Untrained gun users ineffective at self-defence, US study finds - apparently not....

[Tommygunn]

This group clearly has one hard agenda, and no real facts. Most of what is on their site is opinion and conjecture, and their study isn't scientific in any way.

Gun Fact #1 Carrying a Gun Does Not Provide Self Defense

“Law abiding citizens have the right to carry guns to defend themselves” is the meme that drives our gun laws. Relying on this meme, laws have been passed that allow conceal and open carry, guns in public places ranging from restaurants, bars and movies, to churches and offices. There is pressure from the NRA and gun extremists to pass laws allowing guns on college campuses, on airplanes and to do away with gun free zones.

But the fact is that the meme is false, it is a fiction; carrying a gun does not provide any realistic possibility of self defense—the element of surprise always defeats the gun carrier.

The criminal does not approach and say “draw.” They have a gun to to the back of your head before you know they are there. And you will not dare move as they take both your money and your gun.

President Regan was surrounded by secret servicemen and local police carrying guns and looking for trouble. A would be assassin with a $45 handgun was able to shoot all six of its bullets, hitting four people including Regan, Jim Brady (his press secretary) and two officers before bring subdued. (Imagine how many people would have been hit if they had had a semi-automatic handgun.)

Police officers carry guns, yet 40% of all gun homicides of Police officers are due to ambushes or being surprised by suspects with firearms. (Johnson, USA TODAY, 8/25/2011).

Just recently, on August 13, 2012, two armed police officers were wounded and one murdered at College Station Texas. The shooter started shooting when a constable serving an eviction notice approached his house. On August 16, 2012, two armed Louisiana police officers on patrol were killed and two wounded in a trailer park ambush.

Carrying a gun in public does not provide self defense.

Enabling insane gun laws to be passed and sane gun laws to be rejected on the basis of a fictional meme is tragic; it is time to end it.

I know I have heard cases where an individual has been "surprised" by a criminal gunman and has still managed to draw, aim & fire and successfully defend himself.
It isn't something that I would like to have happen to me, and I can't say that I would actually recommend doing it in the face of an actual criminal pointing a gun at oneself, unless one was utterly convinced that it was the only possible opportunity to survive. That is a rather personal choice, IMHO.
Yet it puts the lie to this organization's claim that "the element of surprise always defeats the gun carrier." They claim the badguy will walk off with both your wallet & gun. If you're concealed carrying, how do they know you have a gun? If you allow a bad guy to sneak up behind you how's your situational awareness been doing recently?
One thing I was taught is to PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT IS GOING ON AROUND YOU -- and that means using more than just your mark I eyeballs.

 

[swopjan]

I think perhaps you should actually read some of Lewinski's work before you pass judgement based on a spate of articles designed to discredit some of the only use of force science out there.

If you carry a gun for self defense his work might someday be very important to you if you are unfortunate enough to have to use your gun.

Everyone who carries a gun for self defense should be aware that this move to discredit Lewinski's work is an attack on you.

I sincerely hope that if you are ever unlucky enough to have to use your gun to defend yourself that whatever deity you believe in endows you with the ability to read your opponents mind and gives you eyesight that lets you see everything at that moment from every possible angle in bright sunlight so that your use of deadly force decision is so correct that even your assailant's dear mother will hug you and tell you she understands you had no other choice.

As a gun owner, who may someday have to face an iffy situation with a potentially violent criminal, I'm all for Dr. Lewinski's work as it is.

As a private citizen, who may someday have to face an iffy situation on the business side of a police officer's sidearm, I would be more at ease knowing that the use of deadly force practices being taught to police officers is peer-reviewed and scientifically valid. We do have rights other than bearing arms and I'm fond of the due process one when the penalty might be my life.

Hopefully someone (or preferably multiple someone's) in the scientific community will confirm and expand upon his findings. As it stands, he's testifying (unopposed!) in defense of police officers with information that is not much more scientifically valid than the study that this topic is about.

 

[DB_DownRange]

Has anyone watched the actual videos they took during the survey. Its biased, and ridiculous. New gun owners do need training though, but the fact that they are less safe while carrying is ridiculous. Their results should be taken with a grain of salt

 

[MEHavey]

Lewinski is of the school of thought that police should almost always shoot first and ask questions later....

No.

Lewinski is of the school that realizes and recognizes a fact of life:

If the gun is already moving into view -- that man has already
made his decision; has already initiated the attack -- and the
bullet is about 3/4s second from being fired into your gut.

