Deadly Force Research Articles

Deadly Force by U.S. Customs and Border Protection: An Analysis of Fatal Encounters with Latinos

Federal agencies are largely underrepresented when examining the dynamics of officer-involved killings. Amid discussions of police and immigration reform is the underexplored role of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Given the increased focus on reports of deaths at the U.S.–Mexico border, CBP agents’ use of deadly force warrants further scholarly attention. To address this gap in the literature, we rely on data from the Southern Border Communities Coalition and CBP to examine Latino individuals’ fatal encounters involving agents (2010–2023). We qualitatively analyze the characteristics of, and actions within, such encounters. Major findings and implications for theory and policy are discussed.

Review on spontaneous imbibition mechanisms in gas-water systems: Impacts on unconventional gas production and CO2 geo-sequestration

Spontaneous imbibition, a fundamental process in porous media, involves the displacement of a non-wetting phase by a wetting phase driven by capillary pressure. It plays a key role in various applications, particularly in unconventional gas production and greenhouse gas geo-sequestration. Despite extensive research in this area, conflicting results and explanations persist regarding imbibition phenomena, particularly in gas-water systems. This paper aims to address this gap by providing a comprehensive review of basic concepts, mechanical analyses, pore-filling patterns, front evolutions, and influencing factors associated with spontaneous imbibition. Mechanical factors including capillary force, viscous force, gravitational force, hydrostatic force, inertial force, capillary back force, and dead end force, play crucial roles in water imbibition with different boundary types. The pore-filling pattern significantly affects microscopic fluid distribution and front evolution during the imbibition process. To resolve conflicting findings, we systematically analyze the influencing factors of spontaneous imbibition within gas-water systems, encompassing rock properties, fluid characteristics, rock-fluid interactions, and reservoir properties. Furthermore, we present an in-depth discussion on the imbibition and trapping mechanisms relevant to unconventional gas production and CO2 geo-sequestration, providing insights into force analyses and influencing factors. Gas production strategies and favorable conditions for CO2 capillary trapping are proposed. Finally, we outline existing knowledge gaps and suggest potential directions for future research. This review thus provides useful insights and suggestions for advancing our understanding of spontaneous imbibition within gas-water systems and optimizing unconventional gas production and CO2 geo-sequestration practices.

Juvenile fatalities in law enforcement encounters

The use of deadly force by police is not typically associated with juveniles. However, a small percentage of cases do result in their deaths. Utilizing nationwide databases of fatalities involving law enforcement, 224 juvenile deaths were examined over a ten-year period. The majority of deaths were male and minorities. Most cases involved a weapon or the appearance of a weapon, with more than half of the youths having a firearm at the time of their death. Cases were mixed with respect to the suspect's “ flight status,” as many youths were not fleeing at the time of the incident. The circumstances of the deaths were examined for the neighborhood characteristics, such as educational attainment, youth poverty, juvenile population, and racial homogeneity of the area, as well as the situational factors involved at the time of the incident. The most predictive variable in all models was the percentage of Whites only population of the area. Analyses of these deaths shed light on the interactions police have with juveniles. Policy recommendations are included to reduce hostile police and juvenile interactions.

Excessive Use of Force and Migrant Death and Disappearance in Southern Arizona

Executive Summary In this article, we present a qualitative analysis of the events surrounding death or disappearance in autopsy and missing person reports from the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner (PCOME) in Arizona to highlight how interactions between border enforcement personnel and migrants can be deadly. We reviewed PCOME records of undocumented border crosser deaths between 2000 and 2023 and observed three main types of deadly U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) practices: reckless motor vehicle pursuits, aggressive strategies used to detain individuals who are on foot, and the use of lethal force. Our findings reveal that these tactics, which we argue constitute forms of “excessive use of force,” represent significant yet overlooked factors contributing to migrant death and disappearance in southern Arizona. We make the following policy recommendations: 1. Immediate measures to prevent the loss of life (A). The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should mandate a ban on border enforcement methods that provoke fear, panic, or confusion. (B). DHS should take measures to substantially reduce the use of high-speed motor vehicle pursuits by USBP and other immigration enforcement officials. (C). DHS should ensure that USBP officers are compliant with Department of Justice (DOJ) standards on use of deadly force, in particular the policy that “Deadly force may not be used solely to prevent the escape of a fleeing suspect.” 2. Investigate Border Fatalities Involving Border Enforcement Officers (A). We call on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct an official review of all medical examiner and coroner records along the U.S.-Mexico border for fatality cases in which border enforcement personnel were involved in any way in the circumstances surrounding death. (B). We encourage the formation of civilian review boards in border regions to review medical examiner and coroner records of migrant fatalities involving immigration officials as well as immigration officials’ apprehension strategies immediately preceding fatal encounters with migrants.

