# A writer's helper: Use of Force by police in the USA



## RWK (Mar 22, 2020)

I though this might be of interest to writers who plan to include police actions in their works.

When can officers use force? To protect their lives, to protect the life/lives of a third party(s), to effect an arrest or search, or to maintain the public peace/safety (each state has its own legal code, so the terminology varies).

What is maintaining the public peace/safety? The classic example is a homeless person brandishing a knife or club and shouting nonsense in a public place, say the parking lot of a grocery store. Is he breaking the law? Not necessarily. Is he placing others in fear for their safety? Yes. Is he disturbing the peace? Certainly. Will this end badly? Often.

While the 56,000-odd police agencies in the USA are autonomous, all state and local agencies have the same rules on use of force (the Feds have their own). These rules are known as the *Use of Force Continuum*, and are set by case law from the higher (Federal) courts.

In this context, force is generally described as ‘any action which is intended or designed to affect the actions of another’.

Think of the Continuum as a ladder, starting at the bottom. Different agencies do sometimes use different terms and make small adjustments, but this is an applicable, if general, guide.

*The Use of Force Continuum*
*Officer Presence.* The presence of a police officer will usually impact peoples’ behavior.

*Verbal commands.* Telling people what to do, or not do.

*Soft Hand.* Slapping, pushing, restraining, pressure point control, and the like.

*Chemical Devices.* OC pepper spray, pepper balls, and the like. I don’t know if any agency in the USA still uses Mace, but if they do, that will fall higher in the Continuum because some people have strong allergic reactions. Some agencies rate Chemical Devices equal to Heavy Hand.

*Hard or Heavy Hand.* Punching, kicking, head butting, stomping, and the like.

*Electronic Control Device.* Tasers, stun guns, and the like. Because this technology is relatively new, some agencies put this between Soft and Hard Hand, or equal to Hard Hand. Case law has not fully nailed this down.

*Blunt Impact.* Hitting with batons, rocks, handcuffs, portable radios, or anything else. Shotgun beanbag rounds sometimes appear here, although they also get put into Deadly Force.

*Deadly Force.* This is any use of force which is intended, or by its nature designed, to inflict serious bodily harm or death.

Pretty simple, right? Now let’s throw in some modifiers:

Each use of force is taken in context to the totality of the circumstances, and also the perception of the officer at the time the force is used. If the officer perceives that a subject had a handgun, and employs deadly force, the fact that the subject’s weapon was unloaded, a toy, or something else entirely is not relevant so long as the conditions were such that a reasonable person in the exact same circumstances could make the same perception.

There is no requirement to proceed literally up the Continuum. An officer can transition directly from Officer Presence to Deadly Force if the situation requires.

Devices such as Chemical Agents or ECDs, which require very specific conditions, can be excluded from the Continuum in a situation where they cannot be brought into effective use.

An officer can employ one level of force higher than that which is being used against him. In other words, if a subject tried to slap an officer, that officer is justified in body slamming them or punching them. Note that the officer does not have to employ this extra force; it is simply an option. Officers often use less force than is being brought against them, if it can be done safely.

An officer is never required to place their life or physical safety at risk.

*Deadly Force*
Note that Deadly Force doesn’t mention weapons. Can you beat someone to death with your bare hands? Obviously, it happens literally every day. The circumstances of each use of force are weighed on their own merits. 

Nearly all agencies prohibit the use of the choke hold, but if an officer is in a deadly force situation and uses the hold, is that a violation? No. The final tier of the Continuum (Deadly Force) can be taken very simply as ‘what is needed to survive’.

People often ask ‘why didn’t the officer just shoot him in the leg’? Besides the danger of missing (or have the round ricochet or over-penetrate) and strike a bystander, the simple fact is that a firearm is *always *deadly force. There’s no ‘limb shot’ stage in the Continuum, because the courts recognize that it is utterly unviable.


Anyway, that’s a brief overview. Normally, the basic course on this subject is 40 hours. Please excuse any typos.


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## Amnesiac (Mar 22, 2020)

Excellent and accurate. Good job.