You as the defender have yet made NO decision, and initiated
NO movement in counterattack/defense.

You're dead.

 

[Jeff White]

Hopefully someone (or preferably multiple someone's) in the scientific community will confirm and expand upon his findings.

There really isn't anyone else working on these issues. Frankly, they occur so infrequently (despite the current media push to convince you otherwise) that there isn't much incentive for people to study them.

As it stands, he's testifying (unopposed!) in defense of police officers with information that is not much more scientifically valid than the study that this topic is about.

Have you read his work? How do you know it's not scientifically valid? Do you believe the much quoted 21 foot rule in self defense? You know the one that says an attacker with an edged weapon who is 21 feet or closer to you can cut you before you can draw and fire. Do you know who came up the that bit of research? A street cop named Dennis Tueller. Is his research invalid?

To my knowledge Lewinski is one of the few people working in this field. A few weeks back I started this thread in ST&T to discuss an article about some "new scientific" work in this field:

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=784334

This study used untrained college students and a Wii first person shooter game to conclude that something called "fuzzy brain" causes the police to shoot unarmed people by mistake. I am with holding judgment on it until I see the actual study, not just an article about it.

Quite frankly there isn't much else out there on this subject. I personally think that this attack on Lewinsky is completely politically motivated. Sunday will be the one year anniversary of the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, MO and they people who are upset that three separate investigations have found the shooting justified and are planning demonstrations in the area this week. Facts are getting in the way of a political agenda and therefore it is necessary to to discredit the science.

I would imagine other use of force experts like our own Mas Ayoob will also be targeted.

 

[Sav .250]

The real test , is the owner of a weapon willing and able to kill some one! That`s why folks carry .To protect themselves/others.

 

[swopjan]

Have you read his work? How do you know it's not scientifically valid?

You're thinking of bias or erroneous data, which is not the same thing as being scientifically valid or invalid. Scientifically valid means multiple parties have conducted the same or similar experiments and reached the same conclusions. Since he's the only one doing his experiments, it's not scientifically valid yet. It becomes valid when it is confirmed. Anyone with a friend and a gun/holster can validate the 21 foot rule, and dozens, perhaps thousands of people (most of whom aren't scientists either) have done so and published the results through print or video. Sure, there's probably some bias in a lot of the experiments, but there's nothing to disprove it and a large body of evidence to support it. That's scientifically valid.

If you want to support him, repeat some of his experiments and post the results. A couple from the article look pretty easy to re-create and I'm confident some of your results will help validate his data. But, until more people have done so, I won't be satisfied with the school of thought that shooting unarmed people is justified on the chance that they might have a weapon.

There are plenty of scenarios where shooting unarmed attackers is justifiable, and plenty where shooting someone armed is not.

There really isn't anyone else working on these issues. Frankly, they occur so infrequently (despite the current media push to convince you otherwise) that there isn't much incentive for people to study them.

LEO's kill more than 400 people per year. And that's just the ones reported to the FBI by local police, plenty of room for error as "The killings are self-reported by law enforcement and not all police departments participate". http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/14/police-killings-data/14060357/

That's far more people that are killed in mass shootings, almost seven times as many in 2012, the worst year on the list. Mother Jones (about as anti-gun as it gets) reports 66 deaths as a result of mass shootings in 2012, which includes 28 from Sandy Hook.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data

Now, you might say that such and such percentage of police shootings are justified, and you might be right based on the documentation available about those shootings, but if 'justified' is based on science that hasn't been checked and verified, then we really have no idea how many are and are not justified because the courts and law enforcement might as well make up the justification as they go along if nobody's recreating the date independently.

 

[Jeff White]

LEO's kill more than 400 people per year. And that's just the ones reported to the FBI by local police, plenty of room for error as "The killings are self-reported by law enforcement and not all police departments participate". http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...data/14060357/

Let's add some other numbers into the mix. An average of 400 killed a year out of a population of around 315 million policed by about 600 thousand sworn officers. It doesn't seem quite so high now does it?

Now let's add in an unknown number of of encounters between citizens and LE where the officer involved pointed his weapon at a suspect and deadly force was not used. There are probably more then a million encounters annually that could have ended in a shooting but didn't.

Until you have had to focus on your front sight while it's centered on the torso of a living breathing human being that you are about to deprive of freedom and told him: "Show me your hands!!" Because they are in coat pockets or a waist band, it's almost impossible to understand these situations.

