By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D We’ve seen it in dozens, if not hundreds, of news reports and bystander videos. People rushing, faces full of fear, dragging children and loved ones along with them, running for safety as flames rise or the sound of gunshots or explosions echo. Mostly they are doing the sane thing Read more »
By Lt. Randy Sutton The American Law Enforcement Officer is under siege. Did you know? More than 58,000 officers are assaulted in the line of duty each year. There are officers attacked, stabbed, shot, and beaten nearly every day on the job. Thousands suffer injuries ranging from minor to catastrophic and disabling. Add to that Read more »
By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D Nearly 8,000 people die in the U.S. every day. Sometimes that last breath happens while a person is in police custody, an average of fewer than 2 per day, not counting the average of 3 persons per day fatally shot by police on average. Given the total jail and Read more »
By Steve Pomper With the intensified efforts toward gun control, it’s a good time to revisit Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPO), also called “red flag” laws. Protecting people from a person using a gun to commit violence is important. Some people should not have guns. However, shouldn’t we be suspicious of people who support gun control Read more »
By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D Although we still hear about the doctrine of the Use of Force Continuum (UOFC), it is a teaching tool and policy that has been abandoned by most law enforcement trainers and police departments. Unfortunately, the concepts are being raised again. The UOFC requires a stair step approach, meeting each Read more »
By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D President Biden famously said that when confronted with an unarmed person with a knife, police should shoot them in the leg. When confronted with an edged weapon – knife, shovel, or broken bottle – an officer must make dozens of calculations and predictions as to the lethality of the Read more »
By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D How could that happen? The question that even law enforcement officers ask after a controversial shooting may never have answers. What we know about the human mind and body can provide some potential insights into the shooting of Daunte Wright by veteran Brooklyn Center, Minnesota officer Kim Potter. On Read more »
By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D. Does free will exist? The question of free will is essential to the criminal justice system, without which no one could be held accountable for their behavior. Legal defenses that involve mental capacity address the accused’s ability to form intent, to understand the nature of their actions, and their Read more »
By Stephen Owsinski One of the biggest thrills in my police career was going up in a county sheriff’s office chopper to record aerial imagery of a traffic fatality down below. I was assisting one of our department’s traffic homicide investigators (THI, later redesignated as TFI for traffic fatality investigators…since most crash-related deaths are “accidents”) Read more »