Attorney Michael Schwartz of Silver Hadden Silver Wesler and Levine, has been representing police officers in uses of force for a long time. He capsulates his advice to officers in how to articulate used of force in a well written and interesting article located at http://www.shslaborlaw.com/node/168. In short, an officer should “lay out 1) what you saw, heard, or physically felt, which drives almost every person’s 2) emotions, thought process, how those events made you feel, which drives almost every person’s 3) actions, i.e., what you did based on what you saw, heard, and how it made you feel.” Read the entire article to see why he recommends that “when the officer articulates the entire contact in such a fashion, breaking it up into scenes and then breaking those scenes up into three parts, or prongs, describing each prong in detail, the audience, any audience, …cannot help but follow logically not only what the officer did, but also why and, more importantly support those decisions.”
