Into The Kill Zone: A Cop's Eye View Of Deadly Force

What's it like to have official sanction to shoot and kill? In this brilliantly written, controversial, and compelling book, author David Klinger--who himself shot and killed a suspect during his first year as an officer in the Los Angles Police Department--answers this and many other questions about what it's like to live and work in the place where police officers have to make split-second decisions about life and death: "The" "Kill Zone."

Klinger, now a university professor, writes eloquently about what happens when police officers find themselves face-to-face with dangerous criminals, the excruciating decisions they have to make to shoot or to hold their fire, and how they deal with the consequences of their choices.

Writing with the narrative power of a Mailer, Capote, Chandler, or Hammett, Klinger presents the stories of other officers who have visited "The Kill Zone" to tell the reader what it's like: the female cop who is overcome with remorse after shooting an assailant who turned out to be unarmed, the SWAT team member who has only one narrow shot at a robber holding two kids and their mother as human shields, the off-duty officer who engaged in a wild courthouse shoot-out with a man who looked just like his father, and many other intensely dramatic, beautifully told episodes that convey what officers experience before, during, and after gunfights.

"Into the Kill Zone" presents an original point of view about one of the most intriguing, controversial, and poorly understood aspects of American society. But most of all, it is a deeply moving, compulsively readable work of literary art.

What's it like to have the legal sanction to shoot and kill? This compelling and often startling book answers this, and many other questions about the oft-times violent world inhabited by our nation's police officers. Written by a cop-turned university professor who interviewed scores of officers who have shot people in the course of their duties, "Into the Kill Zo"ne presents firsthand accounts of the role that deadly force plays in American police work. This brilliantly written book tells how novice officers are trained to think about and use the power they have over life and death, explains how cops live with the awesome responsibility that comes from the barrels of their guns, reports how officers often hold their fire when they clearly could have shot, presents hair-raising accounts of what it's like to be involved in shoot-outs, and details how shooting someone affects officers who pull the trigger. From academy training to post-shooting reactions, this book tells the compelling story of the role that extreme violence plays in the lives of America's cops.