ABSTRACT

An adversarial relationship between the investigator and the involved officer can be created if the investigator conducts the interview of the 'subject' officer more from the perspective of a suspect interrogation rather than that of a witness interview. The interviewing technique known as the cognitive interview (CI) offers officer-involved shooting (OIS) investigators the opportunity to achieve the goal of maximizing the 'take' from the interview of an officer who has been involved in a critical incident. Electronic recording of an OIS investigative interview is controversial in part because in some states, as soon as the investigation is complete, the recording becomes a public record. An important factor that is unique to OIS investigative interviews is that the interviewer and the subject of the interview are both peace officers. As a result, an officer-to-officer dynamic may take shape, whereby many unspoken assumptions are made that are neither articulated during the interview nor written into the text of the interview report.