Simulators such as FATS are great. But the one thing they can't simulate is an actual life or death decision. It's always in the back of your mind that when this simulator run is over, you are going to be in as good condition as you were when it started. And if you got it wrong, you're going to learn a lesson but the only bad consequences are most likely going to be some good natured ribbing.

Believe me it's a lot different when you actually are taking up the slack in the trigger.

And the police make the right decision in that situation countless times a year.

And it's training based on research like Lewinski's that makes that possible.

 

[swopjan]

Let's add some other numbers into the mix. An average of 400 killed a year out of a population of around 315 million policed by about 600 thousand sworn officers. It doesn't seem quite so high now does it?

Dr. Lewinski's work has not been peer-reviewed nor confirmed. If ANYTHING about his data is WRONG and law enforcement agencies are basing policy on that, then people are dying and continuing to die for no reason. One death a tragedy, four hundred a statistic I suppose, even if an unknown number of those four hundred could have been prevented if our body of knowledge was more complete. There is nothing to lose by confirming the research, but if it's wrong people, actual people on the other side of that gun are dying unnecessarily.

 

[Bobson]

Show me a studying finding A, I'll show you another that found B.

That said, using one specific incident as sole grounds for claiming to disprove a thesis is equally deceptive and laughable.

 

[Kleanbore]

Posted by swopjan:

Now, you might say that such and such percentage of police shootings are justified, and you might be right based on the documentation available about those shootings, but if 'justified' is based on science that hasn't been checked and verified, then we really have no idea how many are and are not justified because the courts and law enforcement might as well make up the justification as they go along if nobody's recreating the date independently.

Some police shootings, some civilian shootings, and some other police and civilian uses of force are justified, and others are not.

The determination is not and cannot be made on the "sicience", whether it is checked and verified, or not. The determination of justification is made on the basis of a review of all of the facts available in each incident.

No one compiles all of that, so no one knows the "percentages".

But it doesn't matter, does it?

As a private citizen, who may someday have to face an iffy situation on the business side of a police officer's sidearm, I would be more at ease knowing that the use of deadly force practices being taught to police officers is peer-reviewed and scientifically valid.

You can rest assured that not only the practices being taught but also the procedures being followed have been developed, reviewed, and tested by use of force experts and by attorneys. Municipalities are liable for what happens when police officers use force or even draw their firearms, and for training and procedure they select from thoroughly reviewed and well-tested constructs.

"Scientifically valid"? Look--they are based on centuries of common law, state legal codes, jury instructions, tort law, and so on and so on, along with simulation and testing, such as the work of Dennis Tueller.

Regarding Lewinski, let's take "He trains police that if you wait to see if a suspect has a weapon it's too late". Peer reviewed? Yes. Correct? Absolutely. And expert witnesses have to prove that in court more often than anyone likes. It is not only tactically true, it is supported in law.

One highly regarded expert says that if you see the gun before firing, you will see what comes out of it.

You can prove that in a simulator or in FoF training, if you are so inclined.

 

[swopjan]

The determination is not and cannot be made on the "sicience", whether it is checked and verified, or not. The determination of justification is made on the basis of a review of all of the facts available in each incident.

Wouldn't that serve to support my point? Since, from the original article re: Dr. Lewinski on page 1:

"His conclusions are consistent: The officer acted appropriately, even when shooting an unarmed person. Even when shooting someone in the back. Even when witness testimony, forensic evidence or video footage contradicts the officer’s story."

If a determination cannot be made in full or in part by science, and the science contradicts the other known facts (including forensic science )of the case, why are they putting a scientist on the stand, in over 200 cases in a decade? One whose conclusions aren't yet accepted by his peers? I'll tell you why...

You can rest assured that not only the practices being taught but also the procedures being followed have been developed, reviewed, and tested by use of force experts and by attorneys. Municipalities are liable for what happens when police officers use force or even draw their firearms, and for training and procedure they select from thoroughly reviewed and well-tested constructs.

Municipalities have a vested interest in deadly encounters, and in fact every questionable interaction with police, being ruled as justified each and every time. He's not on the stand because his conclusions are necessarily right, he's on the stand because his conclusions support that narrative.

