Are antidepressants dangerous medications for cops? That question was raised recently on the listserv for the IACP’s Psychological Services Section. A psych professional from south Florida reported noticing of late “a marked increase in police officers being prescribed” antidepressants, known pharmacologically as SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors). These include common brand-name drugs such as Prozac,...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
Part 2 of a 2-Part Series A large insurer of law enforcement agencies has issued a position paper on Tasers that cites 10 “risk management considerations” for their safe and effective use and directly refutes concerns of activist groups that allege these popular control tools are dangerous and inhumane. In contrast to intense criticism from...Read More
Part 1 of a 2-Part Series Just as recent reports from a major sheriff’s department and a large insurer of law enforcement agencies are describing the Taser as one of the safest and most effective subject-control tools in the street cop’s arsenal, police use of the device is coming under renewed attack by civil liberties...Read More
DIRECTOR’S NOTE: One of the missions of the Force Science Research Center is to bring the latest research (ours and others) to the law enforcement community. Excited Delirium is a very high profile, significant social problem that although rare in occurrence has been very costly to the LE in terms of the health and safety...Read More
Part 2 of a 2-part Series Counter-terrorism expert Robert Bunker, PhD, won’t take questions about the provocative recommendations he wrote for 2 recent publications from the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police about would-be suicide/homicide bombers and how police officers can best preemptively kill them. Through an assistant, he declined to address inquiries from Force...Read More
Part 1 of a 2-Part Series If you encounter a subject you reasonably believe is a would-be suicide bomber, a recently issued and unusually aggressive set of guidelines published by the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police recommends that you: –shoot to kill the suspect, –deliver your round(s) to his or her head as the...Read More
New findings from brain research laboratories, based on studies of subjects ranging from monkeys to ballet dancers, are offering fresh insights into how law enforcement trainers can best deliver their instruction and how street officers can better learn to read and anticipate dangerous or deceptive suspect behavior. The research focuses on clusters of specialized cells...Read More
Brain researchers at Johns Hopkins University have shed new light on the auditory blocking and tunnel vision officers often experienced during deadly encounters, while researchers at the University of Utah have surfaced new information related to lag time. In both cases, the findings will help advance studies at the Force Science Research Center regarding officer...Read More
Ideas for research projects can germinate from the least likely moments, as when a student asked Firearms Trainer Tom Aveni if he’d ever visited the ACLU’s website. He hadn’t (“Why would I even want to go there?”), but out of curiosity he did. There in a section dedicated to “police abuse” he read a statistic...Read More
