Modeling police officers’ deadly force decisions in an immersive shooting simulator

We used an immersive shooting simulator to examine how race, suspect behavior, and policing scenario shape officers’ deadly force decisions. Officers (N = 659) from the Milwaukee Police Department responded to dynamic video scenarios using realistic handgun responses. Mistaken shootings of unarmed Black suspects were more likely than of White suspects, but only when the suspects behaved non-antagonistically. Cognitive modeling showed this race effect arose not from an initial bias to shoot but from differences in evidence accumulation once the object was visible. Scenario and suspect behavior had the largest overall influence, shaping decisions by altering initial proclivity to shoot. Further analysis suggested that suspect behavior within specific scenarios may partially explain observed race effects. These findings provide a process-level account of deadly force decisions, integrating real-world complexity with psychological theory, and offer a framework for improving research and training around police use-of-force.