Also, the practical aspect of good science is better policing techniques. You don't think Chicago PD's procedures in the first couple years of this decade weren't 'developed, reviewed, and tested by use of force experts and by attorneys'? But they still developed new techniques based on information technology and dropped their murder rate by 20% in a single year, 532 in 2012 to 415 in 2013.

 

[Jeff White]

"His conclusions are consistent: The officer acted appropriately, even when shooting an unarmed person. Even when shooting someone in the back. Even when witness testimony, forensic evidence or video footage contradicts the officer’s story."

Of course his conclusions are consistent in the trials he testifies in. Who would pay for his time so he can make the case for the other side? What the article doesn't mention is cases he turned down or was not hired to testify in because his work didn't justify the officers action. That paragraph is absolutely meaningless.

As for disputing video evidence, I suggest you walk over to your TV and turn on a Major League Baseball game. Watch the close plays, then watch the video replays from the different camera angles. You will find that the same play can look quite different from different angles. Keep watching until one of the managers challenges a play, if you watch enough of those plays you will find that even with multiple angles in super slow motion, they still can't conclusively decide if the initial call was wrong. Video only tells part of the story.

Also, the practical aspect of good science is better policing techniques. You don't think Chicago PD's procedures in the first couple years of this decade weren't 'developed, reviewed, and tested by use of force experts and by attorneys'? But they still developed new techniques based on information technology and dropped their murder rate by 20% in a single year, 532 in 2012 to 415 in 2013.

Who said that the science was static? It is constantly evolving. What Lewinski testifies to is what he has proven and is not disputable. His testimony can include live or video demonstrations of what he has learned. No jury is going to buy "I have a theory, but it's not been tested." as a defense.

There is also a difference in the kinds of court cases that the article doesn't differentiate.

There are civil cases where someone is trying to collect damages from the municipality and there are criminal trials where an officer has been charged and the municipality is usually not liable for the defense.

The former cases are most often settled out of court, because even if the officer was justified in his actions, it's cheaper to pay a settlement, even a million dollar settlement then to litigate the case.

In the criminal action, the officer or perhaps his union is paying for the defense.

Then there are the private citizens who are charged criminally. None of Lewinski's work is only applicable to LE encounters. Plenty of private citizens have shot someone who took a shot at them then turned and ran in the back. I'm sure some of them are walking the street as free men today because of Lewinski's work.

I suppose you would have us turn the clock back to, oh say 1960 and just abandon all the work done studying the dynamics of use of force until it's all been peer reviewed and published in scientific journals?

 

[swopjan]

What Lewinski testifies to is what he has proven and is not disputable

One person's results are not 'proven and not disputable.' I don't know how else I can break this down. That's why scientists typically publish in scholarly journals first, so their peers can try the same thing and see if they all get similar results.

You are quite literally arguing in favor of ignorance.

No jury is going to buy "I have a theory, but it's not been tested." as a defense.

Juries buy eyewitness testimony, despite multitudes of scientific evidence and studies from multiple sources and researchers that discredit eyewitness reliability. Here's 27,000 articles about it.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?...ved=0CBwQgQMwAGoVChMIpcHh0J2TxwIVwZ2ACh2wVgLp

 

[Jeff White]

Untrained gun users ineffective at self-defence, US study finds - apparently ...

How many times do you have to witness an action before its proven. You are being deliberately obtuse. There is plenty of prof that someone can shoot at someone who has a gun pointed at them and turn to run and catch the return shot in the back. It has been documented in live demonstrations and video countless times.

But it's up for dispute because it wasn't published in a scientific journal?

This is simply an attempt to discredit scientific research because the results don't fit the current political agenda that the police are gunning down young black men with impunity and getting away with it.

None of this was up for debate before now. You want people to believe that no one noticed this was bad science for years?

You don't have to look any farther then the global warming/climate change debate to see hundreds of examples of attempts to discredit science that goes against the political narrative. And much of the discredited science in that field has been published in scientific journals and subjected to peer review. But since it doesn't fit the agenda it's wrong.

I suppose your theory is that Lewinski is making this data up so that he can be part of this vast conspiracy to help the police murder young black men?



An expert witness is NOT providing eyewitness testimony. He is providing the science that proves one side's version of the events.

You are arguing apples and oranges here,

 

[swopjan]

An expert witness is NOT providing eyewitness testimony. He is providing the science that proves one side's version of the events.

