This month, two separate shootings, one on each coast, have reignited discussions on police use of deadly force and protocols for encountering firearms. In both incidents, the men, despite holding their guns downward, were fatally shot within moments, NPR reports. On May 3, “fourth-person” reports of a domestic disturbance at an apartment complex in Okaloosa County, Florida, brought a sheriff’s deputy to the front door of 23-year-old U.S. Airman Roger Fortson. In the second it takes Fortson to open the door with a pistol in his right hand loosely pointed at the floor, the deputy unholsters and draws his gun, and fatally shoots him. Ten days later, another man holding a gun pointed down was shot and killed by police during a domestic disturbance call, this time in Anchorage, Alaska. Police Chief Bianca Cross said the man, Kristopher Handy, had “raised the long gun towards officers,” but a video released later by one of Handy’s neighbors shows Handy walking toward officers with an apparent long gun held roughly parallel with his legs.
What complicates matters for police is the science of human reaction times. At Washington State University, Stephen James runs a lab that studies reaction times through simulations. Those studies have demonstrated a two-to-three-second disadvantage for officers who wait to have a weapon pointed at them. Because of this lag, James says officers are trained “action will beat reaction.” Rodney Bryant, a 34-year veteran of the Atlanta Police Department, former chief, and now president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives says he’s seen some departments that emphasize the research showing the time disadvantage for officers who wait; others emphasize the need to back up and de-escalate a potential confrontation if there’s time. What he has seen over three decades in policing, he says, is that officers are facing this situation more often, especially as states have legalized open carry. And it can take time for an officer to understand what's happening. “When you have the proliferation of weaponry that we’ve seen, you just encounter it more,” he says. “Seeing the gun will be very common, and we have to be prepared for that on both sides.”