Dangers of Policing and Less-Than Lethal Weapons When thinking about a police officer, like most people the first thing that comes to mind is that is a dangerous job. The chance of getting shot as an officer may be one of the main reasons that people think of it as dangerous. The truth is police officers never know what situation that they may be faced with, at any given moment on their job. They never know if a person is armed, high on drugs or alcohol, or plan to engage in a relatively recent phenomenon known as suicide by cop (Peak, 2012). Traffic accidents are also known as being in the higher percentile of police fatalities, because officers are in high pursuit but not wearing seat belts. Accord to the Augusta Chronicle although shootings make the headlines, it is traffic-related accidents that are the real killers (2013). Since police are always in harm’s way, it is important that they have weapons to protect themselves, not all weapons used by police officers are lethal weapons. There is a such thing as less-than lethal weapons and these weapons are used by police officers when lethal force is not necessary, lethal force may be used but lesser force may be a better choice for the aggressor, and lethal force is justified but its use could cause bad situations, such as injury to innocent pedestrians or damage to property (NIJ, 2002). It was developed to provide alternatives to using lethal weapons, when it may not be necessary. Less-than lethal weapons was designed to temporarily disable, confuse, delay, or restrain a situation. Less-than lethal weapons are usually used in on-the-street confrontations and suicide interventions. These particular weapons are also used in prison disturbances, and hostage rescues (NIJ, 2002). Although it’s called less-than lethal weapon, according to Peak, any weapon or tool can be lethal, if used improper or in an unintended