Shots Fired: Firearm Discharges during Fugitive Apprehensions

Abstract

Violence directed at law enforcement has remained a critical issue for police, the public, and policing scholars. Recent years have witnessed a growth in lethal violence directed at officers. While several studies have examined noncompliance or resisting arrest, limited individual-level research exists on firearm use during fugitive apprehensions. We addressed this limitation by examining all fugitive apprehensions at one federal law enforcement agency involving shots fired from January 2005 through July 2011. These incidents were compared to a random sample of physical arrests during the same time period where a firearm was not discharged. Drawing on a logistic regression framework, the data highlighted the importance of current and previous warrant types in relation to firearm incidents. Implications and limitations of the model are discussed.

Keywords:

• firearms
• police officers
• resisting arrest
• fugitives

Notes

This article not subject to US copyright law.

We thank Michael Bourke for his helpful suggestions while writing this paper.

1. Rates derived from annual counts of police officers, arrests, shootings, and deaths as reported in Sourcebook (2011a, 2011b).

2. The following NCIC warrant categories had sample sizes too small to be analyzed in a bivariate manner: military offenses, immigration offenses, kidnapping, threats, witness, arson, extortion, forgery, embezzlement, stolen property, damage property, obscenity (i.e., possessing or manufacturing obscene material), family offenses (i.e., contributing to the delinquency of a minor, neglect of a child), commercialized sex offenses, liquor, bribery, public peace, traffic (limited cases of driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol), health and safety, civil rights, privacy, smuggling, tax offenses, conservation, laundering, and public order offenses. We had three people in the investigational group that had one of these offenses (embezzlement, obscenity, and family offenses [sexual abuse of a child]), but no other offenses were included in the multivariate analysis. Those three individuals committed suicide at apprehension.

3. Our percentages of “suicide by cop” are likely low, as we held a stringent requirement that the report must indicate in some way the fugitive intended to die and knew his or her actions would result in possible fatality. For example, a report where a fugitive was killed after brandishing a weapon while verbally indicating they would not survive the altercation would be classified as suicide by cop.