Into the Kill Zone: A Cop's Eye View of Deadly Force

By David Klinger

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 Angeles 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.

San Francisco. Jossey-Bass. 2004. 304p.