PoliceLink

Ongoing survey seeks consensus on what's "reasonable" use of force
When the U.S. Supreme Court declared in its landmark case Graham v. Connor that force used by law officers must be "objectively reasonable," Sam Faulkner had a question:

What's "reasonable"?

The Court provided "no definitive answer regarding what a reasonable officer is or does," says Faulkner, an instructor at the Ohio Peace Officers Training Academy and a lieutenant with the Mechanicsburg (OH) PD. This left cops "sent forth to our nation's streets with enforcement duties but no well-defined rules of engagement."

Consequently, "it's possible for an officer to follow his training, departmental policy, and the wishes of his supervisory staff, be sued or charged criminally, and find that the judge or jury deems his responses inappropriate."

He likens it to a football game in which "after every play, 8 to 12 people are brought in who have never played the game, and they decide if you played correctly. Would you want to play under those rules?"

Indeed, charges Faulkner, the uncertainty "can-and has-prompted some officers to say either, 'Since they're going to screw me anyway, I'll make it worth my while,' or, 'I just won't get involved.' Either of these approaches to policing, of course, is inappropriate and unacceptable."

The 59-year-old Faulkner has made it his life mission to de-fog the ambiguity of Graham and provide well-defined guidelines that are supported by most officers and most civilians alike as to what constitutes "reasonable" police responses in force confrontations.

His vehicle is a simple, short opinion poll, now available on-line, in which police and correctional officers and civilians are asked what responses they believe are appropriate to various level of resistance from suspects, ranging from back-talk to potentially lethal attacks.

More than 40,000 officers and some 8,000 civilians have participated in the survey so far, with the number growing daily. You can add your input (LINK TO SURVEY IS AT THE END OF THIS EMAIL) The cumulative tallies show a remarkable consensus about what's reasonable and thus, in Faulkner's view, constitute at least a powerful beginning of national guidelines for response to resistance. Already, appearing as an expert witness in civil suits, Faulkner says he has successfully used the survey results in more than 260 cases to help defeat plaintiffs' exaggerated claims of excessive force.

"When a plaintiff's expert testifies against an officer, he basically has a personal opinion and his resume to back it up," Faulkner told Force Science News. "By getting the survey introduced into evidence, the defendant officer usually can show that thousands of his fellow professionals, as well as a cross-section of ordinary civilians, concur that his actions were appropriate, given the circumstances he faced. That's tough for a plaintiff to overcome."

Faulkner started his poll in 1990 as a pencil-and-paper survey conducted among his classes at the Ohio state academy, but he quickly sought a broader test group. "The first year, I put more than 30,000 miles on my personal car, plus air miles, traveling to other states" to capture officers' opinions, he recalls. In some cases, he has surveyed entire agencies, large and small, on site. But it's the Internet that has given him his widest reach. He says he has surveyed officers from every state and from hundreds of agencies, municipal through federal, and civilians from communities in every region of the country.

Faulkner's on-line survey takes only moments to complete. Following prompts, you first enter your personal demographics: age, gender, education and income levels, race, and so on. Then, one at a time, you watch 5 different short video clips depicting increasing levels of suspect resistance and an officer's escalating physical reactions. In each case, it's assumed that the suspect is aware that he is under arrest, the arrest is lawful, and the subject is intentionally resisting an officer's attempt to take control of him.

In the first scenario, for example, the subject "is not responding to an officer's instructions or commands, or offers verbal threats or physical signs of resistance." You are asked to check whether you agree or disagree that the officer is acting reasonably if he issues verbal or physical commands, calls for assistance from other officers, uses a "gentle hold on the subject's arm" from an escort position, or uses "balance displacement" to move the subject. If you object to any of these options for dealing with this level of resistance, you are asked to specify which one(s) you believe to be unreasonable.

The subsequent scenarios depict resistance that ranges from dead-weight immobility and pulling away through wrestling, striking, and kicking to attempts at disarming and overt assaults with deadly weapons. You are asked to gauge the reasonableness of responses that range from joint manipulations and takedowns, baton strikes and use of electrical devices, to neck restraints and lethal force.

The final survey component asks you to rank various suspect behaviors (verbal resistance, pushing the officer away, attempting to take the officer's firearm, etc.) as to how much of a threat they represent, on a scale of 1 to 10.

After that, you can see how your responses to the resistance scenarios compare to those registered by other survey takers.

http://www.responsetoresistance.com/survey_start.aspx

Pete

Pete C. Chambers
Captain
Crisp County S. O. / E.M.A.

I can personnally vouch for Sam Faulkner. He is one of the most dynamic instructors that I have ever met. Sam is a long-time instructor at the Ohio Peace Officers Training Academy. Sam serves as an expert witness in use of force/deadly force cases throughout the US. He is at least partially responsible for developing the response to defense claims that their client was "shot in the back" by demonstrating the dynamics involved in use of force situations.

Pretty cool survey.

Im forwarding the survey to all officers in my district. much thanks!

I took it. Interesting to see the results at the end, on how numbers broke down.

I took it and am worried about who disagreed with some of them....

I took the survey very interesting

took it

I took it .

I TOOK THE SURVEY.

mpdk9214 said:

I think its good that the courts have not said black and white what is reasonable and what isnt. Every situation is different.

Took both of them, surprisenly the result were the same. Very good, passed on to our director.

I took the survey...very good. Thank you for sharing the site with us.

I took the survey... it's good to go!

I want to and started to take the survey but I have a few questions that I hope someone here can answer. Who is sponsoring or paying for that site? Who is collecting this info and for what purpose? Lastly and this is more of an observation, They sure want allot of specific info prior to taking a survey.