Part 1 of a 2-part series Amid the myriad pressures that inevitably arise after an officer-involved shooting, how does a law enforcement agency assure that its investigation of the event is fair, neutral and fact-finding in nature? One protocol for reaching that goal was offered recently by a well-known National Advisory Board member of the...Read More
Do police officers really have to kill people when they shoot them? Couldn’t they be more humane and just aim for arms or legs? As we reported in a previous FSN [2/28/06], a New York state senator in pondering these questions decided there’s way too much needless death being inflicted by cops these days. So...Read More
For the first time, a scientific reconstruction of how an unarmed suspect must have moved during a confrontation with police has been successfully introduced into the British criminal justice system, exonerating 2 officers who were facing murder charges after shooting the man dead. The officers, who’d been accused of lying to cover up their “execution,”...Read More
An expanded study of shell casing ejection patterns, with important legal implications for law enforcement, has just been completed by the Force Science Research Center, with cooperation of the Los Angeles County (CA) Sheriff’s Dept. Details and an analysis will be reported in the next issue of Force Science News, but FSRC Executive Director Bill...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
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
