3/28/2025· Police Practices & Procedures
Understanding And Preventing False Confessions
By: Beth Mohr, CFE, CAMS, CCCI
Although false confessions were once believed to be extremely rare they may prove to be alarmingly common when DNA testing exonerates suspects who’ve previously confessed. Law enforcement can inadvertently generate false confessions but so can fraud examiners and occupational theft investigators.
1/28/2025· Security
Duty to Defend: Is it Time to "Reimagine" Municipal Liability?
By: Dr. James Pastor
The title of this article asks what some would see as a loaded question. The genesis of this question stems from the current socio-political dynamic. Avoiding divisive rhetoric while addressing significant legal and public safety concerns is my challenge.
1/27/2025· Police Practices & Procedures
The vascular neck restraint is an effective and safe force option when applied by properly trained officers. Law enforcement is experiencing a dramatic increase in citizen contacts and critical incidents involving violently resistive and or otherwise dangerous subjects who are under the influence of street stimulants and designer drugs such a
6/26/2017· Police Practices & Procedures
The "21 Foot Rule" - Forensic Fact or Fantasy?
Officers throughout the United States and perhaps internationally have heard use of force instructors discuss the "21 Foot Rule" during their officer safety, firearms and deadly force training. As both a use of force instructor and practicing forensic police practices expert, I have also trained and testified to this concept myself.
6/9/2017· Police Practices & Procedures
Responses to Psycho-Medical Emergencies
On a hot July day, fire and police are called to the home of a 55 year old man suffering from heat stroke. Police arrive first and find the man sitting on a bench in his front yard. When the officers approach the man and ask him to give them his cane, he becomes agitated and non-compliant. One officer suddenly grabs the cane away from the man, who screams and suddenly stands up. The man is tased, taken to the ground, beaten and handcuffed. He is transported to the hospital where ER physicians confirm a diagnosis of heat stroke. The man has no criminal history. He sustains numerous moderate injuries which keep him from returning to work for several weeks. The officers and agency are sued and settle out of court.
5/4/2015· Police Practices & Procedures
Search Warrant or Consent to Search?
By: Roger Chappell
Not long after I promoted to sergeant, I was training in a patrol division. I was riding with another sergeant when we received a call from two patrol officers. They were at an apartment complex and had chased a male into an apartment. They requested a supervisor go by with them. So, as part of my training, we went.
4/2/2015· Police Practices & Procedures
Due Diligence and Eyewitness Identification
By: Roger Chappell
I have read a number of books, studies, and court cases in my career to support the fact that eyewitness identification, by itself, is never sufficient enough to send a person to prison. This is not news. Over the past 20 years, more and more people are being exonerated for violent crimes due to DNA . This article is not to rehash old arguments. Instead, it is more of a reminder to investigators everywhere to not finalize a case, charge a person, and send them to prison based solely on an eyewitness' identification.
11/15/2013· Police Practices & Procedures
Fear & Deadly Force: Officer Involved Shootings
By: Michael Levine
The rules governing the use of deadly force by law enforcement are as easy to understand as the rules for three-card monte but about as difficult to apply as brain surgery.
10/29/2013· Police Practices & Procedures
By: Michael Levine
Law enforcement agencies call them CIs (Cooperating Individuals, Confidential Informants, and/or Criminal Informants). Cops who use them call them stoolpigeons, stools, rats, chotas, etc. Intelligence agencies (Central Intelligence Agency [CIA], Defense Intelligence Agency [DIA], etc.) call them "assets" or the more confusing "agents."
2/15/2012· Police Practices & Procedures
Murder or Stress-Induced Hypervigilance? Officer Johannes Mehserle and the Infamous "BART Shooting"
On November 5, 2010, Superior Court Judge Hon. Robert Perry sentenced former BART Police Officer Johannes Mehserle to two years in state prison for the January 1,2009, accidental shooting death of 22-year-old Oscar Grant at the Fruitdale BART station.
by David Smith, PhD
by Jim Geier
by Chuck Easttom