You are arguing apples and oranges here,

And where did I say he's providing eyewitness testimony? You're saying juries won't buy it if it hasn't been proven. I'm pointing out that juries accept unreliable evidence all the time. He doesn't become a reliable, credible expert witness by being highly paid or by turning down cases. He becomes credible by other people coming to the same conclusions through similar experiments, which isn't happening because few if any people are duplicating his experiments.

He's either right or wrong. You're taking his word for it that he's right. One of my first posts said if you believe him, duplicate some of his published experiments. Findings become legitimized by the ability of others to reach the same conclusions based on the same conditions and variables. While you're at it, duplicate the trained/untrained experiment that's the topic of this thread, but do it in a setting that the police participants haven't trained in before so both groups are coming into the situation for the first time. Yay, good science.

 

[swopjan]

How many times do you have to witness an action before its proven. You are being deliberately obtuse. There is plenty of prof that someone can shoot at someone who has a gun pointed at them and turn to run and catch the return shot in the back. It has been documented in live demonstrations and video countless times.

How many times have you observed that the world appears flat? Probably every day. But your (and everyone else's) near-constant visual observation doesn't hold up to scientific scrutiny.

There's plenty of scientific disciplines that are out of necessity based almost entirely on observation. Astronomy and geology, to name two. Psychology is not one of them. Is he a psychologist, or is he a kinesiologist? Is he studying how fast someone can shoot someone else, or is he studying the process by which police officers make those decisions and how to best train officers to survive, given those physical conditions, without accidentally killing people who aren't a threat? Nobody's addressed that part yet, although he's presented as having come up with 'police psychology.'

I suppose your theory is that Lewinski is making this data up so that he can be part of this vast conspiracy to help the police murder young black men?

Are you serious? You're making this about race now? 75% of people killed by cops aren't black males. That was in one of the first sources I posted.

And see here's the assumption you keep making, that by wanting verification I think he's wrong or biased. What you think, and what I think, doesn't matter. He might be wrong or biased. If he's right, cool, our law enforcement is doing everything right or at least trying to, and has excellent counsel on the matter in the form of Dr. Lewinski.

If he's wrong, people are dying because the training and information to prevent their deaths is being obscured by attitudes like yours.

So, ten or twenty years from now, if Dr. Lewinski is discredited, will you say "innocent people are dead because of people like me allowing it to happen"?

 

[Jeff White]

The fact that it's physically possible for someone to fire at a person holding a weapon on them and turn, run and catch the return fire in the back was proven a good 10 years ago. I have seen it happen live in role playing exercises. I don't need any other verification, I've seen it happen with my own eyes. It's true it happens.

It's also true that if you wait until you see the gun being raised, it's very likely that you will be shot. You might get your shot off nearly simultaneously, but you are still facing an incoming round.

I have seen that demonstrated by roll players in force on force training. I don't need another scientist to tell me he's right. I've seen it with my own eyes.

I'm coming up on 40 years as a trainer in these areas both in the Army and in LE. These are not concepts on paper to me. And I don't teach them that way. Because frankly, you have to actually see and experience this stuff to understand it. You tell the average person with no training and experience with these things that someone can shoot you, turn and run and catch your return fire in the back and they won't believe it. It's simply beyond most people that things happen that fast.

These things are not taught in the abstract. They are best taught in properly planned and resources force on force exercises.

And while your objection might not be about the current political agenda that's been pushed for almost a year now, I can guarantee you that the New York Times hit piece on Lewinski is. Like I said, many of these things that his research has demonstrated have been around for years and accepted by the community. But now it's suddenly suspect. Why do you think that is? That no one thought to look into it until now?

An average of 400 felons killed by the police in the line of duty a year out of an unknown but absolutely huge number of armed encounters every year. I don't think we're doing so bad.

 

[Kleanbore]

Posted by swopjan:

He [the expert witness] doesn't become a reliable, credible expert witness by being highly paid or by turning down cases. He becomes credible by other people coming to the same conclusions through similar experiments, which isn't happening because few if any people are duplicating his experiments.

Look: the testimony of an expert will be admitted if (1) it is shown that the witness is qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education; (2) the expert’s scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will help the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue; (3) the testimony is based on sufficient facts or data; (4) the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods; and (5) the expert has reliably applied the principles and methods to the facts of the case.

His testimony is can be countered, and if there is reason to doubt it, that reason may be presented.

One way of doing that is to present evidence regarding the performance of similar experiments.

Capisce?

