Law Enforcement officers are not Superhuman

Before someone can understand what is reasonable in a use of force incident, they must first understand human performance factors and what the human mind and body can realistically do. A firm understanding of the complex interplay between perceived variables in the subject’s behavior, the circumstances which bring the subject an officer together, environmental conditions, and law enforcement officer response is necessary.

Law enforcement officers are humans, not superhuman. Nor are officers capable of instantaneous Olympian level performance in everything they do- the day they graduate from a police academy. They cannot read minds or predict the future. They cannot rewind a clock and return to some arbitrary point in the past and get a “do over” decision or action. As humans, officers are subject to “Human Factors.”

As a field of study, human factors are highly interrelated and multidisciplinary. These disciplines include applied psychology of theories related to environmental (physical and social) conditions and the limits and capabilities of humans. The human limitations are contained within the physical and physiological aspects of human performance. This includes the officer’s ability to perceive information (visual, auditory) and making sense of what they are perceiving. Additionally, consideration must be given to the attention, memory, and multitasking issues officers are confronted with in high stress, high consequence events (Stone, 2018, pp. 3-4).

An officer’s perception of an event is related to what they are attending, therefore what they can report (Artwohl, 1997, pp. 39, 248; Artwohl 2019, pp. 8, 71, 135, 177-179, 181-184, 189). If an officer is focusing on a particular aspect of the event, for example the subject’s weapon (Fawcett, 2016), they are likely to miss any number of factors. Distractions due to movement of bystanders, the subjects, and the officer may interfere with the officer’s perceptions of the subject’s action, such as surrender or incapacitation (Bartel, 2025). These distractions and distortions may cause an officer to fail to see seemingly impossible to miss actions such as seeing a fight between other officers and subject, while the first officer is engaged in a foot pursuit (Chabris, 2011).

Anxiety and fear are likely to create distortions in the officer’s perceptions of an event. These perceptual distortions will be different for each officer in an event, even if they are next to one another and will affect the officers’ perception of reality (Honig, 2008). These distortions affect the decision making process officers engage in. The perceived actions of the subject, combined with the officer’s perception and probable distortions could cause the officer to (Artwohl 1997, p. 248, Bartel, 2025, Blair, 2011, Honig, 2008, Hough, 2025):

·        Respond slowly, which results in the officer being injured or killed

·        Miss important contextual behavior cues

·        Observe important cues and react, but not before the subject can act

·        Mistakenly interpret cues and react accordingly

·        Observe important cues and react quicker to the perceived threat

·        Second guess their actions

Artwohl (1997, pp. 39-50, Artwohl, pp. 192-196) identifies many types of distortions an officer may experience during a high stress event. Several of these distortions may occur simultaneously. The distortions include, but are not limited to:

·        Hearing distortions (muffled or intensified sounds)

·        Tunnel vision (selective attention, inattentional blindness (Chabris, 2011))

·        Loss of depth perception

·        Automatic pilot, giving little to no thought of their own behavior. Programmed response(s)

·        Heightened visual clarity

·        Time distortions marked by perception of time moving slower for faster than normal

·        Memory distortions through gaps, loss, distractions, for parts of the event and their own actions

·        Dissociation, detachment from reality, denial that “it” is happening to you

·        Intrusive thoughts

·        Temporary paralysis, momentary “freezing”

In addition to the perceptual distortions is the reality of variability in any given use of force event (Shane, 2019, pp. 14, 25). Shane (2019, p. 14) states there are thousands of potential combinations of factors in any given use of force event. These combinations of factors can become apparent in seconds and it may only take a few combination of factors for it to become necessary for deadly force to be used. Shane (2019, p. 25) calculated that across nine environmental factors, 24 subject actions, and 37 officer actions, there were at least 54,740 unique combinations of threat conditions in any given use of force event.

For those inclined to check the math themselves, you can use a combination calculator easily found on the Internet to cross check these factors. Click the LINK to a calculator I use.

C(n, r) = C(70,3)

            70!

______________

     (3!(70-3)!)

       =54,740

The formula above is the one cited in Shane (2019, p. 25).

Perception and perceptual distortions are not the only factors which affect an officer’s performance in high stress, high consequence events, such as a use of force encounter. Other factors include the officer’s experience with the threat, education and training, environmental conditions, the knowledge, skills, and abilities of the officer as compared to other officers involved, subject actions and more. The end result is that officers may engage in heroic, or tragically mistaken actions. Just like any human being.

References

Artwohl, A., & Christensen, L. W. (1997). Deadly force encounters: What cops need to know to mentally and physically prepare for and survive a gunfight. Paladin Press.

Artwohl, A., & Christensen, L. W. (2019). Deadly force encounters: Cops & citizens defending themselves and others. [2nd ed].

Bartel, L., Florisi, N. M., Kliem, V., Cameron, T., Fuller, M., & Knaup, J. (2025). Time to stop: Firearm Simulation Dynamics. Journal of Forensic Biomechanics, 16(1). Retrieved https://www.walshmedicalmedia.com/open-access/time-to-stop-firearm-simulation-dynamics-133483.html

Blair, P. J., Pollock, J., Montague, D., Nichols, T., Curnutt, J., & Burns, D. (2011). Reasonableness and reaction time. Police Quarterly, 14(4). DOI:10.1177/1098611111423737

CalculatorsSoup. (2025, August 1). Combinations calculator (nCr). Retrieved November 24, 2025 from https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/discretemathematics/combinations.php

Chabris, C. F., Weinberger, A., Fontaine, M., & Simons, D. J. (20211). You do not talk about Fight Club if you do not notice Fight Club: Inattentional blindness for a simulated real-world assault. i-Perception, 2(2). DOI: 10.1068/i0436

Fawcett, J. M., Peace, K. A., & Greve, A. (2016). Looking down the barrel of a gun: What do we know about the Weapon Focus Effect? Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 5(3). DOI: 10.1016/j.jarmac.2016.07.005

Honig, A., & Lewinski, W. J. (2008). A survey of the research on Human Factors related to lethal force encounters: Implications for law enforcement training, tactics, and testimony. Law Enforcement Executive Forum, 8(4).

Shane, J., & Swenson, Z. (2019). Unarmed and dangerous: Patterns of threats by citizens during deadly force encounters with police. Routledge.

Stone, N. J., Chaprro, A., Keebler, J. R., Chaparro, B. S., & McConell, D. S. (2018). Introduction to human factors: Applying psychology to design. CRC Press.