[SAS_Random]

In policing, there is a topic that is always at the front--the application of proportional force. The officer is trained in many ways to de-escalate situations, including those where use of lethal force may be required or justified. How and when an officer uses reasonable force to control a situation is something that I guarantee keeps them up at night. The bottom line is that an officer must be able to adequately explain (and live with) every application of force, if a suspect/citizen believes their rights were violated and excessive force was employed by the officer.

Regardless of the acronym, SWAT, HRT, SRT, etc.--there is always a Monday morning quarterback or someone with oversight, second guessing decisions when these questions arise. In SWAT, it's the game programming. In SOG's situation, it's Jessica or the human Web Admin team. While Jessica may accuse an officer of excessive force, often the truth of the situation is very different. I won't go into potential situations, because I don't want this article to ramble on. We've all been under Jessica's accusations. We've all had situations that have gotten away from us and we made, what we believed to be the best decision in the heat of the moment.

This article is also not about the flaws of the penalty system, there is a thread for that. What I wanted to discuss here is strict adherence to well-accepted use of force policy.

In my opinion, less lethal gamers have been getting the benefit of rarely drawing attention from Jessica or the web admin team. I think there is one huge advantage that most less lethal users have been leaning upon to ensure success--the use of less lethal munitions prior to requesting compliance from an armed suspect.

In policing there is no distinction between when an officer may use lethal or less than lethal intent against an armed combatant. The check boxes for their use are the same. An officer may believe it's safe for him/her or surrounding people to use less lethal instead of lethal in an attempt to save the life of the suspect. It's a judgment call made in the moment based upon guidelines. I will not add length to this article by outlining the decision tree for that. Most would probably not care, since this is a game after all.

To boil it down for our purposes, officers are compelled to warn all suspects of the use of a less lethal weapon, just as if the officer were using a more lethal weapon. That means that shooting a suspect from behind or from face-on with a beanbag, pepperball, pepper spray, baton launcher, nade launcher, or tazer REQUIRES a compliance order. If no compliance order is issued, the officer is in violation of use of force guidelines for most credible police forces including teams like SWAT.

This is a call to action for all less lethal gamers to evolve the realism within your chosen tactics and issue compliance before pulling the trigger. You may not receive penalties either way, because the game does not punish you for shooting first and asking questions later, but I believe you will now be subject to being killed more often, which will give you a finer appreciation for those who make those decisions every day in the line duty. It will add some pucker factor in your game play as well.

Discuss.