I just finished reading \u201cShots Fired\u201d by Joseph Loughlin and Kate Clark Flora. It will be available in the fall from Skyhorse Press. They are, respectively, a retired assistant chief of the Portland, Maine Police Department and SWAT team commander, and a renowned true crime writer. Their book is a police-eye view of law enforcement use of force issues today, seen in the macrocosm of social issues and the microcosm of what it\u2019s like to be the cop who has to pull the trigger.\u00a0 At the core of the book, we hear in their own words from law enforcement officers who have \u201cbeen there.\u201d These include several of the officers who faced down the bullets and thrown explosives of the Boston Bombers.<\/p>\n
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Here\u2019s an example of the authors\u2019 perspective: \u201cIt has unfortunately become the norm, in our fast-paced, media-driven world, that use of force cases and particularly deadly force cases, are routinely misreported. Far too often, when there is a deadly event in an officer-involved shooting, irresponsible reporters, misinformed advocates, and publicity-seeking politicians exacerbate the situation by writing stories or taking public positions prior to receiving any solid information. As a result, the public understanding is based on a dis\u00adtorted view rather than careful investigation and fact-finding.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cShots Fired\u201d is educational for anyone who reads it with an open mind instead of a political identity agenda. Here, the authors explain why it may seem to the general public that courts \u201ctake the cops\u2019 word\u201d for things:<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe Supreme Court has stressed the importance of recognizing the judgment of the individual officer in the situation: \u2018when used by trained law enforcement officers, objective facts, meaningless to the untrained, [may permit] inferences and deductions that might well elude an untrained person.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
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They continue, \u201cIn practice, when a court evaluates the conduct of an officer, it \u2018must avoid substituting our personal notions of proper police proce\u00addures for the instantaneous decision of the officer on the scene,\u2019 and, \u2018When a jury measures the objective reasonableness of an officer\u2019s action, it must stand in his shoes and judge his actions based upon the information he possessed.\u2019\u201d \u00a0— United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, at 418 (1980).<\/p>\n
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\u201cShots Fired\u201d by Loughlin and Flora is a valuable addition to the literature of use of force, and a breath of fresh air and common sense in the current debate.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I just finished reading \u201cShots Fired\u201d by Joseph Loughlin and Kate Clark Flora. It will be available in the fall from Skyhorse Press. They are, respectively, a retired assistant chief of the Portland, Maine Police Department and SWAT team commander, and a renowned true crime writer. Their book is a police-eye view of law enforcement […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4285","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reviews"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}