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Police Shootings

Recent years have seen a good deal of research on the use of deadly force by police officers. Law enforcement professionals, for example, regularly examine shootings in order to develop a more complete understanding of such events to thereby reduce their frequency and increase the odds that officers will act appropriately in those events that do occur. Largely overlooked in this research effort, however, is the matter of how officers experience events in which they discharge their weapons. This entry discusses what we do know about the reactions that officers can experience during shootings and discusses some implications for a broader understanding of these incidents. Following a brief discussion of the research on officers’ reactions during shootings, what we know about the reactions that officers who shoot can experience is presented in two categories: thoughts and feelings, and perceptual distortions.

Shooting Research

Systematic information on officers’ reactions during shootings comes from a handful of studies that asked officers who have been in shootings about how they experienced these events. Most of these studies simply reported whether officers who had fired their weapons experienced a small number of specific thoughts, feelings, or perceptual distortions during shootings. More recently, however, one study (Klinger, 2001) took a more detailed look at reactions during shootings by asking officers who shot suspects in the line of duty about several specific thoughts, feelings, and perceptual anomalies they may have experienced during two distinct phases of these events—prior to firing and when they pulled the trigger. The information reported below is drawn from this study.

Thoughts and Feelings

Officers almost always (96% of the time) experienced at least one of the following thoughts or feelings at some point during shootings:

  • Disbelief about what was happening, which officers experienced prior to firing (32%) and as they fired (34%)
  • A sense of fear for their own safety, which officers experienced prior to firing (35%) and as they fired (30%)
  • A sense of fear for someone else's safety (i.e., fellow officer or citizen), which officers experienced prior to firing (54%) and as they fired (49%)
  • A need to survive, which officers experienced prior to firing (27%) and as they fired (23%)
  • A rush of strength or adrenalin, which officers experienced prior to firing (44%) and as they fired (46%)
  • Intrusive thoughts about irrelevant matters (e.g., friends or family members), which officers experienced prior to firing (10%) and as they fired (9%)
  • Officers also often experienced a variety of miscellaneous reactions during shootings, 29% of the time prior to pulling the trigger, 30% as they fired. Counted among these other thoughts and feelings are concerns about the tactical situation that the officers faced (e.g., being in a cross-fire with other officers), apprehension about the placement of shots officers were about to fire, a sense of calm, and anger at the suspect for trying to harm the officer or some innocent third party (e.g., hostages).

Perceptual Distortions

As is the case with thoughts and feelings, officers almost always (95% of the time) experienced some sort of perceptual anomalies during shootings. In terms of specific distortions, officers experienced some sort of visual anomaly in 82% of shootings, auditory distortion in 85%, time distortion in 66%, and some other sort of perceptual distortion in 13%. More

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