 

[swopjan]

And while your objection might not be about the current political agenda that's been pushed for almost a year now, I can guarantee you that the New York Times hit piece on Lewinski is. Like I said, many of these things that his research has demonstrated have been around for years and accepted by the community. But now it's suddenly suspect. Why do you think that is? That no one thought to look into it until now?

A fair point. But the fact that it's only under scrutiny now doesn't mean it's been valid up until this point. Being valid and being accepted aren't the same thing. It may have widespread acceptance, but that doesn't prove its validity ('the Earth is flat'). If it's correct, I would like it to be both.

A question... Why is so little attention being paid to the psychology aspect of his work? Nobody doubts that a bad guy can get a shot off and run away quickly, and I highly doubt he's being paid what he is to explain how fast bad guys can turn around.

Second, is the psychology aspect of his work being applied to police training and prevention? To put it another way, if he's done all this research and it's been accepted by the law enforcement community, has it contributed whatsoever to prevention of justified but unnecessary shootings? I hope you will agree that fewer justified but unnecessary shootings is a good thing, as long as it doesn't also cost lives on the LE side. I see from his website that he does provide training on psychology through Force Institute. If you've received any of that training, to what extent does it cover the 'no shoot' aspect of a potentially lethal encounter?

That no one thought to look into it until now?

If I had to guess, probably because most of his peers don't subscribe to The Police Marksman. Seems like the first time it was reviewed by other psychologists in an official capacity was 12 years after it was published.

An average of 400 felons killed by the police in the line of duty a year out of an unknown but absolutely huge number of armed encounters every year. I don't think we're doing so bad.

Four things.

1) That 400 per year from the article I posted earlier did not specify only felons. If you have data that states what percentage are felons or in the commission of a felony, please post it. Also, if 400 ARE felons/committing felonies, how many are not?

2) The lead recipient being a felon does not on its own make a shooting justified or moral.

3) A shooting or death being ruled as 'justified' does not mean that it should have happened.

4) 'Not doing so bad' is not the same as not being able to do better.

(3) the testimony is based on sufficient facts or data; (4) the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods

Who decides that? The 2011/2012 peer review by Dr. Fournier indicated that the methods were unreliable and the conclusions were not sufficiently supported by the data. This was 12 years after he originally published his findings, which means if he was testifying before that, it was because some lawyer or LEO took his word for it. Her review is here. https://s3.amazonaws.com/pacer-documents/D. Or. 08-cv-00950 dckt 000133_011 filed 2012-06-28.pdf

 

[Jeff White]

A question... Why is so little attention being paid to the psychology aspect of his work?

Exactly what are you referring to? His work on perception, stress inoculation and other psych subjects is pretty much in line with all of the other research I've read on the subject.

Nobody doubts that a bad guy can get a shot off and run away quickly, and I highly doubt he's being paid what he is to explain how fast bad guys can turn around.

Actually, that's exactly what he's often paid for. If you look at the sample cases on is website, you will see that the first case listed was exactly that:

http://www.forcescience.org/samplecases.html

Second, is the psychology aspect of his work being applied to police training and prevention? To put it another way, if he's done all this research and it's been accepted by the law enforcement community, has it contributed whatsoever to prevention of justified but unnecessary shootings?

Of course it's used to enhance training so that unnecessary shootings can be avoided. In his paper on the website on Reactionary Shooting you find this:
http://www.forcescience.org/articles/reactionshooting.pdf

While the factors of visual focus, attentional issues, and decision-making are highly influential to officers’ reaction and movement time
alone, officers in critical situations must also rely on pattern recognition skills to determine what may come next in a situation (Fischer & Geiwetz, 1996; Kibele, 2006). For instance, when a suspect who has been firing at officers is shot, he or she most often begins to fall to the ground. As this happens, officers must recognize the subtle body movement patterns to determine whether or not the pattern will be complete. This recognition is particularly important for officers because if the movement pattern is completed, the result will be the suspect on the ground and likely no longer a threat; however, if the pattern is not completed, and the officer stops shooting,
they would still be in danger from the suspect continuing to shoot at the officer. Relying on pattern recognition may result in reaction error, such as false positive or false negative reactions, in which officers pull or do not
pull the trigger when they perhaps should or should not have.

These inaccurate judgments in unclear or ambiguous situations can lead to rounds being fired when they should not be, excess rounds being fired, or, worse, no rounds fired when the officer should have, thus giving a deadly suspect the advantage over the officer.

