Police Response to Active Shooter Events: How Officers See Their Role

Abstract

“Active shooter” incidents and the police response to them receive considerable attention. There is a public expectation that officers should immediately enter active shooter events and engage the suspects. To explore how POLICE view their role in active shooter events, a vignette research design was used to gather opinion data from a convenience sample of police officers in two states. Respondents who evaluated vignettes describing a police officer’s response to an active shooter scenario clearly preferred options other than immediately entering the building. Policy implications and directions for future research are discussed.