Growing up around a family of law enforcement officers, I have long been inspired by the heroism routinely displayed by officers across the United States. I've studied thousands of body-worn camera footage to identify where each incident went wrong and what could have been avoided. I began to notice significant patterns in the mistakes being made by well-intentioned officers. Officers make decisions based primarily on their intuition, which can take years to develop.

Law enforcement officers across the nation are taught different weapon systems and how to effectively deploy them. However, they are not relatively well taught as to when to deploy them. Each officer is required to use a collection of randomized training and experience to determine whether or not to use force. This has created widely different applications across the nation, confusing the public and only further complicating the issue for law enforcement who are still learning where to draw the line themselves. This is why I have started the Institute for Officer Safety - a research and training organization working every single day to establish top-quality procedures, methods, and training for the law enforcement community.

Most officers are devoted servants to their communities. They are held to an extremely high standard. Yet they are not always trained to that same standard. Many highly trained officers pay out of their own pockets seeking to better serve their communities. We believe that officers and their communities deserve the best outcomes and quality standards to help them with decision-making in incredibly high stress incidents. This is why I have developed the Use of Force Framework, the Use of Force Decision Point, and the Deadly Force Threshold.

More highly trained officers will result in better police-citizen encounters. Because more often than not, officer safety is community safety.