When you’re dispatched to a call of a naked person out in public you’d be like a lot of officers if you thought the matter was amusing. But you’d probably be wrong-and in the worst of circumstances, dead wrong. Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the Force Science Research Center at Minnesota State University-Mankato, has...Read More
To hear some of the media and activist police critics tell it, American cops are “out of control,” running rampant in an “epidemic” of unjustified use of force. But in an ongoing study that has been underway now for more than three years, Dr. Darrell Ross, an associate professor in the CJ department at East...Read More
Are you making your career a daily opportunity for growth and skills enhancement? Or are you, perhaps unknowingly, sliding into complacent practices that, in a crisis, could seal your doom? As a subscriber to Force Science News, chances are you’re a lifetime learner who regularly reinforces a commitment to be well-prepared for whatever comes your...Read More
As an off-duty or retired LEO, you have a fundamental decision to make whenever you pack for an out-of-state trip these days: Should you bring a gun? Generally speaking, you can. The federal Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act of 2004, effective since last summer, provides that any “qualified” active or retired peace officer may carry...Read More
The first production model of the world’s newest and most sophisticated digital, high-definition use-of-force simulation system has been donated to the Force Science Research Center to deepen its investigations into officer-involved shootings and other lethal confrontations. The results may ultimately help protect your life on the street and your career and freedom in court. Presentation...Read More
Chronic back pain–an affliction suffered by many police officers–can affect your brain. According to researchers from Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, such chronic pain can cause premature aging by shrinking the brain’s gray matter as much as 11 per cent in one year, the equivalent of 10-20 years of normal aging, according to a...Read More
A timely article on “Surviving ‘Shots Fired’ Calls” by FSRC National Advisory Board member Dave Grossi appears in The Law Enforcement Trainer magazine (4th quarter 2004), just published by the American Society for Law Enforcement Training. Grossi reinforces the risks of these common but hazardous calls by citing a number of cases of officer deaths...Read More
Until the Force Science Research Center entered the case, no one knew precisely how Randall Carr ended up killed by a police bullet that tore into his body near his rectum and blew a hole in his heart. His angry relatives, with Johnnie Cochran’s legal team behind them, insisted it had to be a deliberate...Read More
Should a moratorium be declared on the Taser? Absolutely, says Amnesty International, the activist human rights organization, which has called for a cease fire in the use of “stun technology in law enforcement” until the true risk to targeted suspects can be thoroughly researched and verified. Nonsense, says Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the...Read More
How can an officer in a gunfight be looking at their sights and not see and respond instantly to a change in a subject’s behavior? Why couldn’t the officer see the other person? He has to be lying when he said he didn’t see the person drop the gun! Why can’t he tell us how...Read More
