Contrary to persistent myth, where a cartridge case lands when it’s ejected from a semiautomatic pistol is not a reliable indicator of where the shooter was standing when the gun was fired. That fact has been scientifically confirmed by the Force Science Institute in a series of research experiments starting back in 2004. “Yet some...Read More
[Editor’s note: Memory is often a wild card in officer-involved shooting investigations. Involved officers typically don’t remember certain things that happened or they remember them incorrectly or their recollections conflict with accounts of other witnesses. This is frustrating and often suspicious to investigators. [Just how memory works is still the subject of intense exploration by...Read More
A case involving the stun-drive Tasering of a handcuffed arrestee was decided this month by a federal Court of Appeals panel in Florida, with some instructive language regarding what’s permissible in the handling of passively resisting subjects by an officer working alone. In assessing a deputy’s actions in delivering Taser shocks to an arrestee who...Read More
Force Science students put their knowledge to use Part 2 of a 2-part series In Part 1 of this series we discussed the Force Science Certification course that was recently held in London, England. As part of that class, those who pursued certificates of completion were required to take a written test and participate in...Read More
2 of a 2-Part series Editor’s Note In Part 1 we reported on a ground-breaking new study by researcher Tom Aveni on why and under what circumstances officers shoot suspects who end up not to be armed. Here we offer some of the significant implications of Aveni’s findings. Aveni is founder of The Police Policy...Read More
When the U.S. Supreme Court declared in its landmark case Graham v. Connor that force used by law officers must be “objectively reasonable,” Sam Faulkner had a question: What’s “reasonable”? The Court provided “no definitive answer regarding what a reasonable officer is or does,” says Faulkner, an instructor at the Ohio Peace Officers Training Academy...Read More
Part 1 of a 2-part series A high percentage of officers leave law enforcement after they’re involved in a shooting. Suspects who try to kill officers are usually drunk, drugged, or deranged. When multiple cops are in an armed confrontation, they’ll likely experience “contagion fire” and blast off a wild fusillade of rounds. In matters...Read More
Despite FSRC findings to the contrary, some law enforcement sources still regard spent shell casings as immutable pieces of forensic evidence and seem prepared to rely on them to judge the truthfulness of officers’ accounts of controversial shootings. Consider a New York Times report on Dec. 8 about the investigation into the high-profile New York...Read More
Are there similarities between a driver on a cell phone and an officer in a shooting? You bet! claims Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the Force Science Research Center at Minnesota State University-Mankato. And 2 independent studies offer fresh insights into the parallels, which may help officers defend themselves in controversial force encounters. Lewinski...Read More
Part 2 of a 2-part series A foremost authority on police psychology, Dr. Alexis Artwohl, has designed a protocol checklist that can help assure that an investigation of an officer-involved shooting is fair, neutral and fact-finding in nature. Part 1 of this series [Force Science News Transmission, sent 4/1/06] explored the first dozen of her...Read More