Folk Spiritism: Between Communication with the Dead and Heavenly Forces

Examples of how Spiritism merged with local beliefs have been the subject of research in religious studies, ethnology, and folkloristics. Serbian Spiritism can also be viewed as such, but its history is an under-researched topic. We examine the syncretic product we will call ‘folk Spiritism’, being different from the ‘high Spiritism’ of elite and middle-class intellectuals. Folk Spiritism was part of a grassroots movement for Church reform in the first half of the 20th century. The difference between folk and high Spiritism is also confirmed in the emic perspective. Based on a closer reading of its texts, we can discern a better image of the dead and communication with them in the practice of folk Spiritism. We conclude that the difference between the traditional and Spiritist image of the dead is that the former causes fear, while the later brings comfort; folk Spiritism gave preference to communication with heavenly forces (God, Christ, Holy Mother, angels, saints) while retaining the traditional view of the dead.

Extreme Violence in Organizations: Investigating Police Use of Deadly Force

Extreme Violence in Organizations: Investigating Police Use of Deadly Force

Police Use of Deadly Force in Serbia: The Police Officers’ Perception

The use of deadly force in the Republic of Serbia is regulated by the Law on Police and the Rulebook on Police Powers. Empirical research on the use of deadly force or on refraining from the use of deadly force has never been undertaken in Serbia. Therefore, the research presented in this paper is the first on this important topic. It focuses on the use of firearms, abstinence from the use of firearms, and training in the use of firearms. In order to assess the competence of members of the Police Directorate of the Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Serbia in the use of firearms (FA), a structured questionnaire developed by using close-ended, multiple-choice questions, and 5-point Likert scale questions (1 for strongly disagree to 5 for strongly agree) was used in the study. The research was conducted from September to October 2022. The research showed that the use of deadly force by members of the police in Serbia is rare, and that it generally does not differ largely from other European countries.

Police survival - the importance of physiological and psychological knowledge in training aimed at armed confrontations

The article addresses the concept of Police Survival. It emphasizes the importance of developing skills and knowledge focused on deadly force encounter situations and incidents that expose police officers to high levels of stress. It also discusses the psychological factor of police survival, covering a conceptual approach to stress and the most common physiological and psychological effects during deadly force encounters. Training is explored as an effective way to prepare police officers for stress, through the conceptualization of Stress Inoculation Training (SIT). This training gradually exposes officers to various stressors, allowing them to adapt and, through training, prepare for critical situations.

(Mis)Perceptions of the Use of Deadly Force by Police: Exploring the Role of Social Media Consumption.

Recent high-profile uses of deadly force by police in the United States and elsewhere have been the subject of extensive media coverage and social unrest. In turn, researchers have exhibited nascent interest in the factors that influence the use of deadly force by police, as well as vignette-driven studies of circumstances in which deadly force is believed to be acceptable. Less attention has been paid to perceptions of the frequency with which deadly force is used, proportion that is legal and necessary, to what extent its use varies by race, or how these beliefs are shaped by media consumption. Using survey methodology, we examine the perceptions of 458 respondents from the Southeastern United States in relation to the frequency with which deadly force is used, proportion that is legal and necessary, to what extent its use varies by race, and how these beliefs are shaped by social media consumption net of the effects of personal demographics and experiences. Our findings indicate the majority of respondents drastically overestimate both the frequency with which police use deadly force and the proportion of incidents involving suspects who are people of color, while underestimating the proportion of incidents that are legally justified and necessary. These perceptions are influenced, in part, by social media consumption but the effects vary in direction and significance by social media platform.

“Family Trouble”: The 1975 Killing of Denise Hawkins and the Legacy of Deadly Force in the Rochester, NY Police Department

This paper examines the lineages of police violence, family trauma, and police reform through a case study of the Rochester police killing of Denise Hawkins in 1975. Michael Leach, a 22-year-old, white police officer, responded to a “family trouble” call involving a domestic dispute between Hawkins and her husband. When the 18-year-old, 100-pound Black woman emerged from the apartment, she held a kitchen knife. Within five seconds, Leach had shot and killed her, later claiming she endangered his life. Though Hawkins’ name is included in lists of Black women killed by police, little is known about her life and legacy. Using newspapers, police records, and oral history, we examine activists’ attempts to scale the call for justice for Denise Hawkins to the national level, the police department’s defense of Leach as the true victim in the incident, and the city leaders’ compromised efforts to establish a civilian oversight of police. Within the context of Rochester’s robust history of resistance to police violence, we argue that the reform efforts of the late 1970s ultimately failed to redress the police use of deadly force. Furthermore, when Michael Leach killed again in 2012—this time shooting his own son, whom he mistook for an intruder—his defense attorney successfully depicted Leach as the sympathetic figure. In shifting the focus to Denise Hawkins, this work contributes to the Black feminist call to memorialize Black women killed by police and suggests that the policies that protect the officers who use deadly force cause widespread, intergenerational harm to officers and their victims.

