Draft Affidavit of Lawrence W. Sherman

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE

WESTERN DIVISION

CLEAMTEE GARNER, etc..
Plaintiff,

V . No. C-76-145
MEMPHIS POLICE DEPARTMENT, 
et al.,

Defendants.

AFFIDAVIT

STATE OF NEW YORK )
) SS. :

COUNTY OF NEW YORK)

LAWRENCE W. SHERMAN, being duly sworn, deposes and says:
1. I am a United States citizen and a resident of 

Washington, D.C.
2. I hold a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Denison 

University, a Master of Arts degree from the University of 
Chicago, and a Ph.D. degree from Yale University.

3. I am presently Director of Research at the Police
Foundation in Washington, D.C. Other posts I have held in­
clude the following: Executive Director, National Advisory
Commission on Higher Education for Police Officers; Director, 
Project on Homicide by Police Officers, Criminal Justice 
Research Center, Albany, New York; Consultant to Civil Rights

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Division, United States Department of Justice; Consultant to 
Solicitor General of Canada. I have also served as a consul­
tant to several metropolitan police departments including those 
in New York City, Dayton and Kansas City. I have served as j 
an expert witness in four prior court cases involving police | 
use of firearms and have spent several thousand hours riding |

iin patrol cars in ten American cities and four European cities 
observing police decide whether or not to resort to firearms. 
Finally, I have written extensively in the area of police 
administration and police behavior. My publications include 
Scandal and Reform: Controlling Police Corruption (University j 
of California Press, 1978); The Quality of Police Education 
(Jossey Bass Publishers, 1978) with National Advisory Commiss­
ion on Higher Education for Police Officers; Team Policing 
(Police Foundation, 1973); "Measuring Homicide by Police 
Officers," 70 Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 546 
(1979) with Robert H. Langworthy; "Execution Without Trial: 
Police Homicide and the Constitution," 33 Vanderbilt Law 
Review 71. In addition to these publications I have written 
about twenty-five other articles or chapters in books, and 
serve as the Criminal Law Bulletin's Contributing Editor for

I

Law Enforcement. j
I

4. Guidelines are extremely important. The best avail- i
\

able empirical evidence clearly indicates that even minor 1
changes in the direction of restricting firearms use will

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reduce the number of citizens shot. These changes in regula­
tions must, however, be supported by strict enforcement if 
they are to become effective.

5. Extensive statistical studies by James J. Fyfe and 
others indicate that reforms restricting police use of deadly- 
force reduce the numbers of citizens shot without causing 
corresponding increases in crime or assaults upon police 
officers (see Exhibit A). My own research has verified Fyfe's 
conclusions. In Kansas City and Atlanta, changes in police 
deadly-force regulations have substantially decreased the 
number of citizens wounded or killed by police firearms. At 
the same time, neither of these cities has experienced an 
increase in crime as a result of more restrictive policies.
In Atlanta, moreover, there was no increase in assaults 
against officers. Data on the number of police assaults 
following the change of regulations in Kansas City is not 
available. But in New York, the number of assaults against 
police decreased substantially after policy reforms tightened 
the rules governing police us of deadly force.

6. Even more important than regulations however, is 
strict enforcement of rules curbing unnecessary resort to 
deadly force by police officers. If enforcement is strict, 
strong guidelines will quickly exercise significant influence 
on the conduct of officers. The message will go out that the 
Department is serious about its deadly-force rules. If en­
forcement is lax, the opposite message will be transmitted, 
no matter what the regulations themselves actually prescribe

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as required conduct. The point, then, is that the tone of 
enforcement and the attitude of a police administration is 
equally as important in the successful implementation of re­
strictive deadly force policies. Thus, the cities that have 
been most effective in curbing police resort to deadly force 
have been those where the ranking officers have created an 
atmosphere of administration sympathetic to restrictive poli­
cies or at least willing to enforce them.

7. One method of enforcing strict discipline with re­
gard to the use of firearms, is for police departments to 
investigate every single firearms discharge whether or not 
the incident involves injury or death. This process of exten­
sive review is used in New York City and has probably played
a significant role in that city's effective campaign against 
unnecessary resort to deadly force by the police.

8. Training is also an important factor in reducing pol­
ice use of firearms. Based upon my experience with firearms 
decision training in New York City, the most effective train­
ing techniques involve simulation drills which accustom 
officers to processing the ambiguous situations they are like­
ly to encounter in the course of their work. Drills where 
officers actually have people jump out at them suddenly or 
where officers have to quickly appraise whether someone is a 
suspect or a victim add to the readiness of an officer to 
face his duties with added poise and a disciplined readiness 
to use alternatives to deadly force.

9. In my view, the Memphis Police Department's policy 
regulating the use of deadly force is deficient in several

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