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## Bloggsworth (Mar 23, 2020)

From a distance it would appear that American police can use force when they see a black person...


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## RWK (Mar 23, 2020)

Bloggsworth said:


> From a distance it would appear that American police can use force when they see a black person...



I've heard the same thing said about the police in the UK....


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## Amnesiac (Mar 23, 2020)

Bloggsworth said:


> From a distance it would appear that American police can use force when they see a black person...



Interesting, especially considering that a significant portion of law enforcement personnel, both street cops/deputies and in Corrections are black. It's not a race thing. It's a LAW thing.


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## Squalid Glass (Mar 23, 2020)

MOD NOTE: THE OP HAS PROVIDED SOME EXCELLENT INFORMATION ABOUT POLICING. DO NOT HIJACK THIS THREAD AND TURN IT INTO A POLITICAL DISCUSSION.


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## ironpony (Mar 25, 2020)

I have a question for my own story about the police using deadly force, if this does not hijack the thread, but I thought it would still be informative to discuss if that's okay.  For my story, I was thinking the police could use that martial arts move, where you put a guy in a headlock and then use his weight against him to lift him and snap his neck.  I learned this move in my martial arts class, which I also took for research as well, but I also saw Schwarzenegger use it in Total Recall.  But would the police know this move?


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## CyberWar (Mar 25, 2020)

ironpony said:


> I have a question for my own story about the police using deadly force, if this does not hijack the thread, but I thought it would still be informative to discuss if that's okay.  For my story, I was thinking the police could use that martial arts move, where you put a guy in a headlock and then use his weight against him to lift him and snap his neck.  I learned this move in my martial arts class, which I also took for research as well, but I also saw Schwarzenegger use it in Total Recall.  But would the police know this move?



They definitely know it - as something not to ever friggin' use. Police officers aren't supposed to kill suspects unless absolutely necessary, and whenever that happens, guns are much safer and reliable way to go about it. If the situation doesn't call for a lethal force, they have plenty of other tools like tasers, OC sprays and nightsticks to incapacitate the suspect with. In short, there's just no sane reason why a cop would opt to tackle an opponent with his bare hands and try to snap his neck when he's got plenty of other tools to kill or incapacitate the suspect without taking pointless risks to his own safety. Not to mention the risk of legal liability in case of a wrongful killing or maiming.


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## ironpony (Mar 25, 2020)

Oh okay, well the way I wrote it in my script the cop gets into a fight to the death with one of the villains after they both run out of bullets, plus the cop figures if I don't kill him now and get him out of the way, then one of his buddies, can just gain up on me too.  Unless the cop should kill him a different way?  But at this point, the cop character is in the state of mind, I'll just kill them and say it was self defense, and hope for the best.


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## luckyscars (Mar 25, 2020)

ironpony said:


> Oh okay, well the way I wrote it in my script the cop gets into a fight to the death with one of the villains after they both run out of bullets, plus the cop figures if I don't kill him now and get him out of the way, then one of his buddies, can just gain up on me too.  Unless the cop should kill him a different way?  But at this point, the cop character is in the state of mind, I'll just kill them and say it was self defense, and hope for the best.



Two things: Firstly, police officer's right to use appropriate force up to and including killing a suspect is and forever will be protected so long as the threat justifies it. One of the big changes (still ongoing) is reducing the times when the officer can inaccurately claim they were in fear of their safety in order to use a disproportionate level of force -- such as in the Eric Garner case. A lot of that is solved with body cameras, if/when they are mandated. But in _principle _the police can absolutely kill a suspect using any means at their disposal who presents an existential threat to them/other officers/civilians and that is essential for effective police work. Otherwise you have a United-Nations-Peacekeeper-In-Rwanda problem.

