“It’s about saving lives.”
In many of the day-to-day work activities of law enforcement, police officers–just like all humans–have to make split-second decisions in life-threatening situations.
Recent research at Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions looked at how police respond to assailants charging at them with a knife or similar object. Despite police training, many officers don’t have time to respond to knife-wielding assailants. The purpose of the research is to gather and use data that can help inform how officers can better react and prevent fatal injuries.
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Health Science student Michael Kantor, explains that traditional police training has been centered around “the 21-foot principle,” which is essentially the distance that an assailant charging with a knife or blunt instrument could travel in the amount of time it would take for a law enforcement officer to draw their gun after seeing a threat, and fire twice.
The 21-foot principle was researched in 1983 and “was never subjected to peer-review,” explains Kantor, so he decided to see what he could do to update the research with modern equipment.
Participating officers were equipped with 15 kinetic motion sensors that tracked exact body motion, which was then compared with video footage for timing and effective responses.
Ultimately, “the goal of looking at the 21-foot principle and knife attacks is to provide law enforcement agencies and the judicial systems a better understanding of proper training tactics, decision making training, and legalities of knife or blunt object attacks for current and future law enforcement officers,” reports Kantor.
Kantor explains that “If we can dial in on the most efficient motor response given the distance that individual is charging at, we can provide really good recommendations for officers when they are faced with a knife-wielding individual at different distances.”
So when faced with an assailant, “the research shows that officers have less than a second to recognize a threat and determine to draw your weapon, and then physically draw your weapon and respond,” says Kantor.
But what if an officer is faced with an assailant at a closer distance? “At the shorter distances–10 feet, 15 feet–unless you are a very skilled firearm-draw individual, the distance is too close for your average officer to draw their weapon and discharge twice before taking the knife object in some way shape or form,” says Kantor. That means, that for most officers in those situations, they will incur a potential fatal injury.
But the research also provides some helpful guidance, “At those shorter distances, instead of drawing their weapon and extending fully out, they can modify to shoot from the hip or from their chest,” says Kantor.
So rather than focusing on the 21-foot principle, law enforcement training should focus on different tactics to increase distance or change shooting tactics when faced with an assailant.
Such training modifications will help officers better anticipate and respond in life-threatening situations. As Kantor says, “It’s about saving lives.”
Research collaborators include Robert Pettitt, PhD, FACSM, ATC, CSCS, and Susie Reiner, MS, EP-C, CSCS. Funding for this research was provided by the Force Science Institute.
