An Examination of Unintentional Use of Force by the Police

• Published date: 01 September 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10986111231209936
• Author: Meghan S. Stroshine,Sean M. Jettner,Steven G. Brandl
• Date: 01 September 2024

Article

Police Quarterly

2024, Vol. 27(3) 335–360

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/10986111231209936

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An Examination of

Unintentional Use of Force by

the Police

Meghan S. Stroshine

1

, Sean M. Jettner

2

, and

Steven G. Brandl

3

Abstract

Although many studies have been conducted on the police use of force, virtually none

have been conducted on the unintentional use of force by police. This gap in knowledge

is significant, in that any use of force by police carries with it the possibility of injury, up

to and including death. The current study examines instances of unintentional use of

weapons-based force by police to: (1) establish a framework for studying unintentional

use of force; (2) provide descriptive analyses of the issue to better ascertain the

frequency and severity of unintentional use of force by police; and (3) identify potential

directions for future study of the issue. Results indicate that unintentional weapons-

based force occurs most commonly as the unintentional deployment of a TASER during

a routine, pre-shift safety check. While unintentional incidents are rare and injuries or

death associated with unintentional weapons-based force are rarer still, human erroris

the most common cause of unintentional force, pointing to the need for better training,

weapon-handling, and/or weapon-design to prevent most unintentional force incidents.

Keywords

police, use of force, weapon confusion, accidents, human error theory, unintentional

force

1

Department of Social and Cultural Sciences, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, USA

2

DC Council for the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, Washington, DC, USA

3

Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, USA

Corresponding Author:

Meghan S. Stroshine, Marquette University, Department of Social and Cultural Sciences, Lalumiere Hall,

rm. 340, P.O. Box 1881, Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881, USA.

Email: meghan.stroshine@marquette.edu

For over fifty years, researchers have studied police use of forceto determine how,

when, why, and to what degree force is used. This research started with a focus on the

use of deadly force (e.g., Fyfe, 1978,1988;Geller & Scott, 1992;Milton, 1977;Reiss,

1980), but over time has expanded to include less-lethal, physical, and verbal force as

well (e.g., Adams, 1999;Alpert & Dunham, 1997,2004;Alpert & MacDonald, 2001;

Bolger, 2015;Crawford & Burns, 1998;Croft, 1985;Friedrich, 1980;Fryer, 2019;

Garner et al., 2002;Klahm & Tillyer, 2010;Pate et al., 1993;Stroshine & Brandl, 2019;

Terrill, 2003,2005;Terrill et al., 2003;Terrill & Mastrofski, 2002;Terrill & Reisig,

2003). These studies, while numerous, have almost entirely focused on the intentional

use of force by police officers. The unintentional use of force (i.e., force that results

from human error or by “accident”) has seldom been studied.

1

When studies have been

conducted, the research almost always focuses exclusively on the use of firearms and

instances of “weapon confusion,”when an officer mistakenly discharges a firearm

instead of deploying their TASER (Farber, 2012;Kroll et al., 2022;Martin, 2016;

Williams, 2022).

In the wake of the recent tragedy involving the death of Daunte Wright in Brooklyn

Center, Minnesota, discussions regarding unintentional use of weapons by police

resurfaced (Bogel-Burroughs, 2022;Feuer & Zaveri, 2021;Murphy, 2021;The New

York Times, 2021). On April 11, 2021, Officer Kim Potter, a twenty-six-year veteran

police officer, was conducting a traffic stop of Daunte Wright. When officers attempted

to remove Mr. Wright from the vehicle, he resisted. Officer Potter yelled “TASER!

TASER! TASER!”and proceeded to remove her firearm, which she believed to be her

TASER, and fired one bullet, striking Mr.Wright and killing him. The incident resulted

in protests and Officer Potter’s conviction of manslaughter. It also brought renewed

attention to other instances where police officers have shot persons while intending to

deploy their TASERs (Bellisle, 2021;Taylor, 2020).

The most publicized case involving unintentional use of a weapon occurred in

2009 in Oakland, California (Fong, 2009;Taylor, 2020). On New Year’sDay, minutes

after midnight, Oscar Grant III was taken off the Bay Area RapidTransit (BART) by

officers responding to reports of men fighting on the train. When officers attempted to

handcuff Mr. Grant, he resisted. Officer Mehserle took a step back and yelled he was

going to “tase”Grant, but instead drew his firearm and fired one shot, striking Mr. Grant

and killing him. The incident was recorded on several cellphones of train passengers.

The events resulted in public outrage, massive civil suits, and criminal charges against

Officer Mehserle.

In the wake of such incidents, many questions arise: how commonly do cases of

unintentional force such as “weapon confusion”occur? What causes the unintentional

use of force? How often does unintentional use of force result in serious injury or death?

Unfortunately, it’s been difficult if not impossible to answer such questions given the

lack of scholarly research in this area (cf. Williams, 2022). This is a significant

omission; incidents involving the unintentional use of weapons warrant study for

several important reasons.

336 Police Quarterly 27(3)