Assessing between-officer variability in responses to a live-acted deadly force encounter as a window to the effectiveness of training and experience

We aimed to infer the effectiveness of officers’ training and experience by assessing consistency of behavioural responses between them. If officers facing the same scenario respond in similar ways, this implies their use of shared cognition, through acquired in-common tactical knowledge. Officers (n = 42) responded to a live-acted scenario in which an assailant ultimately discharged his weapon. Triangulated camera positions assessed their movement patterns, final positions, and weapon responses relative to when the assailant fired his weapon. We also assessed the officers’ visual search and gathered information regarding their experience and rest. Our second aim was to examine sources of variability in the officers’ responses. We found extensive variability in all aspects of the response. Experience did not impact spatial or temporal behavioural responses. However, longer hours awake and lower reported rest negatively impacted officers’ responses. We conclude that officers had insufficient training and experience to demonstrate in-common knowledge. Practitioner summary: Police officers showed high spatial and temporal variability in response to the same scenario. This implies inadequate tactical training, and is supported by our finding that training and experience did not impact performance. Instead, the officers’ variability was constrained by their visual search, and the hours awake before being tested.

Corporate Responses to Racial Unrest Editors’ Introduction

The year 2020 set into motion a perfect storm that would lead to the global panic ignited by the murder of George Floyd in late May of that year. The COVID-19 virus impacted billions of people around the world. With many forced to shelter in place at home, some Americans for the first time (and an exhaustingly innumerable time for others) observed up close the inequality apparent in American policing. On average, Black Americans are 2.9 times more likely to be shot and killed by the police, with very few officers held accountable and prosecuted for these deaths.1 One cannot make sense of this special section on Corporate Responses to Racial Unrest without an examination of this fact and the events leading up to Floyd’s murder. Statistically speaking, however, the year 2020 did not signal anything unusual. In that year, according to Statistica.com, U.S. police killed 1,020 people. Fatalities had been rising steadily from 981 in 2017 to 983 in 2018 and 999 in 2019. 2 It is not immediately apparent how best to interpret these numbers. What justifies police use of deadly force, and in turn, what is an acceptable rate of police killings per year? Or is this even a productive line of thought? The effectiveness of police power in the United States has been a standing debate since the foundations of American government.3 And the nature of inequality marked by race within policing has been demonstrated countless times in the literature.4 Reforming the phenomenon of “policing” in the United States, however, though simple to call for, is complicated to enact—not least owing to the “blue wall of silence” that protects police officers from the consequences of misconduct and the near-term spikes in crime and expenses that the very communities who are most disadvantaged by current policing practices are forced to bear.

Velocity effect on the impact dynamics of high-speed granular avalanches based on centrifuge modeling and DEM simulations

The design strategies for barrier structures against high-speed granular impacts are still lacking, because the granular impact dynamics is poorly understood. We have investigated the impact behavior of high-speed granular avalanches with different velocities (7–20 m/s) using the centrifuge modeling and DEM simulation. The results indicate that the peak total impact force should be calculated as the sum of the dynamic and static components, and the impact force distribution mode can be treated as having a rectangular shape. For granular impacts with velocities of 7–20 m/s, the dynamic component can be calculated based on the hydraulic dynamic model fed the maximum values of the flow depth, velocity, and density. The static component can be estimated using Coulomb's earth pressure theory using the dead zone weight based on an assumption of the static failure mode of the dead zone and with the flow–dead zone interaction-induced force being implicitly considered.

Deformation of an elastic second gradient spherical body under equatorial line density of dead forces

We consider deformations of an elastic body having initially a spherical shape. Assumed deformation energy depends on the first and second gradient of displacements. We apply an equatorial line density of dead loads, that are forces per unit line length directed in radial direction and applied along the equator of the sphere. We restrict ourselves our analysis to the case of linearized second strain gradient isotropic elasticity (for which the more general energy was determined by Mindlin) with only one characteristic length. Differently to what happens in first gradient continua, i.e. in classic linear elasticity, we show that for the particular class second gradient continua considered here these forces do not determine infinite displacements in the direction of applied dead line forces. Instead, using a series method for the solution of the considered boundary-value problem, we demonstrate that the displacements are finite. So in the deformed configuration there is not the formation of an edge at the material points where the forces are applied. Further investigations are therefore needed for establishing if this elastic-regime edge formation is made possible: (I) either in the case of more general linear elastic constitutive equations or (II) only when large deformations are considered or (III) if non-elastic phenomena are involved.

