This supervisor-focused course examines the evolving legal, tactical, and cultural landscape of police use of force, emphasizing the supervisor’s role in restoring officer confidence while maintaining accountability and constitutional standards. Through a historical review of the past decade of policing, participants explore how legislative reform, litigation trends, and public scrutiny have shaped officer decision-making and agency risk. This course introduces the critical concept of officer-created jeopardy, analyzing how pre-force actions, tactical decisions, and failure to follow training can undermine legal protections and expose officers and agencies to liability. Supervisors are challenged to balance capability, consistency, and confidence by reinforcing training expectations, evaluating force incidents without hindsight bias, and holding officers accountable to the skills they have been taught. The program provides practical guidance for supervising use-of-force incidents, reviewing body-worn camera footage, and strengthening training documentation to withstand modern legal scrutiny.
