“Active shooter” incidents and the police response to them receive considerable attention. There is a public expectation that officers should immediately enter active shooter events and engage the suspects. To explore how POLICE view their role in active shooter events, a vignette research design was used to gather opinion data from a convenience sample of police officers in two states. Respondents who evaluated vignettes describing a police officer’s response to an active shooter scenario clearly preferred options other than immediately entering the building. Policy implications and directions for future research are discussed.
AguinisH.BradleyK. J. (2014).
Best practice recommendations for designing and implementing experimental vignette methodology studies.Organizational Research Methods,
17(4), 351–371.
2.
ApplegateB. K.CullenF. T.LinkB. G.RichardsP. J.Lanza-KaduceL. (1996).
Determinants of public punitiveness toward drunk driving: A factorial survey approach.Justice Quarterly,
13(1), 57–79.
3.
BarkerJ. C. (1998). Danger, duty, and disillusion: The worldview of Los Angeles police officers.
Prospect Heights, IL:
Waveland Press.
4.
BittnerE. (1970). Function of police in modern society.
Washington, DC:
U.S. Government Printing Office.
5.
BlairJ. P.NicholsT.BurnsD.CurnuttJ. R. (2016). Active shooter events and response.
Boca Raton, FL:
CRC Press.
6.
BlairJ. P.SchweitK. (2014). A study of active shooter incidents, 2000-2013.
Washington, DC:
Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice.
7.
BoveV.GavrilovaE. (2017).
Police officer on the frontline or a soldier? The effect of police militarization on crime.American Economic Journal: Economic Policy,
9(3), 1–18.
8.
BurrussG. W.GiblinM. J.SchaferJ. A. (2010).
Threatened globally, acting locally: Modeling law enforcement homeland security practices.Justice Quarterly,
27(1), 77–101.
9.
BurtonV. S.Jr.FrankJ.LangworthyR. H.BarkerT. A. (1993).
The prescribed roles of police in a free society: Analyzing state legal codes.Justice Quarterly,
10(4), 683–695.
ChappellA. T.Lanza-KaduceL. (2010).
Police academy socialization: Understanding the lessons learned in a paramilitary-bureaucratic organization.Journal of Contemporary Ethnography,
39(2), 187–214.
12.
CortrightC. E.McCannW.WillitsD.HemmensC.StohrM. K. (2018).
An analysis of state statutes regarding the role of law enforcement.Criminal Justice Policy Review,
31(1), 103–132.
13.
CrankJ. P. (1998). Understanding police culture.
Cincinnati, OH:
Anderson Publishing.
14.
DeucharR.FallikS. W.CrichlowV. J. (2018).
Despondent officer narratives and the ‘post-Ferguson’ effect: Exploring law enforcement perspectives and strategies in a southern American state.Policing and Society,
29(9), 1042–1057.
15.
EngelR.SmithM. (2009).
Perceptual distortion and reasonableness during police shootings: Law, legitimacy, and future research. Criminology and Public Policy,
8(1), 140–151.
16.
FlanaganT. J. (1985).
Consumer perspectives on police operational strategy.Journal of Police Science and Administration,
13(1), 10–21.
17.
GoldsteinH. (1977). Policing a free society.
Cambridge, MA:
Ballinger.
18.
HerbertS. (1996).
Morality in law enforcement: Chasing bad guys with the Los Angeles Police Department.Law & Society Review,
30, 799–818.
HerbertS. (2001).
‘Hard charger’ or ‘station queen’? Policing and the masculinist state.Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography,
8(1), 55–71.
JacobyJ. E.CullenF. T. (1999).
The structure of punishment norms: Applying the Rossi-Berk model.Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology,
89, 245–312.
23.
KachurikS.RuizJ.StaubM. (2013).
Police officers killed on duty: A different view.International Journal of Police Science & Management,
15(2), 114–124.
24.
KappelerV.SluderR.AlpertG. (1994). Forces of deviance: The dark side of policing.
Prospect Heights, IL:
Waveland.
25.
KlingerD. A.BrunsonR. K. (2009).
Police officers’ perceptual distortions during lethal force situations: Informing the reasonableness standard.Criminology & Public Policy,
8(1), 117–140.
26.
KlingerD. A.GrossmanD. (2001).
Who should deal with foreign terrorists on US soil: Sociolegal consequences of September 11 and the ongoing threat of terrorist attacks in America. Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy,
25, 815–834.
27.
KnokeD.BohrnstedtG. W. (1994). Statistics for social data analysis.
Itasca, IL:
F.E. Peacock.
28.
ManningP. K. (1980).
Violence and the police role.The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,
452(1), 135–144.
29.
MarionN. (1998).
Police academy training: Are we teaching recruits what they need to know?Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management,
21(1), 54–79.
30.
MartaindaleM. H.BlairJ. P. (2019).
The evolution of active shooter response training protocols since Columbine: Lessons from the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center.Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice,
35(3), 342–356.
31.
MartínezL. E. (2012).
The police response to critical incidents in academic institutions.Journal of Police Crisis Negotiations,
12(1), 69–77.
32.
NorusisM. J. (2005). SPSS 13.0 advanced statistical procedures companion.
Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice Hall.
33.
OliverW. M. (2006).
The fourth era of policing: Homeland security.International Review of Law Computers & Technology,
20(1–2), 49–62.
34.
PhillipsS. W. (2010).
Police officers’ opinions of the use of unnecessary force by other officers.Police Practice and Research: An International Journal,
11(3), 197–210.
35.
President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. (2015). Final report of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing.
Washington, DC:
Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.
36.
ReavesB. A. (2016). State and local law enforcement training academies, 2013 (Special Report NCJ 249784).
Washington, DC:
Bureau of Justice Statistics. Retrieved from http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5684
37.
ReisigM. D.MaysR. D.TelepC. W. (2018).
The effects of procedural injustice during police-citizen encounters: A factorial vignette study.Journal of Experimental Criminology,
14(1), 49–58.
38.
RemsbergC. (1987). Street survival: Tactic for armed encounters.
Glen Ellyn, IL:
Calibre Press.
39.
RossiP. H.AndersonA. B. (1982). The factorial survey approach: An introduction. In RossiP. H.NockS. L. (Eds.), Measuring social judgment: The factorial survey approach (pp. 15–67).
Beverly Hills, CA:
Sage.
40.
RumbautR. G.BittnerE. (1979).
Changing conceptions of the police role: A sociological review.Crime and Justice,
1, 239–288.
41.
SkolnickJ. H. (2008).
Enduring issues of police culture and demographics. Policing & Society: An International Journal of Research and Policy,
18(1), 35–45
42.
Slotkin, R. (1992). Gunfighter nation: The myth of the frontier in twentieth-century America. New York, NY: Harper Collins.
43.
SorensonS. B.TaylorC. A. (2005).
Female aggression toward male intimate partners: An examination of social norms in a community-based sample.Psychology of Women Quarterly,
29(1), 78–96
44.
TerrisB. (1967).
The role of police.Annals,
374, 58–69.
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2012). National census of fatal occupational injuries in 2011.
Washington, DC:
Bureau of Labor Statistics.
47.
WilsonJ. Q. (1968). Varieties of police behavior: The management of law and order in eight communities.
Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
