Improving deadly force decision making

FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin,The, Feb, 1998 by Dean T. Olson

As one of the most liability-prone activities in law enforcement, deadly force decision making tops the list of training priorities for many agencies. An improper shooting decision carries the potential for costly civil damage awards, criminal prosecution, strained community relations, and ruined professional and personal lives.

Improving the decisions officers make in deadly force situations bolsters an agency's employee development process and can enhance its position against claims of negligent or inadequate training. Agencies can help officers make better decisions by employing three strategies: improving deadly force policies, training officers in survival physiology, and using dynamic training. These strategies can produce marked improvements by providing effective policy guidance to officers, enhancing their tactical skills, and increasing their confidence levels.

DEADLY FORCE POLICY

Before embarking on any effort to improve decision making, an agency needs an effective and practical deadly force policy. Officers need to know the parameters of their authority. Since the 1985 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Tennessee v. Garner,(1) most law enforcement agencies have adopted restrictive policies that rely on "defense of life" as the rationale for using deadly force. The Garner decision mandated policy improvements by forbidding the use of deadly force against fleeing felons not threatening death or serious injury to an officer or others. Defense of life is widely interpreted as the use of force by law enforcement officers in the performance of their duties to protect themselves or another innocent person from death or serious injury.

However, ambiguities often exist when officers attempt to apply policy in the dynamic, unforgiving environment of the street. A decision-making model can help to clarify policy and provide guidance for effective and legal deadly force decisions.

Decision Model: The Deadly Force Triangle

The deadly force triangle is a decision model designed to enhance an officer's ability to respond to a deadly force encounter while remaining within legal and policy parameters.(2) The three sides of an equilateral triangle represent three factors - ability, opportunity, and jeopardy. All three factors must be present to justify deadly force.

In this model, ability means the suspect's physical capacity to harm an officer or another innocent person. This is widely interpreted as a suspect's being armed with a weapon capable of inflicting death or serious injury, such as a firearm, knife, or club. Ability also includes personal physical capability, such as that possessed by a martial arts practitioner, a powerfully built man, or an agitated suspect on drugs.

Opportunity describes the suspects' potential to use their ability to kill or seriously injure. An unarmed but very large and powerfully built suspect might have the ability to injure seriously or kill a smaller, less well-conditioned officer. However, opportunity does not exist if the suspect is 50 yards away. Similarly, a suspect armed with a knife has the ability to kill or seriously injure an officer but might lack opportunity if the officer has taken cover.

Jeopardy exists when suspects take advantage of their ability and opportunity to place an officer or another innocent person in imminent physical danger. For example, a situation in which an armed robbery suspect refuses to drop a weapon when cornered after a foot pursuit would constitute jeopardy.

Trainers use decision models to help clarify deadly force policy. In training sessions, officers examine a variety of scenarios, which often draw from actual incidents, and apply the principles of the model and the agency's policy. The officers must determine if and when justification for deadly force exists. Trainers must be careful to include scenarios that both do and do not culminate in a justification for deadly force. In this way, officers learn the limitations on their use of force and make appropriate decisions.

The Necessity Criterion

Some deadly force situations are not defined clearly. Is it appropriate to use deadly force against a suspect who, for example, has the potential to inflict death or serious injury but does not pose an immediate threat? How do officers interpret policy when confronted by armed robbery suspects who respond to verbal commands to halt and remain turned away but refuse to drop weapons, to kneel or prone out, or to show their hands?

Some policies fail to address these issues. In fact, some policies assume that jeopardy does not exist until a threat is immediate. This dangerous notion forces officers to wait until a suspect overtly moves a weapon toward an officer or other innocent person before attempting to neutralize the threat.

Practical and effective policy takes into account the time lapse between recognizing a threat and responding to it. Dynamic training exercises have demonstrated that a suspect in a deadly force confrontation can bring a weapon to bear and fire it before the officer can respond by squeezing the trigger of a weapon already drawn and aimed at the suspect/Quite simply, action is faster than reaction. Furthermore, police handgun rounds do not reliably incapacitate suspects immediately,(4) and officers encounter many situations with inadequate or unavailable cover. Therefore, policies requiring officers to wait for overt movement of a weapon before taking action can place both innocent bystanders and officers in needless danger.