A research team that includes members with law enforcement experience has taken the most comprehensive look yet at the circumstances surrounding Taser deployments where suspects end up dying. The findings “demonstrate the complexity of these incidents,” the researchers report, citing drug use and mental illness, persistent suspect resistance, and a “wide array of force options...Read More
Juveniles are one of the population groups thought by some observers to be “potentially vulnerable” to unexpected significant injury from being Tasered. But the first study of real-world use of conducted electrical weapons on minors concludes that zaps from CEWs “during apprehension of adolescents does not seem to pose unacceptable levels of risk.” None of...Read More
After a broad-based, in-depth study of real-world applications, an independent research team says its findings “suggest” that department policies restricting the firing of Taser probes to the chest because of heart safety concerns “are unnecessary.” Case analysts led by Dr. William Bozeman of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina determined that...Read More
Are some training exercises that focus on reaction time unintentionally compromising officer safety on the street? Two instructors raised that concern recently in separate presentations at the annual conference of the International Law Enforcement Educators & Trainers Assn. (ILEETA). Larry Hahn, a certified Force Science Analyst, told of detecting what seem to be unnaturally slow...Read More
Two law enforcement agencies have begun field testing a new screening form that may eventually lead to a better means for identifying people with severe mental illness who may be a danger to themselves or others. The brief form, a checklist consisting of some 20 factors and/or indicators that are commonly associated with mental illness,...Read More
A northern California transit officer who was fired on charges of lying about circumstances that preceded a nationally controversial OIS has been ordered reinstated after an arbitration hearing in which Force Science played a pivotal role. Twenty-nine-year-old MarySol Domenici was among half a dozen Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) officers whose actions were challenged amidst...Read More
Two expert witnesses with Force Science backgrounds are believed to have been influential in a jury’s recent decision to reject a murder conviction of a former transit officer accused of deliberately shooting an unarmed suspect in the back during a handcuffing scuffle. The witnesses, Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the Force Science Institute, and...Read More
How do principles of human behavior and memory stimulation studied in Force Science certification classes get applied in real-world policing? Consider the recent experiences of 2 police trainers and Force Science graduates who played pivotal roles in significant use-of-force investigations, 1,700 miles and an international border apart. In one, an officer ended up cleared of...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
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