Fatal shooting by female officer a rare occurrence

Fatal shooting by female officer a rare occurrence

Police officers kill about 1,000 people each year, according to data collected by Philip Stinson, an associate professor of criminal justice at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

Stinson’s analysis shows that since 2005, 77 police officers have been charged with manslaughter or murder for an on-duty shooting.

The reasons female officers kill less often than their male colleagues has been the subject of only limited research and attributed to a variety of factors.

Other explanations range from the relative dearth of women who work some of the most dangerous police jobs, such as gang details, to an explanation that is common, though unproved: that female officers are less confrontational than their male counterparts.

“They don’t have the physical edge in encounters with citizens so, instead, they defuse the situation from the beginning, put more effort into trying to talk their way out of the situation than to try to resort to physical force,” said Jane Castor, a retired chief of the Tampa Police Department.