A growing number of agencies are specifying in policy that moving motor vehicles per se should no longer be considered deadly threats and that officers should not use deadly force to protect themselves or others from vehicular attack. Firing is permitted only when someone inside a vehicle is posing an immediate lethal threat with some...Read More
The idea is building that once every cop is equipped with a body camera, the controversy will be taken out of police shootings and other uses of force because “what really happened” will be captured on video for all to see. Well, to borrow the title from an old Gershwin tune, “It Ain’t Necessarily So.”...Read More
A flashpoint of controversy in some officer-involved shootings is when officers do not immediately cease fire the moment a deadly threat ends and they are no longer in mortal danger. An officer’s ability to instantly stop pulling the trigger once a “stop shooting” signal becomes evident is not always considered. Instead, the officer behind the...Read More
In the first study of its kind, researchers have confirmed that force-on-force training is significantly superior to traditional firearms practice in at least three important ways: Force-on-force (FoF) scenarios that enable “suspects” to shoot at trainees generally stimulate a stronger physiological stress reaction in targeted officers They expose how badly officers’ shooting accuracy is likely...Read More
Are you an officer who has been involved in use-of-force hearings or litigation, or are you an attorney who represents LEOs when their force decisions are reviewed or challenged? If so, we’d like to hear your views on how an officer can best help a lawyer in preparing the strongest defense possible after an OIS...Read More
For the first time, a research study of a “very large sample size of real-world subjects” who actually underwent police use of force has determined with precision how often deaths occur in conjunction with forceful encounters. The frequency, in contrast to the impression often conveyed by the media and activist “watchdog” organizations, is extremely minimal,...Read More
A new force-related issue is beginning to surface in state and federal court proceedings: Whether merely threatening to use an electronic control weapon (ECW)–including pointing it, sparking it, and aiming its laser beam–constitutes a use of force under the law. “The caselaw on the subject is still relatively limited, but the question of when and...Read More
Fewer citizen complaints, fewer uses of force. According to a yearlong field study by a police department in southern California, those are the dual benefits of having patrol officers wear body cameras that record their public interactions. Indeed, the experiment has yielded such an “amazing” outcome that Chief William Farrar of the Rialto PD told...Read More
A recent lower-court decision in Tennessee may be a bellwether signaling a need to tweak law enforcement use-of-force policies. At issue is whether department policies and the training to support them should cover use of force against injured persons. The unpublished ruling last month [4/11/13] from the U.S. District Court in Nashville is important, says...Read More
Note: The staff at the Force Science Institute of late has noticed “a definite uptick” in the number of inquiries being received regarding shooting at moving vehicles, according to operations vice president Scott Buhrmaster. From their various field locations, some Force Science instructors are reporting a similar increase as well. FSI is in the preliminary...Read More
