The Deadly Force Script: How the Police in America Defend the Use of Excessive Force — A Book Review
We read the events in the news on a daily basis — law enforcement has used deadly force against a suspected perpetrator, a mentally unstable person, or even sometimes an innocent person minding their own business. Police chiefs and unions typically rush to defend the actions of the officer or officers involved, while many in the community come to their own conclusions about what happened based on their personal experiences and biases.
Is it possible that the truth lies somewhere in between? This is the argument made by retired Illinois law enforcement officer and former Washington University professor of forensic psychology, William Harmening, in his book The Deadly Force Script: How the Police in America Defend the Use of Excessive Force.
Using his decades of experience in law enforcement and teaching and developing programs in forensic psychology, as well as knowledge gained from serving as an expert witness in nearly two-hundred use-of-force cases involving police, Harmening provides unique insight into the common elements of these cases. While emphasizing his belief that the majority of law enforcement officers and departments do honest and heroic work, he methodically sets out the common threads he sees running through deadly use of force cases, something he calls “the deadly force script.”
Through the use of case studies he is intimately familiar with (he worked as an expert in all of the cases covered in the book, including the Michael Brown and George Floyd cases), Harmening explores the typical defenses, tactics, and pseudoscientific rules and theories law enforcement use to shield themselves from responsibility after using deadly force, as well as the pitfalls they fall into when trying to apprehend suspects. From the oft used “thousand yard stare” defense, to ignoring their own de-escalation, nonlethal weapons, and restraint training, to faulty situation perception, and beyond, Harmening deconstructs real life scenarios and uses them to encourage police departments to do better.
While Harmening dedicates the better part of The Deadly Force Script to his case studies, he does open the book with a brief history of deadly force cases and discusses the impact of societal shifts, such as reactions to the Rodney King beating and the 9/11 attacks, on the evolution of the “deadly force script” in the courtroom. He also concludes the book with a succinct summary of the failings he sees too often in the law enforcement profession, writing, “Police officers receive a great deal of training on how to kill. They receive very little training on how not to kill, even when killing might be legally justified. Deadly force is not a clinical exercise, but that is what it has become” (pg. 236).
Harmening takes pains in the concluding pages of his book to set the record straight on his opinion of law enforcement, saying, “[T]he vast majority of police officers in the United States are among the best and brightest men and women this nation has to offer to public service” (pg. 233). He additionally provides concrete solutions to the problems he identifies. Chief among them is advocating for legislation on the qualified immunity defense.
Noticeably absent from the text is an extensive treatment of racial disparities in use-of-force cases. Despite this, The Deadly Force Script is a recommended read for the general researcher who is investigating police use of deadly force, and would be equally useful to the attorney or expert witness who is working a deadly force case. It is available for checkout from the Washington State Law Library. Contact the reference desk at Library.Requests@courts.wa.gov with questions about checking it out or placing a hold on it in our catalog. (SC)
