The newest study of police shooting accuracy in deadly force encounters reflects the experience of just one municipal department. But to whatever extent the findings can be generalized, the picture is indeed a disturbing one. Researchers analyzed 149 real-life OISs recorded over a 15-year period by Dallas (TX) PD. In nearly half of these encounters,...Read More
When police shoot an “unarmed” individual, the implication or outright accusation by media and activists is often that the deadly force was unjustified because the subject, without a weapon, was “defenseless” and thus could not have posed a threat. Now a newly published study by two criminal justice researchers paints a far different picture. Their...Read More
Trained by Hollywood to expect that a single round is enough to fatally wound a threatening suspect, noncops may question OISs in which multiple shots were fired. Why did officers fire so many rounds? Why was the suspect shot after already falling to the ground? Why did some bullets hit him in the back? For...Read More
The critical and controversial question of when investigators should interview officers after a shooting or other high-intensity event will be addressed by Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the Force Science Institute, at the annual conference of the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police this fall. Lewinski will explain the “six key psychological factors” to...Read More
A recent officer-involved shooting in rural Iowa is typical of many that occur across North America. The sheriff’s office involved hadn’t experienced an OIS in at least three decades. The county prosecutor, responsible for evaluating legal justification, hadn’t handled one in 17 years. “In locales other than large metropolitan areas, an OIS tends to be...Read More
When it comes to suspects who die in law enforcement settings, street cops, investigators, administrators, police lawyers, and medical examiners can probably all agree on one thing: investigating such events, in the words of one research team, is a “perilous and a slippery slope.” An excellent new book—Guidelines for Investigating Officer-Involved Shootings, Arrest-Related Deaths, and...Read More
EDITOR’S NOTE: Last September in a volatile case that drew international attention, Betty Shelby, a white police officer in Tulsa, OK, was charged with first-degree manslaughter for fatally shooting an uncooperative black man she thought was reaching into his SUV for a gun to use against her. No weapon was found, and Shelby was accused...Read More
Part 1 of a 2-part report Police Atty. Scott Wood was absorbed in his son’s high school football game that Friday night, so he missed the two calls to his cell phone until half time. Then he listened to the voice mails that hurled him into one of the nation’s most explosive officer-involved shootings. A...Read More
A national online database compiled by the Washington Post is widely considered to be the go-to place for statistics on fatal shootings by police. But how reliable is it? Kevin Davis, a prominent use-of-force trainer from Ohio, recently took a probing look at one frequently cited category in the Post s aggregation: officers deadly shootings...Read More
These days, when police too often are depicted as heartless killers, the world needs a film like Officer Involved. This one-hour and 43-minute documentary reveals the reality of the law enforcement psyche through the moving experiences of officers who have faced the moment and the aftermath of shooting a civilian. Some still tear up when...Read More