Overall, pattern recognition, which officers gain from their training and experience, has a significant influence on performance and reaction times to both start and stop shooting. Although much of the aforementioned research is applicable to officers, in theory, much of their force testing and training
does not use stressful or complex stimuli in in situ conditions. Additionally, little known research examining these influences on officer reaction time has been conducted.

It's intended to help trainers understand the some things about how the brain works so they can make training better so that the best results are obtained for the situation.

I hope you will agree that fewer justified but unnecessary shootings is a good thing, as long as it doesn't also cost lives on the LE side.

Of course I do. No one goes to work wanting to shoot someone.

I see from his website that he does provide training on psychology through Force Institute. If you've received any of that training, to what extent does it cover the 'no shoot' aspect of a potentially lethal encounter?

I have not received any training conducted directly by Lewinski. However reading through his papers I can recognize his work in training conducted by other trainers. Some of it is made available under the auspices of Calibre Press and has been incorporated into the training that they conduct.

If I had to guess, probably because most of his peers don't subscribe to The Police Marksman. Seems like the first time it was reviewed by other psychologists in an official capacity was 12 years after it was published.

Lewinski is published extensively in other publications. He has also worked in collaboration with other researchers. Most of the articles on his website have multiple authors and they are all footnoted with the sources of the information.

1) That 400 per year from the article I posted earlier did not specify only felons. If you have data that states what percentage are felons or in the commission of a felony, please post it. Also, if 400 ARE felons/committing felonies, how many are not?

The 400 number comes directly from the FBI UCR data. Expanded homicide data table 14. The UCR data is far complete, but it's the only data we have to work with. I'm sure it's where the New York Times got the number. The designation of the suspects as felons comes from the FBI as well:

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/u...icide_by_weapon_law_enforcement_2009-2013.xls

Justifiable Homicide
by Weapon, Law Enforcement,1 2009–2013

1 The killing of a felon by a law enforcement officer in the line of duty.

2) The lead recipient being a felon does not on its own make a shooting justified or moral.

When did I say that it did? The felon designation comes straight from the FBI. Do I know if every encounter started out as a felony? No. I can gues that the FBI calls them all felons because whatever assault on an officer they did to justify the use of deadly force would have been a felony if they had survived to be charged.

3) A shooting or death being ruled as 'justified' does not mean that it should have happened.

When did I say or imply that? Where in Lewinski's work does he suggest that the police should shoot everyone who they are justified in shooting? I can list quite a few examples where I personally and other officers I worked with took suspects into custody who they legally could have shot. Where do you get the idea that the police go work itching to shoot someone? I'm quite sure that you will find that people are taken into custody on a daily basis in this country when the officers involved could have legally shot them if there was a way to research that.

4) 'Not doing so bad' is not the same as not being able to do better.

And when did I imply that the LE community thought that things were good enough and there was no need to do better?

The 2011/2012 peer review by Dr. Fournier indicated that the methods were unreliable and the conclusions were not sufficiently supported by the data. This was 12 years after he originally published his findings, which means if he was testifying before that, it was because some lawyer or LEO took his word for it. Her review is here. https://s3.amazonaws.com/pacer-docum...2012-06-28.pdf
Today 09:15 PM

Are you qualified to judge his methodology? I'm not. What are Dr. Fournier's qualifications? I am assuming that this document was a rebuttal by another attorney to Lewinski's testimony seeing as it came off the Federal Court's site. Dueling experts. Isn't that how the system works and isn't that how kleanbore explained it worked?

Who decides that?

Obviously the court, either the judge or the jury depending on the trial. The court is the trier of fact.

Since I retired I no longer have a pacer account, so tell me, how did the jury rule? Which expert witness had the most credibility?

 

[DHJenkins]

This is plain old fashioned research bias; the person doing the research already has an opinion and only pays attention to facts that support that opinion.

It's the same caliber of study that 'proves' psychics are real and that the position of Jupiter has something to do with your love life.

 

[swopjan]

Just going to address one or two points before I call it a night.

When did I say that it did? The felon designation comes straight from the FBI. Do I know if every encounter started out as a felony? No. I can gues that the FBI calls them all felons because whatever assault on an officer they did to justify the use of deadly force would have been a felony if they had survived to be charged.

Aha, the 461 from 2013 only include justified shootings of acting felons by police. So we don't actually have a number of the total killed, or how many are found to be unjustified.

