Lewis “Von” Kliem, MCJ, JD, LL.M., Chief Consulting & Communications Officer, Staff Instructor, Force Science
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In the post-Ferguson, post-Floyd era, American policing was swept up in a wave of reform whose momentum often eclipsed logic, evidence, and operational necessity. What started as emotional calls for justice and accountability evolved into a frenzied push to uncritically overhaul police practices.
Reformers targeted some of the safest use of force tactics (e.g., carotid restraints), demanded the demonization and surgical elimination of human bias (but only the nonconscious bad ones?), reframed de-escalation as an option that officers merely needed to choose, and curiously tried to blame officers for failing to do enough to avoid being assaulted.
Disconnected Policing Reform
Police reform efforts were rarely spearheaded by experienced practitioners and often ignored operational realities. Instead, they were largely driven by activists, politicians, and academics determined to inject themselves, albeit from a safe distance, into a profession they had concluded was systemically racist, abusive, and corrupt.
This reform movement empowered individuals who bear little or no responsibility for the fallout of their proposed changes to an entire industry. As I’ve previously observed, law enforcement agencies across the country were flooded with federal and state oversight, legislation, rapid policy shifts, civilian review, and even judicial rulings that demanded the expenditure of millions of dollars on unvalidated “solutions” to address unsubstantiated problems. Many of these social experiments displaced the traditional priorities of law enforcement, replacing them with ideologically driven agendas that emphasized unjust accountability over due process and human performance realities.
The Misuse of “Evidence-Based Practices”
Perhaps most troubling is the increasing invocation of “evidence-based practices” by attorneys and PhDs who, cloaked in academic credentials, often promote brainstorming sessions, “promising ideas,” and aspirational best practices as if they were settled science. The operational trade-offs and uncontrollable variables inherent in real-world policing make it exceedingly difficult to draw meaningful conclusions from individual studies detailing the impact of training, policy, and technology on police practices.
The result is a profession hamstrung by experimental mandates and externally imposed ideals, while those most affected—the officers and the communities they serve—are left to deal with the consequences of changes born more from political expediency and outcome-based determinations than effective interventions.
Challenging Unqualified “Experts” in Court
One fallout of hasty, politically motivated reform efforts is that law enforcement officers have increasingly found themselves defending their actions against opposing “experts” who attempt to advance smart-sounding but fundamentally and ethically flawed arguments. Top national use-of-force experts have been successfully challenging these reform-centric academics by highlighting the glaring gaps in their testimony. Consistently, the most prolific anti-police experts display a lack of policing experience, a fundamental misunderstanding (or deliberate rejection) of the role of human performance, irresponsible oversimplification of complex decision-making environments, and a disregard for prosecutorial ethical standards.
Ignoring the Fundamentals of Tactics: Options, NOT SOLUTIONS
Opposing experts often overlook fundamental realities of police tactics. These witnesses frequently criticize officer decisions without the experience or insights required to conduct real-world threat assessments and responses. To understand the uncertainty, unpredictability, and challenge of force encounters, nothing matters more than actual experience in policing. Tactical decisions and threat assessments aren’t abstract; they are informed by split-second considerations and reasonable inferences that experienced officers make in real time. They are discretionary tactical options, based on assessing risks, benefits, and tradeoffs—they are not singular solutions.
Examples of Dangerous Misinterpretations by Experts
Examples of “generally accepted” police practices advanced by opposing experts include:
- One expert, a former police officer turned attorney, advocated that a suspect be allowed to clear his own vehicle by throwing out knives, refusing to admit that no reasonable officer would have considered the car sufficiently cleared of weapons simply because the suspect threw some out. This suggestion was tantamount to allowing a suspect to frisk themselves for weapons during a Terry Stop, the absurdity of which was exposed in the case when additional edged weapons were found in the car.
- A university professor frequently hired to testify against the police suggested officers should have backed up to “a reasonable distance” from a man armed with a bat, later clarifying that they believed a “reasonable distance” was over half a football field away, failing to recognize the impact this distance would have on containment and control—including the unacceptable risk of injury to others.
- In another case, a well-known university professor and prolific author on policing issues argued in an expert report that an officer who had just been stabbed should slow down, reassess the threat, and attempt de-escalation while the suspect continued grappling with another officer who was unaware of the edged weapon. The suspect still gripped the weapon and even after being shot, explicitly threatened to kill the officers.
- One of the most frequently retained experts to testify against police in high-profile cases is a law professor. After reminding him that the cases were to be evaluated from the perspective of the officers at the scene, the law professor was asked whether the jury should disregard the statements of the officers at the scene and instead adopt his opinion. The prosecution’s expert unhesitatingly testified that they should.
