Instruction provided to police officers throughout the United States associated with the appropriate use of force has evolved significantly since the mid-1980s. This evolution likely began with the U.S. Supreme Court cases of Tennessee v. Garner (1985), which determined that, in situations involving a fleeing suspect who is armed or believed to have committed a crime involving physical harm or threats of harm, “deadly force may be used if necessary to prevent escape, and if, where feasible, some warning has been given,” and Graham v. Connor (1989), which decided that the “reasonableness” of use of force must be “judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene…and must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments.”¹ Although law enforcement’s understanding of the law seems to have improved over time, the terminology referencing tactics and other technical issues has not. State after state, training session after training session, the claim is made, and sometimes department policy actually provides, that an officer’s use of force is initiated by his or her presence.