The Washington Post tallied 385 justified and unjustified fatal police shootings up to May 30th of this year. Extrapolating that number to a yearly estimate... 385 divided by the five months up to that point... times twelve to project a yearly estimate... 924 deaths per year, 45-55% of which could reasonably be expected to be justified responses to a felony, based on available trend data from the FBI stats, 2009-2013. Google turned up a few other estimates but they were typically 10-15% higher anyway, although a couple apparently tracked a year and a half of data or more which would lend itself to greater accuracy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...22256a-058e-11e5-a428-c984eb077d4e_story.html

But, going with my estimate since it's the lowest one that takes into account both justified and non-justified shootings (we're going with the lowest one because it's the least damaging to your argument), this would indicate that approximately half the time when the police pull the trigger on a suspect, they are wrong. And, until this sort of thing is actually tracked on the national level, you don't have any data to say otherwise because only law enforcement reports on itself and only on a voluntary basis.

So we went from 400 deaths per year based on my first cursory search, to 400+ felony deaths based on the FBI crime stats, to 461 felon deaths PLUS about the same number of non-felon and/or non-justified deaths. Pardon me if I take your word with a grain of salt when you assure me that your methods work. The numbers just keep getting worse and worse for your side of the argument.


Dr. Fournier by the way is an editor of the American Psychology Journal. Typically the kind of expert who would review other scientific work first, on a voluntary basis, rather than over a decade later at the request of the courts.

 

[massad ayoob]

Kleanbore and Jeff are telling you straight. Some folks don't realize just who the "peers" in "peer review" encompass. The courts looks strongly, under the Daubert standard, at what principles are accepted and widely used IN THE FIELD, not just treatises in scientific journals.

The suddenly-turning aggressor who is hit in the back by a shot intended for his front as he attacked, is well understood in such circles as police academies, homicide investigation training, the International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors, and the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association. I've been demonstrating it both live and on video in homicide trials since Florida v. Mary Menucci Hopkin in the 1980s.

Dennis Tueller's work has been peer-accepted in law enforcement, security, and self-defense training since 1983. It has been proven countless thousands of times and is absolutely court acceptable. Similarly, Lewinski's work is in wide use "in the field," and demonstrably valid.

 

[Jeff White]

Aha, the 461 from 2013 only include justified shootings of acting felons by police. So we don't actually have a number of the total killed, or how many are found to be unjustified.

No we don't have those numbers and I never claimed that we did. The fact is, no one has those numbers and any "analysis" would be simply guessing. We don't play guessing games here, we discuss real numbers as reporting. You can guess if you wish, it just reveals your bias.

The Washington Post tallied 385 justified and unjustified fatal police shootings up to May 30th of this year. Extrapolating that number to a yearly estimate... 385 divided by the five months up to that point... times twelve to project a yearly estimate... 924 deaths per year, 45-55% of which could reasonably be expected to be justified responses to a felony, based on available trend data from the FBI stats, 2009-2013. Google turned up a few other estimates but they were typically 10-15% higher anyway, although a couple apparently tracked a year and a half of data or more which would lend itself to greater accuracy.

More guessing along with a strong bias. Completely irrelevant to this conversation. Dismissed out of hand. Come up with some real numbers that can be verified and we'll talk.

So we went from 400 deaths per year based on my first cursory search, to 400+ felony deaths based on the FBI crime stats, to 461 felon deaths PLUS about the same number of non-felon and/or non-justified deaths. Pardon me if I take your word with a grain of salt when you assure me that your methods work. The numbers just keep getting worse and worse for your side of the argument.

I won't discuss made up numbers. You have nothing except guesswork by people who are trying to push the agenda that the police are shooting citizens down with impunity. Pardon me if I dismiss your arguments as the rantings of a biased person with an agenda. If you actually believe the "hands up/don't shoot" agenda, that's your business but I will not waste another electron discussing it with you.

If you carry a gun for self defense or if you ever contemplate having to use one to defend yourself in your home, I sincerely hope that your defensive gun use is so clear cut that no one could question it, even someone who was overcome with emotion. You are dismissing the science that you may need to use to defend yourself in court out of hand.

And it's going to be a little hard for you to mount a defense using any of this science once the prosecutor finds this thread. It's going to be pretty hard for you to have any credibility claiming that the science you think is not true is suddenly applicable to your defensive gun use.