Into the Kill Zone

What it's like to have the legal sanction to shoot and kill. A former police officer — who shot and killed a suspect in his rookie year — presents firsthand accounts of the role deadly force plays in the day-to-day lives of cops. This compelling and often startling book is filled with real-life stories from police officers who have killed in the line of duty. Readers will meet the female cop who is overcome with remorse after killing a man holding a toy gun; the SWAT team member who has only one shot at a killer holding a mother and two kids hostage; the officer who shoots a man who looked "just like my father" during a divorce court hearing after the suspect shot his estranged wife, the bailiff, and both attorneys.

This brilliantly written book tells how men and women are trained, how they live with this awesome responsibility, the times they didn't pull the trigger, hair-raising accounts of what it was like when they did, and what's happened to them since. From crisis intervention to posttraumatic stress — this book tells the compelling story of legal street execution.

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.

A brilliantly written, controversial, and compelling true-crime account of what it's like to have legal sanction to make split-second decisions of life and death.

David Klinger (St. Louis, MO) is a former police officer who teaches criminology and sociology at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. He has appeared on the Today show, Chris Matthew's Hard Ball, Geraldo Rivera, and the History Channel.

Acknowledgments.

Introduction.

1. Choosing the Badge and Gun.

2. Basic Training.

3. Holding Fire.

4. Pulling the Trigger.

5. When the Smoke Clears.

Epilogue.

Glossary.

Notes.

About the Author.