As a 25-year law enforcement veteran, I’ve learned that most people only see the final frame of a police encounter — the moment force is used — without seeing the 30 seconds, 5 minutes, or sometimes hours that led up to it. Use of force is never the goal. It is a response. It is the last link in a chain of decisions often driven by a suspect’s actions, the threat presented, and the officer’s obligation to protect innocent life. Officers don’t wake up looking to use force; they wake up knowing they may have to.
The law is clear. In cases like Graham v. Connor, the Supreme Court established that force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, not with 20/20 hindsight. That standard matters because police work unfolds in real time, under stress, and often in rapidly evolving conditions. Officers make split-second decisions based on what they reasonably perceive — not on what later slow-motion video analysis might suggest. The standard is not perfection. It is reasonableness.
What many critics overlook is that force is typically preceded by commands, de-escalation attempts, and opportunities for voluntary compliance. The vast majority of police contacts end peacefully. But when a suspect chooses to resist, flee, assault an officer, or introduce a weapon into the encounter, the dynamic changes instantly. At that point, the officer has both a legal and moral duty to stop the threat. Waiting too long, hesitating, or second-guessing in the moment can cost innocent lives — including the officer’s own.
There is also a critical public responsibility component that often goes unspoken. During a lawful stop, citizens have obligations: comply with commands, keep their hands visible, do not flee, and do not escalate the encounter. When someone turns a vehicle toward an officer, reaches for a weapon, or violently resists arrest, they create the very danger that force is meant to neutralize. Accountability cannot be one-sided. Public safety is a shared responsibility.
In my career, I have reviewed countless body-camera videos and investigated officer-involved uses of force. The common thread is not aggression — it is reaction. Officers react to threats presented to them. They are trained in proportionality, escalation, and control techniques precisely to avoid unnecessary harm. Modern policing includes defensive tactics training, scenario-based simulations, and legal updates to ensure officers operate within constitutional boundaries. The idea that force is casually applied simply does not match the reality of professional policing.
Force is ugly because violence is ugly. But the presence of force does not automatically mean misconduct. Sometimes it means someone made a decision that left an officer no other safe option. After 25 years on the job, I can say this with certainty: good officers do not celebrate force — they survive it. And when judged fairly, under the law and the facts as they existed in that moment, the overwhelming majority of use-of-force decisions are not only lawful, but necessary to protect the very communities officers swore to serve.
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