Assaults On Law Enforcement Officers

This study investigates issues relative to assessing and addressing risks to officer safety. The study was conducted over a 3-year period and addressed 40 distinct cases of serious assaults on law enforcement officers. The cases involved 52 victim officers and 42 offenders. Routine, repetitive tasks emerged as a continuing threat to officer safety. Traffic stops, searches, and use of handcuffs are examples of tasks that should be second nature to officers but presented problems to the victims in the cases studied. Officers cited training as critical to the actions they took to protect themselves. Post-assault trauma and recovery proved to be areas that perhaps have not received appropriate attention from the law enforcement community. Many of the victim officers in the study displayed an uncommon "will to survive," an attitude many officers attributed to their survival training. This article reports extensive information on the victims, offenders, and incidents studied, and identifies specific areas where law enforcement training and procedures may be improved. Figures, tables, appendixes, references.

This book discusses the sources of violence, examines why some people use violence against police officers, and shows that such violence is not always easily combated; relates the functions of the police to the sources of violence against them; reviews the evidence on assault against police; and references a large amount of previously published and some unpublished material in a format that should assist researchers. The first chapter provides a historical perspective on American violence and discusses the terms that people use when describing violent acts. The ethical bases of violence and what makes the use of physical force a legitimate activity are explored in the second chapter. This discussion facilitates a better understanding of why different segments of American society have disparate views about when it is proper to use violence to settle disputes; when law enforcement officers should intervene in civilian matters; and whether civilians should use physical violence against police officers who are perceived as exceeding the limits of their authority. Chapter 3 explores the extensive theoretical literature on violence and describes the major schools of thought about its origins. This is intended to provide a better understanding of the types of violence that are directed against police officers. Chapter 4 addresses such concepts as law, order, legitimacy, majority rule, and professionalism as they apply to police activities. Chapter 5 outlines the major approaches to explaining criminal violence, and chapter 6 sets the assault incident within a theoretical context. Remaining chapters deal with the characteristics of assaulted officers, assailant characteristics, characteristics of the assault situation, and geographical patterns of American violence. Suggestions are offered about the areas where additional research is required before definitive answers can be reached and policy remedies can be selected.

Violent crime has been rising sharply in many American cities after two decades of decline. Homicides jumped nearly 17 percent in 2015 in the largest 50 cities, the biggest one-year increase since 1993. The reason is what Heather Mac Donald first identified nationally as the “Ferguson effect”: Since the 2014 police shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, officers have been backing off of proactive policing, and criminals are becoming emboldened. This book expands on Mac Donald’s groundbreaking and controversial reporting on the Ferguson effect and the criminal-justice system. It deconstructs the central narrative of the Black Lives Matter movement: that racist cops are the greatest threat to young black males. On the contrary, it is criminals and gangbangers who are responsible for the high black homicide death rate. The War on Cops exposes the truth about officer use of force and explodes the conceit of “mass incarceration.” A rigorous analysis of data shows that crime, not race, drives police actions and prison rates. The growth of proactive policing in the 1990s, along with lengthened sentences for violent crime, saved thousands of minority lives. In fact, Mac Donald argues, no government agency is more dedicated to the proposition that “black lives matter” than today’s data-driven, accountable police department. Mac Donald gives voice to the many residents of high-crime neighborhoods who want proactive policing. She warns that race-based attacks on the criminal-justice system, from the White House on down, are eroding the authority of law and putting lives at risk. This book is a call for a more honest and informed debate about policing, crime, and race.

This book provides a general orientation for survival, using the author’s “everyone goes home” approach as in previous editions, to keep the police officer safe and secure. It details the specifics the intelligent police professional must master in order to survive the many types of risky situations he will be exposed to over a career. The book is painstakingly thorough in its approach to officer survival in an era where peacekeepers are required to be highly transparent and accountable in all their actions. Every use of force by a law enforcement officer will be closely scrutinized. This is one reason why it is important that today’s officer has access to every viable tactic and technique that may prevent the need for force in the first place. The book details everything from searching an arrested individual to searching a building; arresting a 300-pound outlaw biker to a surly teenager. Techniques and strategies discussed in the book include personal preparation for risk reduction, vehicle stops and contacts, defusing disturbances, domestic violence, burglaries and structure searching, barricades and hostage-takers, vehicle pursuits, ambush attacks, emotionally disturbed and mentally ill persons, prisoner control and transport, terrorist threats, off-duty confrontations, and reducing the emotional risks involved. At the end of each vital chapter, a quick and concise “Risk Reduction Checklist” is presented. These chapter summaries are excellent for review and merit rereading by the police professional intent on surviving to a healthy retirement. An Appendix has been included containing informative accounts of police deaths, culled from the “Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted Report” put together by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Other accounts are also found at the end of each chapter. Each one makes a point by way of grim example, yet every tragedy described can help save the life of an alert police officer who might otherwise become one more statistic. This unique and comprehensive text will be invaluable to all law enforcement professionals, investigators, policymakers, and police academics.