Axon, a public safety tech company, promises to radically improve crisis response training by incorporating virtual reality into the classroom. In a pilot program, Axon is using video-game technology that allows officers to virtually experience police interactions through the lens of a crisis-involved subject. Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the Force Science Institute and...Read More
Among the most tragic officer-involved shootings is this scenario: A distraught family member calls 911 because a loved one seems hell-bent on killing himself and can’t be dissuaded. The desperate hope is that the police can successfully intervene. But on scene, officers prove as unpersuasive as everyone else. As the contact evolves, with officers groping...Read More
It’s all about a subject’s demeanor—not about race, ethnicity, or attire—when encounters with police escalate to violence, according to a new study from Washington State U. Activist groups and mainstream media, of course, tend to insist otherwise. But a research team that conducted the first controlled laboratory study comparing how behavior and visible characteristics influence...Read More
A recent US Appeals Court decision hinged on whether an officer’s use of a CEW was objectively reasonable, but an important subtext in the case concerns de-escalation—more precisely, whether a fateful escalation of force could have been prevented in the first place by a different attitude and different language. The Michigan case, Marshall v. City...Read More
After a half-naked man in the throes of excited delirium died following a struggle with sheriff’s deputies, his widow alleged in a federal civil rights legal action that: the officers should not have used any force against him until they first attempted de-escalation techniques; their “excessive” force-first actions violated legal protections for the disabled and...Read More
