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Read the press release here.

First NYPD Officers Start Retraining in Wake of Garner Death This Week

By Murray Weiss | October 14, 2014 7:31am | Updated on October 14, 2014 1:35pm
 NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton speaks at a press conference on Aug. 28, 2014.
NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton speaks at a press conference on Aug. 28, 2014.
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DNAinfo/Mathew Katz

NEW YORK CITY — The NYPD will begin re-training officers this week with its newly revamped curriculum designed to improve police relations with the public in the wake of the death of Eric Garner, DNAinfo New York has learned.

The class of 50 officers will be the first to “test” the new training initiatives, which will last for three days at the NYPD’s new Police Academy and likely start as early as Wednesday, sources said.

If the program proves successful, the entire 35,000 member force will eventually attend.

"We had to develop content and then we needed volunteers to take the training with an eye toward using them as instructors," a source explained.

The re-training intitiative, which was in the works well before the Garner tragedy, will focus on finding solutions to a complex problem of “improving positive behavior and reducing negative behavior,” the well-placed source told "On The Inside."

Limiting offensive language and finding alternatives “to solve problems without having to make an arrest,” two things that cause hostility between the public and police, will be targets of the training.

The test class will also review the NYPD's tactics and equipment with an eye to knowing what tools are available to deal with suspects who resist arrest and avoiding dangerous chokeholds, which are barred at the NYPD.

"Changing the attitude and behavior of virtually an entire generation of officers may be more difficult than driving down crime," another source said.  "But I believe we can do it."

"If the content proves to be good enough to train new instructors, we will expand and see how it goes," a source added.

After Garner’s death, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, who vowed to improve community relations when he returned to the NYPD, ordered re–training for the entire department. Last week he announced he wanted to rid the NYPD of brutal or corrupt officers, insisting that the “bad apples” tarnish the overwhelmingly successful work of the NYPD, which has driven down crime to record lows.

Critics have argued that the NYPD has become too heavy-handed in its focus on so-called "quality-of-life" offenses, as seen with the controversies over stop-and-frisk and "broken windows" policing, where officers focus on low-level crimes to deter more serious ones.

In addition to the Garner controversy, which was sparked after a video showed officers put him in an apparent chokehold and wrestle him to the ground for allegedly selling loose cigarettes on Staten Island, other taped clashes between police and civilians have emerged.

DNAinfo New York last week published a video that showed two officers chase down a teenage marijuana suspect. One of the officers is seen hitting the teen in the face with a gun. That officer was suspended and the other was placed on modified duty.

There were also two videos from Sunset Park showing an officer kicking a suspect on the ground in the back, and another officer taking down a pregnant woman during an arrest.

Mayor Bill de Blasio campaigned on promises of establishing an NYPD Inspector General, a muscular Civilian Complaint Review Board and embracing a federal monitor if so ordered by the Justice Department.