Into the kill zone : a cop's eye view of deadly force / David Klinger.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Klinger, David, 1958-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Police shootings--United States.

Police shootings.

Police--United States--Interviews.

Police.

United States.

Genre:

Interviews.

Physical Description:

xi, 289 pages ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

San Francisco : Jossey-Bass, [2004]

Summary:

What's it like to have official sanction to shoot and kill? In this brilliantly written, controversial, and compelling book, author David Klinger -- who himself shot and killed a suspect during his first year as an officer in the Los Angeles Police Department -- answers this and many other questions about what it's like to live and work in the place where police officers have to make split-second decisions about life and death: The Kill Zone. Klinger, now a university professor, writes eloquently about what happens when police officers find themselves face-to-face with dangerous criminals, the excruciating decisions they have to make to shoot or to hold their fire, and how they deal with the consequences of their choices.

Writing with the narrative power of a Mailer, Capote, Chandler, or Hammett, Klinger presents the stories of other officers who have visited The Kill Zone to tell the reader what it's like: the female cop who is overcome with remorse after shooting an assailant who turned out to be unarmed, the SWAT team member who has only one narrow shot at a robber holding two kids and their mother as human shields, the off-duty officer who engaged in a wild courthouse shoot-out with a man who looked just like his father, and many other intensely dramatic, beautifully told episodes that convey what officers experience before, during, and after gunfights. Into the Kill Zone presents an original point of view about one of the most intriguing, controversial, and poorly understood aspects of American society. But most of all, it is a deeply moving, compulsively readable work of literary art.

Contents:

Choosing the badge and gun

Basic training

Holding fire

Pulling the trigger

When the smoke clears.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 283-288).

ISBN:

0787973750

OCLC:

53287774

Online:

Publisher description