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Use of Force

In the United States, police authority to use force is defined by criminal statutes. These statutes typically define deadly physical force as force capable of killing or likely to cause death or serious (e.g., crippling or permanently maiming) injury. Physical force is defined as force capable of causing lesser types of injury. In practice, deadly force most often occurs when officers fire their weapons at other people, although, in a few instances, police have killed or maimed people by allowing dogs to attack them or by striking them in sensitive areas of the body. Nonlethal police physical force usually involves restraining grips and holds; striking with hands and clubs, or “batons”; and applying a variety of technological devices, such as chemical sprays and electronic shocking devices, or “stun guns.”

Authorization for Police Use of Force

State criminal law statutes distinguish criminal acts (e.g., assault, manslaughter, murder) from justifiable force by police and citizens. These provisions grant police greater authority than citizens to use force justifiably. Typically, they authorize police to use deadly force in order to protect themselves or others against life-threatening attacks and/or to apprehend people suspected of such violent offenses as murder, rape, assault, and armed robbery. Officers generally are authorized by law to use nonlethal grades of physical force in order to defend themselves or others against physical assault or to take into custody suspects who do not otherwise submit to police authority.

Table 1 New York City Police Scale of Escalating Force
Provocation or ConditionAppropriate Force Response
Imminent threat of death or serious physical injuryDeadly force: usually the firearm
Threatened or potential lethal assaultDrawn and/or displayed firearm
Physical assault likely to cause physical injuryImpact techniques: batons, fists, and feet
Threatened or potential physical assault likely to cause physical injuryPepper spray
Minor physical resistance: grappling, going limp, pulling or pushing away, etc.Compliance techniques: wrestling holds and grips designed to physically overpower subjects and/or to inflict physical pain that ends when the technique is stopped and that causes no lasting injury
Verbal resistance: failure to comply with directions, etc.Firm grips on arms, shoulders, etc., that cause no pain, but that are meant to guide people (e.g., away from a fight; toward a police car)
Refusal to comply with requests or attempts at persuasion (see below)Command voice: Firmly given directions (e.g., “I asked for your license, registration, and proof of insurance, Sir. Now I am telling you that if you don't give them to me, I will have to arrest you.”
Minor violations or disorderly conditions involving no apparent threats to officers or othersVerbal persuasion: Requests for compliance (e.g., “May I see your license, registration, and proof of insurance, Sir?”)
Orderly public placesProfessional presence: The officer on post deters crime and disorder; the Highway Unit deters speeding.
Source: New York City Police Department, Police student's guide, Chapter 30, p. 7 (2003).

Criminal statutes have two great weaknesses as controls on police officers’ discretion in use of force. First, they are extremely broad, and they give very little detailed guidance to officers, who must make quick decisions under stressful conditions. Second, absent unambiguous evidence that a police officer has used force in unauthorized ways (e.g., as in the videotape of the Los Angeles police assault on Rodney King or the bathroom assault on Abner Louima, whose injuries verified his claim that New York police had sodomized him with a stick), these laws are virtually unenforceable. To prove in a criminal proceeding that an officer has unjustifiably shot somebody, for example, a prosecutor usually must convince jurors beyond a reasonable doubt that the officer was not in reasonable fear for his or her safety at the instant of the shooting. Except in clear instances of brutality like the King and Louima cases, proof of this negative proposition rarely exists.

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