Wait for backup or not? How police officers view their role when responding to an active shooter event

Abstract

Objectives: Test whether current law enforcement officers believe that they should immediately enter an active shooter scene before waiting on additional officers. Methods: Quasi-experimental vignette design with random assignment to 10 vignettes from a universe of 324. The sample consisted of 796 current law enforcement officers from 43 states, which responded to a total of 7394 vignettes. This report utilized a mixed effects logistic model to assess the appropriateness of the hypothetical officer’s actions in responding to an active shooter event. Results: Respondents were between 14 and 80 times more likely to agree with the hypothetical officer’s decision to immediately enter an active shooter scene when a driving force was present (i.e., ongoing gunfire or injured victims). This agreement varied across models as we explore different interaction effects. Conclusions: Law enforcement agree with the public sentiment that officers should immediately enter active shooter locations if there is an ongoing threat.

Department(s)

School of Criminology

Document Type

Article

DOI

10.1007/s11292-023-09592-8

Keywords

Active shooter, Driving force, Law enforcement, Police, Vignette

Publication Date

3-1-2025

Journal Title

Journal of Experimental Criminology

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