Ignoring Human Performance Under Stress
Opposing experts routinely fail to understand or apply the critical impact of human performance factors in high-stress encounters. Although human performance research clearly establishes that under acute stress, humans default to intuition, not analytical deliberation, opposing experts have argued that, while that may be true for humans, it doesn’t apply to police.
Some experts argue that police have specialized training that eliminates human performance considerations under stress. Others have argued that science just can’t distinguish between an officer experiencing tunnel vision or auditory exclusion from an officer who is just lying. Therefore, the science “isn’t ready” for the courtroom. Of course, an honest officer accused of lying might want evidence of human performance research admitted precisely to rebut the allegations of lying.
It seems that, according to these experts, the application of human performance considerations during critical incidents should be rejected as pseudo-science when applied to police. The application of human performance considerations in policing is imprecise to be sure, as every human can respond differently to stress and even the same human can respond differently on different nights to similar stress. But there is a human behind every badge, and by highlighting this fact with decades, if not centuries of research, we consistently counter ideologically driven arguments founded in hindsight bias and unrealistic expectations of human capabilities.
Oversimplifying Complexity in Critical Incidents
Critically, opposing expert testimony often reflects an overly simplistic view of complex situations—a problem articulated by the Cynefin Framework. The Cynefin Framework differentiates between obvious (clear), complicated, complex, and chaotic decision-making environments. Many opposing experts irresponsibly present use-of-force incidents as “obvious” problems, with solutions clearly visible and easily executable. In their view, juries should view ineffective tactics as “predictably counterproductive,” and therefore “unreasonable.” In reality, these incidents frequently involve complex, rapidly changing circumstances, where outcomes are uncertain and decisions must adapt instantly to evolving threats. Our education of judges, jurors, and communities on the realities of complexity has successfully undermined misleading testimony.
The White Hat: Reinforcing Ethical Responsibilities of Prosecutors
Finally, ethical obligations of prosecutors are central to this discussion. Federal ethical standards and rules, like those outlined in the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct and state-specific guidelines explicitly require prosecutors to have probable cause and reasonable expectations of securing a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt. Prosecutors cannot ethically leverage trials to test novel theories or speculative claims against officers.
By reinforcing these ethical standards with our prosecutor clients and in pre-trial motions and arguments, we have increasingly encouraged prosecutors to carefully reconsider weak cases before subjecting officers to unfair prosecution. This strategy has resulted in dismissed charges and greater prosecutorial restraint from the majority of prosecutors who, in my view, remain highly committed to the ethical application of law. As a rule, close cases are supposed to benefit the officer. That is the law.
Advancing Policing Through Genuine Research and Open Dialogue
Despite the challenges posed by ideologically driven pseudo-science, it remains essential to acknowledge that outstanding researchers and practitioners tirelessly work to improve policing practices through genuine, rigorous research. Valuable studies continue to emerge, providing the industry and political leaders with promising insights that, given sufficient time and scrutiny, may mature into truly evidence-based best practices.
Yet, discerning meaningful scientific research from politicized misinformation remains an ongoing challenge. For over a decade, Force Science has confronted strategic misinformation campaigns designed to discredit the application of human performance research to policing. Critics, under oath, have been forced to admit they are unaware of any credible research contradicting Force Science’s findings.
Still, attorneys opposing police have attempted to discredit experts by lying to the courts, media, and communities—claiming that Force Science has no peer-reviewed research, despite the existence of over 30 publicly accessible peer-reviewed studies—studies that are found in some of the most highly rated scientific journals and respected industry-specific publications.
Still, Force Science remains unwavering in its commitment to scientific integrity and open inquiry, consistently inviting public and scholarly scrutiny:
“At Force Science, we recognize that science is an evolving pursuit that demands continual critical examination. Research findings must be tested, challenged, and refined as new data and methodologies emerge. We are committed to maintaining the highest standards of scientific rigor and transparency in our work.
If you become aware of research that is inconsistent with or contradicts our findings, we invite you to bring it to our attention. Open discourse and evidence-based inquiry are essential to advancing our understanding of human performance, decision-making, and the dynamics of force encounters.
To share relevant research or engage in scholarly discussion, please contact us!“
Restoring Honest Evaluations of Police Actions Through Expertise and Education
By consistently challenging opposing experts on their inadequate understanding of tactical realities, their failure to consider human performance research, the reality of decision-making under stress, and prosecutorial ethics, we continue to shift pre-trial and courtroom narratives toward more accurate, nuanced evaluations of officer actions.
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