Depending on the jurisdiction and role, officers may be trained in some martial arts but in my experience that training usually stops at simple restraints and ways to suppress a suspect without killing or seriously injuring them. Unless we're talking SWAT or something, it's unlikely they would have any serious training. I've met Deputies who are 300 pounds and other Deputies who are 90 pound women and _those_ guys are physically limited with a lot of this stuff. That doesn't mean they don't know it, but it's not a requirement for their job, especially in small town units. Tasers are pretty universal for a less-than-lethal solution and there's always a firearm and a way to call backup from SWAT or whoever, so this is mostly irrelevant. 

Second, always remember in a story the emotional is more important than the procedural. A cop who is in a fight to the death with a villain is a human being who is scared, angry, whatever it is. In those kinds of situations, the process goes to shit. Nobody is going to buy a cop telling himself 'well I can't do this but I can maybe do that' in a situation where he/she is seconds from death.


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## ironpony (Mar 26, 2020)

Oh okay thanks.  If it's a fight to the death situation and the police officer is out of bullets, how would the officer kill him then, if he does use that move?  I want the crook to die, so what would it take to get there?


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## RWK (Mar 26, 2020)

CyberWar said:


> They definitely know it - as something not to ever friggin' use. Police officers aren't supposed to kill suspects unless absolutely necessary, and whenever that happens, guns are much safer and reliable way to go about it. If the situation doesn't call for a lethal force, they have plenty of other tools like tasers, OC sprays and nightsticks to incapacitate the suspect with. In short, there's just no sane reason why a cop would opt to tackle an opponent with his bare hands and try to snap his neck when he's got plenty of other tools to kill or incapacitate the suspect without taking pointless risks to his own safety. Not to mention the risk of legal liability in case of a wrongful killing or maiming.



While snapping necks is just silly, there is no restriction on type of lethal force. I know an officer who beat a subject to death with a rock.

TASERS require that the subject be stationary, at least 7' and no more than 18' away, and not wearing heavy clothing.

OC is useless in close quarters because the officer will get as much as the suspect, and it doesn't incapacitate in any case. Batons can quickly become lethal force.

I've hit people with flashlights, handcuffs, a portable radio, and anything else that was to hand, when needed. When someone is on top of you, you do what you have to do.

The tried and tested way remains to simply pile on officers and overwhelm a suspect, if they are not armed. If they are armed, well, there's only one safe course. The good news is that police officers are seldom alone for long.

The big problem is when they get to body-to-body contact.

Lawsuits are not that big of an issue anymore. When I started work in the 80s everyone was '_ooohhhh! A lawsuit_!'

But after a couple years agencies and local governments learned to contain them, and case law has moved steadily in the polices' favor. Nowadays you know you're going to get sued when you put on the badge, and that it is no big deal. No one knows for sure how many people the police kill each year; the estimate is 800-2000, depending on source, but around 1500 is an acceptable figure. There are about fifty wrongful death suits that get settled in a given year. I was the target of several civil actions over the years, and they all fizzled out.


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## RWK (Mar 26, 2020)

One thing that needs to be remembered: the UoF Continuum is like a ladder: you can go down as well as up.

Just because you have reached the stage where lethal force is justified does not mean you have to kill someone; events can deescalate and the need for force decline. 

The classic example is a subject advancing upon an officer with an ax; the officer draws his weapon, and the just drops the ax. Control has not yet been established, but lethal force is now off the table, at least until the situation changes again. It is not unusual for an officer to go up and down the continuum when dealing with an intoxicated subject or EDP.

The key is that the subject dictates the force employed. The perfect examples are the Colorado theater shooter or the kid that shot up a black church. Both were heavily armed and had just committed multiple murders, but when they encountered police they were careful to take no acxtion to escalate the situation, obeying verbals commands and going into custody without resistance.


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## ironpony (Mar 27, 2020)

Oh okay, I just thought if the baton happened to be lost, how would the cop kill someone with his bare hands if fighting to death?

As for tasers, I did some research on them where I live, and almost every officer does not carry one.  There are only two tasers in the police station, which are taken out for special purposes, but other than those, the officers just carry lethal bullet firing guns, or at least that is what a cop told me where I live.  But if it's different in other cities, I can have more tasers.

I do for my story, want the perp to get killed though, so if there is there a way an officer can do that?


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