A DEA special agent and former township SWAT officer who was indicted for first-degree manslaughter after killing a suspect who was fighting to grab the officer’s gun has been vindicated by a federal appeals court, thanks in part to studies by the Force Science Research Center. A grand jury in Brooklyn (NY) indicted the agent,...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
You’re trained that the surest way to prevent an unintentional discharge is to keep your finger outside the trigger guard until you’ve made the decision to shoot. But under stress, will you–can you–reliably do that? Maybe not, according to a study of police performance under realistic conditions. Indeed, a significant percentage of officers not only...Read More
Do experienced, survival-savvy cops visually dissect and evaluate a potentially deadly scene differently than inexperienced or unaware officers or civilians? Certainly seems logical…and now researchers are about to find out not only whether that’s really true but also exactly how the best cops’ eyes seek and track danger cues. What they learn about the specifics...Read More
TRUE or FALSE: Spent shell casings ejected from a semiautomatic handgun at a shooting scene can reliably tell where a shooter stood when he fired rounds. In keeping with law enforcement lore, most officers, firearms trainers and crime scene investigators would likely say that’s true, given the operational consistency of a pistol’s ejection mechanism. But...Read More
