Stop or I’ll Shoot…Maybe
By Lee Lofland

The most frequently asked question by far in all the seminars and workshops I spoken for over the years is…Have you ever shot anyone in the line of duty? The reactions I get when I say yes are varied because I’ve learned that people automatically expect my answer to be no. I once was involved in an extremely violent shootout with an armed bank robber and that day that my training proved to be very effective. I survived and the robber did not.

On any given day a police officer may be required to use deadly force to save their life or the life of another. In the far corners of their minds they each wonder if they have what it takes to pull the trigger and send a tiny hot piece of lead on the mission to end someone’s life.
Police officers are not trained to fire warning shots nor are they trained to shoot to wound. Those things only happen on TV and in the movies. The split second it takes to fire a warning shot may be the only time the bad guy needs to kill the cop, a hostage, or an innocent bystander. Shooting to wound is also not an option. In a tense situation, such as a gunfight, a person’s ability to think clearly, or to aim for a precise target is diminished greatly by stress-induced tunnel vision.

Officers are trained to shoot for center mass, meaning the center of whatever target they are shooting at, be it an entire body or in the case of a partially hidden suspect, the center of a visible extremity.

Officers are taught to react instinctively during training sessions. Their survival skills are sharpened by many repetitive exercises, much like the exercises we humans use to train our pets to sit, speak and roll over. They spend hour after hour on the range, in both daylight and in total darkness, going through the motions of draw, point, shoot, and holster, draw, point, shoot, and holster so that it becomes second nature to them. It has been proven that in stressful situations police officers revert instantly to their training and react accordingly without thought.

Deadly force is always used as a last resort and all too often results in not only the death of the suspect but also destroys the lives of those left behind to deal with the aftermath.