Exploring the Intersection of Mindfulness, Race-Related Threat Perception Failure, and the Use of Deadly Force

Exploring the Intersection of Mindfulness, Race-Related Threat Perception Failure, and the Use of Deadly Force

Stereotypes, Crime, and Policing

Crime and policing activities routinely involve interactions between strangers and require the interacting parties to make highly consequential decisions under time pressure. Under such conditions, stereotypes based on visual or other cues can influence behavior. This review considers the role of stereotypes in shaping the manner in which such interactions proceed and the likelihood with which they occur in the first place. Our focus is primarily on robbery, murder, police stops and searches, and the use of deadly force, but the arguments apply more generally. We also consider how stereotypes can become entrenched through the behavioral changes they induce, given large differences across offenses in rate of arrest and prison admission.

Policy Preferences Related to Police Use of Deadly Force: Exploring the Impact of Social Media Consumption and College Major

Responses to high-profile uses of deadly force by police in the U.S. suggest a disconnect between police and the public in terms of the circumstances in which deadly force should be allowed. There have been limited efforts to examine how media consumption and individual characteristics influence policy preferences related to the use of deadly force. We fill this gap in the literature through application of survey methodology to a sample of 458 college students in the Southeastern U.S. Our findings reveal that a substantial proportion of respondents prefer highly restrictive policy, including that police should be required to first shoot a suspect in the leg even when deadly force is permitted under law. These perceptions are influenced, in part, by college major and social media consumption, net of the influence of personal characteristics and experiences, but the effects vary in direction and significance based on social media platform.

Empowering law enforcement officers to engage effectively with individuals in crisis

As first responders with a duty to protect the safety of civilians, law enforcement officers are required to carry firearms. Over the course of a career, officers are exposed to multiple traumatic events and are required to make rapid decisions regarding safety. In the last few years, the use of deadly force by law enforcement officers has become a public concern. Persons with untreated mental illness have a comparatively higher risk than most for deadly outcomes in crisis situations. The purpose of this manuscript is to describe policies and programs that have been developed and implemented by teams that include psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners to help law enforcement officers recognize and interact effectively with persons in crisis. The same programs help officers understand the effects of severe stress and trauma on emotional, behavioral, and cognitive functioning, and provide support, encouragement, and access for officers who need help.

Crying Havok and (Re)claiming Rights

In the last decade, there has been a seismic shift in debates about the ethics of war, a shift that challenges the foundational assumptions of the just war tradition. In the revisionist project responsible for this shift, the key question becomes whether an agent, through their actions, is liable to the use of deadly force. More recently, this revisionist project has been modestly expanded, from considering how killing others could make an agent liable to the use of defensive force to considering how saving or not saving others could do so as well. In this paper, I consider how analyzing questions of liability in this new, expanded domain can highlight important distinctions that we may miss when we consider the same kinds of actions (i.e., killings) time and time again in considerations of self-defense and war. Morally salient elements that would normally be concealed can be revealed, and we can use that insight to consider the paradigmatic case of killing anew. It turns out that a more nuanced understanding of rights – the moral element that is meant to the centerpiece of the revisionist project – can be used to demonstrate a serious limitation for both revisionism and the just war tradition it seeks to replace. One can hold onto one of core aims of the revisionist project, its weary skepticism of the blank pass given by traditional just war theorists to those who fight unjust ad bellum wars, while maintaining that a fuller appreciation of the moral complexities of rights often strengthens, rather than undermines, many of the traditional in bello rules.

경찰 물리력 사용 관련 ｢경찰관직무집행법｣ 개정 필요성에 관한 연구

Police use of force must be strictly guided and regulated by State Legislature because of its serious impact on citizens when erroneously used. Although prior research addressed several loopholes in the Act on the Performance of Duties by Police Officer with respect to police use of deadly force, no amendment has been attempted to revise the Act in accordance with research suggestions. As police use of force takes up a great amount of police recruit tests as well as promotion tests, wrongful interpretation by the Korean National Police Agency (KNPA) regarding police use of force regulations can lead to direct infringement of citizens’ constitutional rights. Nevertheless, few research studies in this field have examined potential errors in police recruit and promotion tests conducted by the KNPA. In this regard, the present study reviewed the tests for the last 10 years, finding five problematic questions regarding legal limits of police use of force based on the Act on the Performance of Duties by Police Officer. The current study found that police officers can be misguided by a few sections in the Act regarding police use of deadly force, police use of non-deadly equipment, and chemical agents or irritants. In an effort to minimize the wrongful applications of the Act, the current study reviewed police use of force regulations in state laws of 43 states and Washing DC in the United States. Finally, the present study proposed several research implications with respect to revision of the Act.