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 new study that measured the body-alarm reactions of officers during and after an armed encounter underscores the value of simulation training and the need for treating shooting survivors with sensitivity during OIS investigations. The study confirms that participating in a realistic training scenario can deliver close to the same emotional and physiological wallop that...Read More
The cerebral game of chess would seem to be several light years removed from the rough-and-tumble world of the street cop. But a new report on the mental processes of chess players suggests that law officers and trainers have a lot to learn from the means by which amateurs become masters of the checkered board....Read More
Initial research has been completed in a major new study that may eventually help improve police performance during high-intensity events, like shootings or life-threatening pursuits, and define what an officer can reasonably be expected to remember about such incidents afterward. A staggering amount of fresh data regarding brain activity is currently being analyzed. But already...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
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
There are 2 types of knife attacks that an officer can encounter: a non-spontaneous attack where the officer is aware in advance that the subject has armed him/herself with a knife, and a sudden, spontaneous attack at close range, where there is a high probability that the officer will not even know that a knife...Read More
Are you making your career a daily opportunity for growth and skills enhancement? Or are you, perhaps unknowingly, sliding into complacent practices that, in a crisis, could seal your doom? As a subscriber to Force Science News, chances are you’re a lifetime learner who regularly reinforces a commitment to be well-prepared for whatever comes your...Read More
