PinnedAndRecessed
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Every so often, there are stories about police officers accused of using unnecessary force against suspects. Each of these cases raises the difficult question of how officers make the split second decision on when to pull the trigger.
CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann explored the subject for a report on The Early Show Friday.
He says, for police officers everywhere, the nightmare moment is when they need to make the call on whether to shoot or hold fire. More than 95 percent of the time, police never draw their weapons. But when they do, it can be life or death.
Strassmann visited a SWAT training course and, even though it is only an exercise, cops say it comes amazingly close to the real thing, using highly interactive technology produced by a company called fats. Tens of thousands of cops train on the system every year, including a group of deputies from Gwinnett County, Ga., who said they came for the adrenaline spike.
The officers run through different scenarios: hostages, domestic disputes, sometimes one gunman, sometimes more. Capt. Carl Sims, the squad's leader, rides them hard. They have to know not just how to shoot, but when.
"When you're on a team like this, you've got to be able to use deadly force, not prematurely, but should you be forced into it, you have to be able to make that decision," said Sims. "One of the first questions you ask is how many times you've had to kill someone in the last year. Never? OK, so how do I know if they can, when the pager goes off this afternoon, how do I know these guys can do it?"
Strassmann says the officers train in these controlled scenarios to prevent second-guessing on the streets. Real police shootings can divide communities.
As with the California deputy who shot an unarmed suspect, who appeared to be complying. The deputy faces felony charges. And there's the case of a Louisiana officer, who shot a suspect he thought was reaching for a gun. It was a cell phone. And in Compton, Calif., a police chase ended in a hail of 120 bullets. The wounded suspect lived, but critics said it was an over-reaction by police.
Cpl. Jeff Lavender knows the pitfalls all too well. Three years ago he tried to arrest a suspect in a car, who responded by trying to run him over.
"As I reach for the car door, I'm yelling: 'It's the police! Get out of the car! It's the police! Get out of the car!' … I get my finger on the trigger, boom, but my head hits at the same time. So I never even hear the actual bang. I just hear the shell casing afterwards," Lavender said.
In that case, in which the suspect was arrested, Lavender had a split-second to make a tough call. To show just how tough, Sims had Strassmann see for himself by going through the training course in a domestic dispute, in which a father is strangling his daughter. He's told to remember that deadly force should be a last option.
"You're going to be making the decisions. You'll decide when to use force, when to display your weapon, if at all," Sims said.
In the simulation, Strassmann's female partner gets nowhere using mace or a baton. The father keeps choking the daughter, but he's unarmed. Strassmann hesitates — too long, using verbal warnings rather than force.
"She's dead," said Sims.
While the simulation is not the same as real life, officers say it's close enough to teach a lesson.
"It's about as good as it gets," said Lavender. "You can't beat the training and you've got to have it in order to be able to function properly when it comes to an actual real shoot situation."
Strassmann says there is no database compiling how many times law enforcement nationwide uses deadly force but, according to the FBI's Web site, officers were assaulted nearly 60,000 times in 2004, resulting in 57 deaths.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/17/earlyshow/main1418827.shtml
CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann explored the subject for a report on The Early Show Friday.
He says, for police officers everywhere, the nightmare moment is when they need to make the call on whether to shoot or hold fire. More than 95 percent of the time, police never draw their weapons. But when they do, it can be life or death.
Strassmann visited a SWAT training course and, even though it is only an exercise, cops say it comes amazingly close to the real thing, using highly interactive technology produced by a company called fats. Tens of thousands of cops train on the system every year, including a group of deputies from Gwinnett County, Ga., who said they came for the adrenaline spike.
The officers run through different scenarios: hostages, domestic disputes, sometimes one gunman, sometimes more. Capt. Carl Sims, the squad's leader, rides them hard. They have to know not just how to shoot, but when.
"When you're on a team like this, you've got to be able to use deadly force, not prematurely, but should you be forced into it, you have to be able to make that decision," said Sims. "One of the first questions you ask is how many times you've had to kill someone in the last year. Never? OK, so how do I know if they can, when the pager goes off this afternoon, how do I know these guys can do it?"
Strassmann says the officers train in these controlled scenarios to prevent second-guessing on the streets. Real police shootings can divide communities.
As with the California deputy who shot an unarmed suspect, who appeared to be complying. The deputy faces felony charges. And there's the case of a Louisiana officer, who shot a suspect he thought was reaching for a gun. It was a cell phone. And in Compton, Calif., a police chase ended in a hail of 120 bullets. The wounded suspect lived, but critics said it was an over-reaction by police.
Cpl. Jeff Lavender knows the pitfalls all too well. Three years ago he tried to arrest a suspect in a car, who responded by trying to run him over.
"As I reach for the car door, I'm yelling: 'It's the police! Get out of the car! It's the police! Get out of the car!' … I get my finger on the trigger, boom, but my head hits at the same time. So I never even hear the actual bang. I just hear the shell casing afterwards," Lavender said.
In that case, in which the suspect was arrested, Lavender had a split-second to make a tough call. To show just how tough, Sims had Strassmann see for himself by going through the training course in a domestic dispute, in which a father is strangling his daughter. He's told to remember that deadly force should be a last option.
"You're going to be making the decisions. You'll decide when to use force, when to display your weapon, if at all," Sims said.
In the simulation, Strassmann's female partner gets nowhere using mace or a baton. The father keeps choking the daughter, but he's unarmed. Strassmann hesitates — too long, using verbal warnings rather than force.
"She's dead," said Sims.
While the simulation is not the same as real life, officers say it's close enough to teach a lesson.
"It's about as good as it gets," said Lavender. "You can't beat the training and you've got to have it in order to be able to function properly when it comes to an actual real shoot situation."
Strassmann says there is no database compiling how many times law enforcement nationwide uses deadly force but, according to the FBI's Web site, officers were assaulted nearly 60,000 times in 2004, resulting in 57 deaths.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/17/earlyshow/main1418827.shtml
