Coming through a life-or-death encounter alive may be only the first challenge in claiming victory in a shooting or other major use of force. After the firing stops, a criminal investigation, an IA review, media scrutiny, and likely civil lawsuits can create punishing secondary assaults for surviving officers if not negotiated properly. It’s this potentially...Read More
Two recently published, force-related court decisions of interest, brought to our attention by Americans for Effective Law Enforcement, the nonprofit organization that monitors judicial actions affecting police and conducts training seminars on legal issues: Case 1: Is an agency legally justified in requiring breath testing after an OIS? Three unions representing NYPD personnel sued in...Read More
You wouldn’t do it, but let’s say an officer of your acquaintance uses his personal cellphone camera to record the gore of a fatal traffic smashup and emails the bloody photos to some buddies and from there they eventually get posted forever on the internet. Any legal problems with that? It’s a good question, given...Read More
After an OIS: What 12 questions should an officer answer at the scene? Besides wound treatment, what critical benefits does he or she gain from prompt transport to a medical facility? What does an agency gain by encouraging an officer to have independent legal counsel before a detailed statement is taken? What question do cops...Read More
Certain key recommendations from an eminent jurist that call for stricter limitations on Taser use are based on “outdated and inaccurate medical information,” according to the Force Science Research Center. Incorporated into departmental policies and practices, these proposals are likely to needlessly increase severe injuries and deaths to subjects and officers alike, recognized use-of-force authorities...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
A strong message about deadly force encounters that critics of the police, as well as investigators and prosecutors, need to hear is sent in a feature article that appeared this summer [’06] in “The Scene,” the journal of the Assn. for Crime Scene Reconstruction. The article, authored by Drs. Jeffrey Bumgarner, Bill Lewinski, and Bill...Read More
What is described as a “huge” legislative shift in favor of POs has taken place in Arizona, where the rules about justifying the use of deadly force have been significantly changed. This spring [’06], the governor signed into law Senate Bill 1145 which, in effect, removes the burden of proving justification in an OIS shooting...Read More
What does it take to train today’s officers to face deadly force successfully? A panel of nearly a dozen experts spent almost 4 hours voicing opinions on that topic at the recent annual conference of the International Law Enforcement Educators & Trainers Assn. (ILEETA). But the bottom line was neatly capsulized in a matter of...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