Director of U of I Police Training Institute Called “Public Relations Clown” at Urbana Police Review Board Meeting

On Tuesday September 3^rd, 2020 the Urbana Civilian Police Review Board (CPRB) held another special meeting for training purposes. Dr. Michael Schlosser of the University of Illinois Police Training Institute returned to give a presentation on de-escalation.

Schlosser was previously criticized by CPRB members and members of the public after his use of force presentation on July 29^th for lacking technical details and for being dismissive about police misconduct.

Schlosser is known for trying to charm his audience with “dad jokes”, but his de-escalation presentation was so full of ineffectual blither that one attendee described it as “cringey”.  Schlosser walked the CPRB through another police training slideshow that appeared to be written for a child’s comprehension level.

The slideshow included video clips of Schlosser’s favorite Adam Sandler movies, such as “Billy Madison” and “Anger Management”. Schlosser would give an “A” to the CPRB members who could name the movie titles to which his clips belonged. The board members did not appear entertained.

Schlosser didn’t actually know how to play the clips properly in a Zoom conference call, so they mostly resulted in a lot of confusion and wasted time.

According to Urbana City staff, these presentations will be used to train future CPRB members.

One member of the public who attended the virtual meeting had this to say after Schlosser’s presentation:

“That presentation was absolutely terrible. I feel like my evening has been wasted and it wasn’t clear what anyone might have actually learned here. I think we should all realize that Michael Schlosser is really just a public relations clown for the police. He likes to use stupid little jokes and these dumb videos to try and charm people, but if you really listen to the content of his presentation, he is presenting something that either does not represent how police actually operate, or he fails to realize when police are doing something morally wrong. It’s all just a puppet show to distract you from the rampant corruption within our police system.”

The September 3^rd, 2020 Urbana CPRB meeting, including Michael Schlosser’s presentation on de-escalation, can be viewed here: