Chapter 3.docx

Kraska and his colleagues (Kraska, 1993, 1996, 1997a, 1997b; Kraska and Cubellis, 1997; Kraska and Kappeler, 1997; Kraska and Paulsen, 1997) are alarmed by the “militarization of the police.” However, what theyreally are alarmed about is the police use of force. What Kraska dislikes is “the subtle,...

Kraska and his colleagues (Kraska, 1993, 1996, 1997a, 1997b; Kraska and Cubellis, 1997; Kraska and Kappeler, 1997; Kraska and Paulsen, 1997) are alarmed by the “militarization of the police.” However, what theyreally are alarmed about is the police use of force. What Kraska dislikes is “the subtle, yet pervasive militaristic ideology [among the police] that stressesaggressiveness and the use of force as an effective problem solving tool” (1997b, pp. 298–299). However, force, or the threat of the use of force, is inherent in the police role. The best way to appreciate this is to examine police socialization. That is, we examined the acquisition of the skills and attitudes regarding the use of force by police officers. This information was acquired by the author through an ethnographic study of the training of auxiliary (part-time) police officers in a middle-class suburb of 20,000 to 30,000 people near a Midwestern city for over seven years (1995 to 2002).THE AUXILIARY UNITFull-time police officers in the state were required to graduate from a full-time, state-accredited police academy. The training for city officers was 525 hours. Suburban officers had to take only 400 hours of training. Part-time officers attended a part-time academy. They, too, had to complete a 400-hour program. Auxiliary officers usually held full-time jobs, so they did not have to attend the academy. Instead, they were required to complete 350 hours of in-house training on evenings and weekends. This usually took a year. The first portion of the program consisted of 150 hours of classroom and scenario training. This included classroom instruction, field training, and a state-mandated 40-hour firearms course. Initially, the cadets were given several lectures on the legal use of force.After this initial training, the auxiliary officers were sworn in. They then attended the 40-hour firearms course. Once they completed the firearms course, they acquired the same police powers that any other officer possessed while they were on duty. Upon the successful completion of the 150-hour program, the auxiliary officers were required to ride on patrol, armed and in uniform, for 200 hours with a field training officer (FTO). Upon the successful completion of the 350-hour program, the officer was “released.” This allowed the auxiliary officer to “work details” (parades, picnics, chili cook-offs, etc.) and to ride patrol with a full-time officer. (Full-time patrol officers usually worked alone.) The auxiliary officers were paid $7.00 an hour for working details but were not paid for riding patrol. No auxiliary officer ever received more than a few hundred dollars a year in pay. The department considered the auxiliary officers’ pay as inconsequential. It logged all their hours as donated. The department that was studied had 37 to 42 full-time officers from 1995 to2001. The number of auxiliary officers varied between 14 and 6 during that time period. (Auxiliary and part-time officers had almost the same amount of training. Therefore, the terms “auxiliary officer” and “part-time officer” will be used interchangeably, here). The auxiliary officer program had existed for many years. However, because of union pressure, the unit was phased out through attrition. The last year of hiring was 1999. That year, the number of auxiliary officers was 14. By 2001, the number had fallen to six. The highest-ranking officers in the unit were sergeants. For a time, there were three sergeants. The highest-ranking sergeant was the administrative sergeant. The administrative sergeant did the record keeping. However, when he left,some of the records were destroyed. In 2001, one of the two remaining part-time sergeants volunteered to resume record keeping. The surviving time sheets and departmental rosters were available to the researcher. However, personnel records were not available to him. From the available records, it was found that the department hired 33 auxiliary officers from 1994 until 2001. Of these, 31 were males and 2 were females. Thirteen of these auxiliary officers served for a year or less. Most of these officers quit because of a lack of time or a lack of interest. Six part-time officers served two years or less. Six part-time officers served three years or less. Of the remaining officers, three served for four years, two served for five years, one served for seven years, and two served for eight years. Most part-time officers were in their mid-twenties or early thirties. Most becameaware of the program from full-time officers with whom they were friends. Many hoped to serve for a time as part-time officers and then to go on to full-time law enforcement careers. Of the 33 part-time officers, 6 became full-time police officers (2 with the same department), 3 became correctional officers, 1 returned to the military, and 1 became a firefighter. Several of the full-time officers in the department had started as auxiliary officers. This included the chief. The auxiliary officers varied widely in their years of service. They also variedwidely in the number of hours they worked each year. For example, in 2001, two of the six part-time officers worked only 18 hours during the entire year. One part-time officer worked 54 hours. Two of the other part-time officers put in about 165 hours each. One officer worked 324 hours. This last officer, who was one of the older members of the unit, rode between 276 and 368 hours a year from 1995 until 2001. He averaged 320 hours a year or about 40 Saturday evenings a year. He also worked details on weekends when the department requested it. Because of this, he was promoted to an auxiliary sergeant position. When asked why he spent so much time with the department, he simply replied: “I like being a cop once a week.” The hours the entire unit worked also varied widely from year to year. In 1997,there were 14 part-time officers. They worked a total of 3,637.5 hours that year. In 1998, this fell to 2,119 hours. In 2001, there were only six officers remaining in the unit. They worked a total of 744 hours. From 1995 until 1999, the unit had monthly meetings for training. The unit alsowent to the firearms range for training or qualification one to four times a year. In order for the officers to be allowed to ride (patrol), the unit had to fill details. This consisted of parades, picnics, dances, and substituting for the records clerks when needed. After 1999, most of the details and the records work ended. Before 1999, members of the unit filled a great many details. It was frequently said: “The city loves you.” That was because the part-time officers were paid $7.00 an hour, whereas full-time officers were paid time and a half for the same work. This ledto complaints from the police union. The union argued that the part-time officers were “taking money out of our pockets.” Pressure from the union was probably the reason for the unit’s demise. In 1999, the unit’s activities consisted of working details (411.75 hours), attend-ing class and range (201.5 hours), substituting for records clerks (114.5 hours), and riding on patrol with full-time officers (1,372.5 hours). In 2001, when mostof the details and records assignments had ended, 95 percent of the hours were “ride time.” Two or more part-time officers were allowed to work together on detailsunder the supervision of a full-time officer or a part-time sergeant. However, part-time officers were allowed to ride patrol only with a full-time officer. If a part-time officer came in after roll call, the full-time officer would be contacted by radio and told “there is a rider for you at the station.” This same term, “a rider,” was also used if a civilian (a reporter or college student) was having a “ride along.” This indicated the marginal nature of the part-time officer. In fact, some officers would not allow any part-time officer to ride with them. There were a variety of reasons for this. Some officers liked to work alone, others did not care for the personality of particular part-time officers, and some officers did not feel that the part-time officers were competent. As a result of such feelings, most part-time officers rode with a few full-time officers who were their buddies. Being an auxiliary police officer was important to many of the unit’smembers. However, it was not a significant component of the department. For example, at its peak, in 1997, there were 14 part-time officers who worked a total of 3,637.5 hours. That year there were 39 full-time officers in the department. If we assume that each full-time officer worked 40 hours a week for 50 weeks ayear, then the total contribution of part-time officers to the department’s hours was only 4.5 percent in 1997. In 1998, there were 37 full-time officers. The part-time unit had 11 members that year and worked a total of 2,119 hours. This was only 3 percent of the department’s total hours. In 2001, the six part-time officers worked a total of 744 hours. This was only about 1 percent of the department’s total hours. For a few of the full-time officers, the part-time officers were “chums” withwhom they enjoyed riding. In other words, they were entertainment during long, tedious shifts. However, for other officers, riding with the part-time officer was a burden or an annoyance that the department expected them to fulfill. Most importantly, the full-time officers did not need the part-time officers in order to do their job. Therefore, from a professional, as well as a departmental standpoint, the part-time officers were marginal.POLICE SOCIALIZATION: THE ACADEMYThere have been few studies of part-time police officers. (These officers are often called “reserves” or “auxiliaries.”) These officers may be armed and ride on patrol with full-time officers, or they may be unarmed and perform traffic control or community service functions. The literature on part-time officers is primarily from the 1960s and 1970s and appears to be the product of the police reform movement of that era (Berg and Doerner, 1988; Brown, 1976; Greenburg, 1978, 1979; Washnis, 1976, pp. 83–89; King, 1960; Bartels, 2014; Weinblatt, 2011a, 2011b). There has been no research on the socialization of auxiliary, reserve, or part-time officers. Although there have been no studies of the socialization of these officers, therehas been research on the socialization of cadets at police academies. For example, Harris (1973, 1978) observed that the academy instilled in the cadets attitudes of masculinity, defensiveness, professionalism, and depersonalization. It also fostered group solidarity, a propensity to cut corners, and a cops-and-robbers mentality. Gross (1991) found that cadets feared physical danger, but they also feared organizational sanctions and court appearances. Harris (1973) noted that the academy instilled a code of silence and fraternal bonding. This occurred in order to avoid departmental reprimands. Van Maanen (1973) observed that most recruits found the academy to be a required, but tedious, stage in their police careers. This stage required cadets to give absolute obedience to departmental rules, endure rigorous physical training, and to tolerate dull lectures (see also Van Maanen, 1972, 1975, 1978a, 1978b; McCreedy, 1980). The academy also begins the process of forming the “police personality.” Thispersonality is highly authoritarian, conventional, moralistic, domineering, rigid, and hostile (Adlam, 1982). Austin (1987) and Klopsch (1983) have argued that such personality types self-select themselves for police work. However, other research on police socialization has shown this is not the case. Most police recruits are similar to other members of their cohort. However, intensive socialization in the academy funneled recruits into a narrow ideological perspective (Hopper, 1977; Conti, 2000, pp. 141, 217). Tenerowicz (1992) found that the academy made the officers more aggressive, defensive, controlling, domineering, rigid, and insensitive. Also, police officers came to identify themselves with power figures and were preoccupied with issues of dominance, strength, and leadership. Conti (2000) observed that most of the idealistic cadets, or those merely curious about a police career, dropped out of the academy. He found that the majority of the cadets who completed the academy had a “realistic” perspective on police work, which they had gained from previous law enforcement experience (see also Hopper, 1977). However, Maghan (1988) found that cadets were not just trained to be authorityfigures. Instead, they were also trained to be service oriented. In this process, the recruits had to learn to decide the “amoral issue” of when to render service and when to enforce the law. Conti and Doreian (2014) found that the academy’s social structure was organized to generate encounters between the recruits of various races. The academy did have some success in forming ties between black, Latino, and white recruits. However, the academy fell short of its ideal of convincing all of the recruits that they were “all blue.” Waddington (1999) noted that police subculture developed at the academy.This subculture stressed mission, macho attitudes, an us-versus-them mentality, and the emergence of cynicism. However, what also developed were the twin essentials of the police role: authority and danger. This authority was ultimately based upon coercion.THE USE OF FORCEThe academy may be important in police socialization. However, Neiderhoffer has a different view: “When the recruit finally meets older members of the force ... the more experienced men tell him that in order to become a real policeman, he will have to forget everything he learned at the academy” (1967, p. 162). Similarly, Wilson has reported that learning the craft of policing occurred by on-the-job apprenticeship (1968, p. 283). Van Maanen noted that new police officers learned their profession from their field training officers. These new officers were tested on “hot” or “heavy” calls. Such calls required “real police work” and were “the measure of the man” (1973, p. 413). The auxiliary officers that were studied did not attend the academy. Instead,their training was routine classes and on-the-job training. Because they worked only occasionally, this socialization occurred haltingly, in bits and pieces. Because they worked relatively few hours, they spent their entire careers, in effect, as rookies. This gave us an excellent window into (auxiliary) police socialization. Kraska and his colleagues did not study police socialization. Therefore, theymissed the single most important trait that police learn: the non-negotiable use of coercion (Bittner, 1978). That is, the officer’s job is to gain the compliance of individuals or to gain control of a situation. The officers learn to do this through their use of force. Such force can be verbal, non-verbal, psychological, or physical. Verbal force can range from requests (“Please sit down.”) to commands (“Drop the knife!”). Non-verbal communication may consist of body position or hand movements. Psychological force may be the officer’s office, badge, uniform, orequipment. Physical force can range from a light touch to the use of deadly force (see Rubenstein, 1973, pp. 221, 233, 260). One point that is rarely appreciated by outsiders is that citizen encounters withpolice officers are almost always reactive. That is, officers respond to the cues or actions of the citizen. A citizen’s actions can vary widely. They can consist of:a.) verbal or non-verbal danger cues, b.) unwillingness to comply with an officer’s directions, c.) refusal to move, d.) pulling away from or pushing an officer, e.) physically attacking an officer, f.) attempting to disarm an officer, org.) attacking an officer with a weapon. The first step in gaining citizen compliance from these cues and actions isthrough “command presence.” Command presence is the quality that conveys authority and the physical ability to back it up. Command presence, coupled with weapons skills, allows officers to control almost all situations. It is this control that allows officers to do their jobs. One officer commented that all you need on the street is “the brains God gave you, your gun and command presence. If it came right down to it, you could do without the brains and the gun, but God help you if you don’t have command presence” (Barker, 1999, pp. 69–70; see also Rubenstein, 1973, pp. 267–268, 295–296). One part-time officer put it somewhat differently: “When I’m dealing with someone, no matter how nice or how stern I am, I have to convey to them through body position, tone of voice, or words, that if things go sour, I’m going to knock them on their ass.”POLICE-CITIZEN ENCOUNTERSAlthough the public does not appreciate it, the great majority of police work does not involve the use of force. It simply involves talking. For example, a study of New York City patrol officers found that they used force in one-tenth of 1 percent of all police-citizen encounters. Firearms were used in only 5 of the 1,762 incidents in which the officers used any form of force (cited in Geller and Scott, 1992, p. 61; see also Sexton, 1998).1 The data from this study confirms this point. The researcher observed 1,338police-citizen encounters over the seven-year period of the research. The 1,338 police–citizen contacts were divided into ten categories: traffic incidents, the investigation of suspicious persons or incidents, reports, disturbances, assistance calls, warrant service, other arrests, handling the mentally ill, juvenile apprehensions, and miscellaneous.2 In brief, these ten categories of police–citizen encounters produced the following results. Traffic incidents (including traffic stops) involved 520 police–citizen encounters. Thirty-one arrests were the result of these incidents. There were 287 calls of suspicious persons or incidents. No arrests resulted from any of these calls. Seventy-six reports were taken. There were 154 disturbance calls. Sixty-one of these were family disturbances. These produced five arrests. There were 93 non-family disturbances. Three individuals were arrested in these incidents. There were 104 assistance calls. Most of these were to assist citizens with motor vehicle problems. There were 28 arrests for warrants. There were 49 people arrested for other reasons (these were usually for retail theft, alcohol intoxication, or drug possession). There were 12 incidents involving mentally ill persons. All of these individuals were turned over to their families or transported to a hospital by paramedics. There were 40 juvenile apprehensions. Eleven of these juveniles were ticketed and 15 were arrested. All but one were turned over to their parents. There were 53 miscellaneous calls or duties (administrative assignments, carnivals, parades, Fourth of July fireworks displays, etc.). The details of these police–citizen encounters are not what one would expect.The police are usually perceived of as “crime fighters” who rush from call to call. (It sometimes is said that police officers are “slaves to their radios.”) However, this does not appear to be the case. Five hundred and twenty police–citizen contacts were for traffic incidents (39 percent of all police–citizen encounters). There were 24 traffic accidents, 62 calls to back up another officer on a traffic stop, and 6 calls to remove traffic obstructions. These were all dispatched by the radio. However, officers made 428 traffic stops on their own initiative (32 percent of all police–citizen encounters). These stops were for traffic infractions or suspicious vehicles. These stops produced 259 verbal warnings, 63 warning tickets, 75 formal tickets, and 31 arrests. That is, traffic stops produced serious enforcement actions (arrests) in only 7 percent of all traffic stops. There were 287 calls of suspicious persons or incidents. No arrests were made onany of these calls. That was because the individuals were “GOA” (gone on arrival), the situation was innocuous, or the individuals were given a verbal warning and sent on their way. Seventy-six reports were taken. A few of these were passed on to the investigators. However, most were merely filed away.here were 154 disturbance calls. Fifty-six of these were family disturbances.These calls were treated seriously because of their potential for violence. Even though blows were struck in a number of these cases, only five arrests occurred. That was because these incidents were usually seen as the product of long-standing disputes between family members or intimates that could only be solved by the persons involved. (In some states, there are mandatory arrest statutes if violence has occurred in a domestic disturbance. However, in the state in which the research was conducted, the decision to arrest in such situations was left up to the discretion of the officer.) On such calls, the individuals were separated, calmed down, counseled, and a resolution was usually reached when one party agreed to leave the scene. Other disturbances, such as loud parties or teenagers throwing firecrackers, were handled more routinely (there were 90 of these calls). They produced three arrests. There were 104 assistance calls. Nine of these were to assist the fire departmentor paramedics and 14 were to assist other police agencies. Eighty-one of these calls were to assist a citizen. These were usually the result of a vehicle breakdown or lockout. The department expected the officers to respond to these calls, because the chief stressed that the department was “a service-oriented agency.” There were 28 warrant arrests. In many of these cases, the warrant was usedas a tool to remove an individual from the street when the officers lacked enough evidence for an arrest. There were 49 other arrests. These included retail theft, intoxicated individuals, or young adults carrying small amounts of drugs. Twelve mentally ill persons were apprehended. None of these individuals hadcommitted a serious crime. Instead, they had come to police attention because they had been disorderly. Because they were not considered to be criminals, they were released to a relative without a charge or transported to a hospital by paramedics for evaluation and treatment. Forty juveniles were apprehended. Fifteen juvenile arrests were made,and tickets were issued to 11 other juveniles. Thirteen juveniles were not charged and were released to their parents. One youth was turned over to a state-affiliated social service agency for foster care placement. All of these calls were considered to be a nuisance by the officers. It was common for officers to say that juvenile apprehensions were a waste of time, because “nothing ever happens to these kids.” Fifty-four calls were listed under “miscellaneous.” Twenty of these were forroutine administrative functions, such as vehicle repairs or the delivery of reports. Also included in this category were carnivals, parades, and the Fourth of July fireworks display. Some officers considered these assignments to be fun, since they could “meet and greet” the public. Other officers considered them to be tedious.In either case, they did not involve individual calls; instead they consisted of non-criminal actions, such as crowd control and traffic directions. These 1,358 incidents produced 131 arrests of all kinds. This is less than10 percent of all police–citizen encounters. In other words, in 90 percent of all cases, police officers dealt with citizens by talking. In the seven years in which the researcher observed police patrol, there were only five instances in which officers pulled their guns. No shots were fired in these situations. The researcher witnessed only two fights in seven years between officers and civilians (one was very brief and the other was the repeated restraint of a drunken driver). However, during the research period, an incident occurred in which one officer was shot and one suspect was killed. The researcher was not present at the incident.3POLICE SOCIALIZATION: FIREARMS TRAINING AND THE STREET4Officers often say: “A civilian is someone who runs away from trouble, while a cop runs toward trouble.” This was seen most strikingly in a firearms training class that the researcher observed for new auxiliary officers. The instructor asked, “Who’s not sure if he can take a life?” One of the auxiliary officers raised his hand. The instructor went on, “What is the first rule of police work?” One student sheepishly raised his hand and said, “Catch the bad guy?” “No,” theinstructor replied. “Everyone goes home at night!” He paused and then asked, “What’s the second rule of police work?” No one responded. “You do whatever it takes to go home!” He again paused. “So, if that means gouging someone’s eye out, or biting off their ear, you do it!” He then stared at the officers. “And, what do you do if someone pulls a gun on you?” No class members responded. He then thundered, “You kill him!” The class was stunned. What the instructor meant to communicate was that the recruits were no longer civilians. Now they were police officers—police officers who may have to use deadly force against another human being. In other words, they were now qualitatively different people than they used to be (“Swanson, R.”, personal communication, 1995).5 However, what the trainer had said was not literally true. It had been said forthe effect. One of the auxiliary officers later explained what to do in such a situation: “If someone pulls a gun on you, you don’t pull your gun and stare at each other, because if you do, someone may get shot, and it could be you. So, in that situation, you pull your gun, dive for cover, call for backup, and you wait. Behind that mailbox, tree, or car, you should be safe. Once backup arrives, hopefully, the guy gives up and nobody gets hurt” (“Swanson, R.”, personal communication, 1995). As we mentioned earlier, the vast majority of police work consists of talk.However, when talk fails, then physical control is necessary. (We will focus only on this one aspect of police socialization in this chapter.) A good example of this is the description of one auxiliary officer’s first arrest: “Some kids drove off from a gas station without paying. We caught them a few blocks away. The officer I was with got the two occupants out of the vehicle. He separated them. He sat one down on the curb near their vehicle. I walked the other kid over to the squad. The full-time officer then searched the vehicle. He suddenly motioned to me to cuff the driver, so I did. I then leaned my prisoner over the hood of the squad car. After a few minutes, my prisoner said that his back hurt and asked if he could sit on the hood of the squad. I agreed. I turned him around and sat him on the hood. I then snaked my arm through his and put my hand on his shoulder. ‘You can sit like this if you behave, OK?’ I said. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said. Then I spontaneously added, ‘Because if you don’t behave, your face is going into the concrete.’ I could not believe I said that, but if he had tried to run, that was exactly what would have happened” (“Swanson, R.”, personal communication, 1996). This change from a civilian, who avoids trouble, to a police officer, who respondsto it and may use force, was illustrated by two incidents the author observed. Early in his career, an auxiliary officer responded to a report of a fight. He was accompanied by his field-training officer (FTO). When the officers arrived, they were met by a woman who said her husband’s ex-wife had come to pick up the children for the weekend. However, a verbal argument had ensued and she said the ex-wife had knocked her down and pulled her hair. However, the woman was drunk and appeared less and less sympathetic the more she talked. While the full-time officer talked to the couple, the auxiliary officer pulled the children off to the side and asked what had happened. One child said, “My new mommy jumped on my old mommy and pulled her hair.” Meanwhile, the ex-wife and her husband had driven to the station to report that the other woman had assaulted her. The two officers returned to the station to speak to the woman. The ex-wife had wanted to press charges. However, the full-time officer explained that in the end, nothing would happen to the woman. After a lengthy, two-hour discussion, the officer convinced the couple not to file charges and to simply pick up the children and take them home for the weekend. The officers then drove back to the house. They parked across the street from the home. The ex-wife and husbandparked one-half block behind the squad and waited in their vehicle. The wife and her husband were standing in front of their garage. The officers got out of their squad car. To ensure officer safety, they walked up opposite sides of the driveway. As they approached the couple, the FTO suddenly reached for his gun. The other officer was stunned. However, the FTO just as suddenly reholstered and relaxed. A few minutes later, the children were picked up, and the other couple drove off. Once the officers returned to the squad car, the auxiliary officer asked: “Whatwas that?” The full-time officer said: “The husband leaned over to me and said, ‘She’s got a knife,’ so I went for my gun. Then the husband said, ‘But I took it awayfrom her.’ So I stopped.” The FTO then asked the auxiliary officer, “What would you have done if she had a knife?” The new part-time officer haltingly answered: “I would have pulled my baton out ... and circled around her ... and tried to knock the knife out of her hand?” “Huh!” the FTO blurted out as he threw his hands into the air. It was as if the FTO had said, “You God-damned liberal!” Then the FTO said in a very deliberate tone, “No, you pull your gun and say, ‘Drop the knife! Drop the knife! Drop the knife!’ until she does.” Later the auxiliary officer explained: “Since the other officer would have drawn his gun, I thought it was worth the chance to pull out my baton, circle around, and knock the knife out of her hand. I didn’t want to shoot a drunken, five-foot tall, 100 pound, suburban housewife... .” His voice trailed off (“Swanson, R.”, personal communication, 1996). A few months later, he had changed. The same two officers conducted a trafficstop on a car with four suspected gang members. The two officers exited the squad car. As they did, a second vehicle pulled up across the street with four more gang members. Fearing that they were going to be jumped, the full-time officer radioed for backup. The auxiliary officer then rushed across the street to confront the other gang members. The auxiliary officer, who was not large, blocked their path, threw out his chest, and stared them down. In the end, the incident turned out to have been harmless, and everyone drove off. Afterwards, the researcher asked the officer, who was easygoing and affable, about his behavior. He replied: “I’m a mean mother-fucker and if you fuck with me, I’ll kill you!” He had changed. Later on, he changed even more. He described a session of his at a computer-ized firearms training simulator (FATS). When he arrived, the auxiliary officer locked his weapon in a steel box outside the training room. When he entered, he was given a plastic gun tied to the computer. Then he explained how the session progressed. The simulator is set up in a 15-by-30-foot room. They turn off the lights and ascenario is projected onto a screen while you respond with a simulated weapon that is tied to the computer. There are a number of scenarios with multiple end-ings. If you fire your weapon, the computer shows where your rounds go. I’ve done this a number of times. Some of the scenarios are easy. That is, the choice is obvious. However, others are more ambiguous, judgment calls. Each time I did it, I got better at makin’ the right call. Recently, I had a session with two hostage situations. In one, my partner and I staked out a drive-up banking facility where a number of robberies had taken place. In the scenario, a guy sneaks around the corner of the bank and robs someone at an ATM. Our squad car zooms up, and we catch the guy in the act. My partner and I pull our guns. The offender puts his gun to the driver’s head and ducks behind the car door. I yell, “Drop the gun! Drop the gun!” He doesn’t respond. I yell, “Drop the gun! Nobody has to get hurt. Drop the gun!” I wait. He doesn’t move. I yell, “Drop the gun! Nobody has to die here. Drop the gun!” He fires and kills the hostage. I fire, hit the car door, and he escapes. I’m ... I’m disconsolate. That’s not a cop word, but that was how I felt. I felt like ... crap. In the second scenario, I’m off duty, but in uniform and picking somethingout of a cooler near the front of a convenience store. This hype comes in and sticks a gun in the clerk’s face. No mask, no nothin’, and he wants the money. I draw my gun and yell, “Police, drop the gun!” He doesn’t even hear me. His gun is shakin’. He’s so into this, he doesn’t know I even exist. I yell again, “Police, drop your gun!” Nothin’. I wait. He shoots the clerk. I fire and miss him as hegoes out the door. I slump. One of the instructors tries to console me by saying, “Judgment call, judgment call.” The other instructor says, “Ya’ know, if it was me, I would have stood there, got a bead on this guy and.”... I didn’t even hear the rest. That’s it! I thought to myself, I should have shot the guy! I was too soft. I’m such a great talker, and I’m a cop, and I’ve got a gun. How could these two guys not surrender? Now the two hostages were dead, and the two bad guys were gone, ’cause I was too soft! I should have shot them! This was the same officer who, on the first day of firearms training, had raisedhis hand when asked if there was anyone who was not sure he could take a life. He later said that he felt that the computer session was the culmination of his training; he now felt that he was a cop (“Swanson, R.” personal communication, 1996).CONCLUSIONSKraska and his colleagues find the use of force by police officers to be distasteful. However, police rarely use force. When an individual refuses to comply with a police order, the officer must overcome that resistance. The officer has a number of tools at his disposal. Physical force is only one of these tools. However, if all else fails, then physical force becomes the tool that must be used.