Editor’s Note: Studying performance errors in policing can be difficult for researchers who cannot ethically replicate the dangerous conditions present in lethal force encounters. To overcome this limitation, researchers routinely consider evidence derived from other professions and industries (e.g., aerospace (Airbus), aeronautics (NASA), pharmaceutical, occupational safety and health, medical, industrial engineering, and transportation). Recent events...Read More
American Police are not systematically engaged in racially biased shootings. There is no epidemic of police shooting unarmed citizens, of any race. And, errors in police deadly force decision making (cases in which police shoot unarmed, non-attacking citizens) occur at a rate of about one in a million. And realistically, it’s probably much lower than...Read More
In our last article, we reported new research findings that refute the claim by some plaintiffs’ attorneys that an officer putting a knee on the back of a prone suspect can cause fatal “restraint asphyxia.” Now a different research team, headed by the same scientist, is challenging another allegation sometimes raised by police critics: that...Read More
Some researchers have speculated that shocks from conducted energy weapons may induce excited delirium in resistant arrestees. But a new study serves to debunk that rumored risk. The speculation has centered on serotonin, an important chemical and neurotransmitter in the human body. Abnormally high levels of serotonin can be life-threatening, while producing some of the...Read More
In the first study of its kind, a research team has comprehensively documented the risk of barbed darts from conducted electrical weapons penetrating the eyes of suspects. While certainly cringe-inducing, the risk, in fact, is small: only 1 in every 123,000 CEW discharges in the field results in eye injury, the study reports. But the...Read More
Facing a medical emergency and a use-of-force dilemma, did this sheriff’s deputy do the right thing? The deputy, working road patrol for the Oakland County (MI) SO, responded one June afternoon to a call at a residence near Detroit where four paramedics were struggling to help a man overcome a life-threatening diabetic crisis. According to...Read More
Important practical takeaways for officers on how best to deal with subjects in the throes of excited delirium are included in a recently published book on forensic medicine—and well worth roll call review, considering that these volatile encounters are expected to increase in the days ahead. The recommendations stress the critical importance of getting highly...Read More
A new study of fatalities associated with controlled electrical weapons (CEWs) finds that falls producing traumatic brain injury are by far the greatest mortality risk to suspects from these control devices. But even that risk is miniscule. Out of some 3,000,000 field uses, a research team could document only 16 cases in which fatal brain...Read More
Does the shock from a conducted energy weapon impair a suspect’s brain function to the point that he or she may not properly respond to a Miranda warning? A CJ research team raises that question in reporting new findings that a person’s cognition suffers significantly for a short period after a CEW exposure. Their evidence...Read More
A new study of unarmed individuals who have died this year in confrontations with police reveals illuminating details typically surrounding these events and tends to refute the activist narrative that trigger-happy officers with deadly intent are rampantly targeting black males. After analyzing 125 cases that could be found in which unarmed civilians in the US...Read More