Threat Assessment

History of Violent Behavior

For the law enforcement professional, a history of violent behavior is probably the most heavily weighted factor. People who commit violent crimes often have documented histories of problems, disputes, conflicts, and failures. Indicators such as prior arrests and convictions, earlier law enforcement calls/responses to the residence, work-related violent incidents, and training in what could be considered violent professions (e.g., butcher, professional boxer) would all draw the attention of a law enforcement professional.

One trend is of particular interest. Experienced law enforcement officers look for and interpret as significant an escalation of offenses, during which a subject progresses from petty to serious offenses. Experience also dictates that people usually gravitate to that with which they are familiar, using comfortable methods and techniques.

Environmental Scan/Immediately Observable Factors

An officer arriving at a home for a domestic disturbance call immediately scans the environment, looking [Page 471]for factors that could escalate or deescalate the threat of violence. Running in the mind of the officer is a litany of questions: who, what, when, where, how, and why. The list starts with “Who,” because often who is present will dictate the potential for violence in a situation. The mere presence of parents, children, innocent bystanders, or victims can skew the situation quickly in one direction or another. Likewise, the presence of drugs or weapons can present an immediate and accessible threat. Violence is the product of an individual action in a setting that permits and does not hinder the action.

Nature of the Crime

Another major factor is the nature of the crime being investigated. Obviously, some crimes are inherently more violent than others. This is particularly true for law enforcement investigators working for agencies with a very broad jurisdiction (including the FBI). But probably the most dangerous of assignments is that of the everyday police officer on the street, who encounters extremely unpredictable crimes that fall under the broadest category of “people behaving badly.” These officers respond to situations about which they know very little and must quickly make on-the-spot judgments about how inherently dangerous the crime under investigation is. Investigating a bounced check is generally less dangerous than a domestic violence situation. A bank robbery involving a demand note and a robber escaping on a bicycle would pose a less threatening situation than a takeoverstyle robbery with multiple subjects and shots fired. Officers develop this “sliding scale” of assessing immediate threats, usually based on internalized experiences from prior investigations. The study of human nature tells us that desperate people do desperate things.

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