentucky State Police quoted Hitler and encouraged cadets to be 'ruthless' in a training program

Police quoted Adolf Hitler and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, and encouraged trainees to pursue violence.

Kentucky State Police clear protestors from Jefferson Square Park  (EPA-EFE)

The 33-page slide show used to train cadets for the Kentucky State Police (KSP) encouraged ethical and moral decision-making, selflessness, pride and honour. 

But in doing so, the police also quoted Adolf Hitler and Confederate general Robert E Lee, and encouraged trainees to pursue violence at all costs.

"The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence," Hitler wrote in his anti-Semitic manifesto Mein Kampf, which was included on a police training slide entitled “Violence of Action”. 

The line was one of three times the state police quoted the Nazi leader in the training material.

The slide show was first reported on Friday by Manual Redeye, a student newspaper at Louisville's duPont Manual High School. The students were given the documents by a local lawyer, who received them through an open records request for a lawsuit against the police agency.

After the report was published, state officials responded with anger and condemnation. In a statement to the Redeye, Kentucky governor Andy Beshear called the materials "unacceptable".

"We will collect all the facts and take immediate corrective action," Mr Beshear said.

The report comes as hate crimes are on the rise and as law enforcement has been under intense scrutiny over claims of excessive force. 

Kentucky police have been in the national spotlight since the death of Breonna Taylor, a black medical worker who was fatally shot in March by Louisville officers during a raid on her apartment. KSP assisted Louisville police during the subsequent protests and conducted a ballistics report in the Taylor investigation.

The slide show bears the name of lieutenant Curt Hall who, per his LinkedIn profile, served as assistant commander at the academy from 2005 to 2015. 

A mural of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky (EPA-EFE)

He then went on to work in internal affairs before recently retiring. Mr Hall did not respond to the New York Times over the weekend and didn't immediately respond to a message from The Washington Post early on Monday.

It is unclear when the slide show was created but Morgan Hall, the communications director for the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, said in a statement to the Redeye that the training materials haven't been used since 2013

"It is unacceptable that this material was ever included in the training of law enforcement," Ms Hall said. "Our administration does not condone the use of this material."

The rhetoric in the slide show is consistent with "warrior-style" police training, which teaches officers to dehumanise people to act aggressively and forcefully. It also trains officers to approach every encounter with citizens as having a possibility of becoming dangerous or fatal.

Several pages in the slide show include warrior iconography and phrases like: "A warrior must possess certain traits, protect certain things and have the courage to do both at all costs."

The training technique is controversial, with critics saying the approach leads to officers jumping to violence and excessive force. In Minneapolis, for example, mayor Jacob Frey banned the practice last year, but the police union continued teaching it anyway after immense blowback.

The training materials also include a quote from confederate general Lee that promotes expressing masculinity above all else.

"Private and public life are subject to the same rules; truth and manliness will carry you through the world much better than policy, or tact, or expediency, or any other word that was ever devised to conceal a deviation from a straight line."

In a slide called "Violence of Action", Ms Hall writes: "Be a loving father, spouse, and friend as well as the ruthless killer."

The page also includes instructions on how to effectively use violence like "able to meet violence with greater violence" and "a mind-set void of emotion, where perception, analysis, and response merge into one process".

The next slide includes another quote from the Hitler: "It is always more difficult to fight against faith than against knowledge." The next slide simply said: "Über Alles", a German phrase meaning "above all else", which has been widely associated with Nazis.

The Anti-Defamation League tweeted that the organisation is getting involved in the case.

"It is entirely inexcusable for the words of Hitler to be used in training Kentucky State Police. ADL is actively working in the state to determine what happened and ensure it doesn't happen again," the tweet said.

Representative John Yarmuth also expressed his anger on Twitter.

"As a Kentuckian, I am angry and embarrassed. And as a Jewish American, I am genuinely disturbed that there are people like this who not only walk among us, but who have been entrusted to keep us safe," he tweeted. "There needs to be consequences."

The Washington Post