Editorial standards

Evidence first

The Edged-Weapon Response Lab bases its publications on the best available evidence. Primary sources are preferred where reasonably available, including official records, court decisions, legislation, agency documents, video and audio evidence, public datasets, and original research. Secondary sources are used to provide context, interpretation, or additional reporting and are evaluated for reliability and relevance.

Source transparency

Sources are identified so readers can evaluate the basis for the Lab’s conclusions. Where evidence cannot be independently verified, is incomplete, or comes from a single account, that limitation is identified where material to the analysis.

Fact, interpretation, and inference

The Lab distinguishes documented facts from interpretation and analytical inference. It avoids presenting disputed allegations as established fact and identifies meaningful disagreements in the available evidence.

Uncertainty and missing information

Absence of evidence is not treated as evidence that an event did or did not occur. Where the available record does not support a reliable conclusion, the Lab may classify the issue as unknown, indeterminate, or unresolved rather than infer an answer.

Competing evidence

Material evidence that supports a different interpretation is not omitted because it conflicts with a publication’s principal finding. Where credible sources materially disagree, the disagreement is described and, where possible, the basis for the difference is examined.

Legal analysis

Legal publications distinguish constitutional or statutory standards from agency policy, training, professional practice, and tactical preference. Current law is distinguished from superseded, overruled, or nonbinding authority, and legal conclusions are limited to what the cited authorities support. Discussions of qualified immunity, municipal liability, or other remedies are kept analytically separate from the underlying question of whether conduct violated the Constitution.

Research and scientific evidence

Peer-reviewed research is evaluated in light of study design, population, comparator, outcome measure, limitations, and applicability to real-world police encounters. Individual studies are not presented as establishing more than their methods and findings reasonably support.

Terminology

The Lab uses precise, descriptive language and avoids terminology that unnecessarily assigns motive, blame, or legal significance. Where commonly used terms are ambiguous—such as brandishing, resisting, noncompliance, or threat—the underlying observable conduct is described whenever possible.

Violence and graphic material

Edged-weapon encounters can involve severe injury and death. The Lab does not sanitize material facts necessary to understand an incident, but does not use graphic detail, imagery, or language for shock value. Descriptions of violence are limited to what is relevant to the research or analysis.

Corrections and updates

The Lab corrects substantive factual errors when identified. Publications may also be updated when significant new evidence, research, data, or legal authority becomes available. Material corrections or revisions should be identified transparently rather than silently altering conclusions of consequence.

Editorial review

Publications are reviewed for factual support, internal consistency, source attribution, and the distinction between evidence and inference. Legal and technical material may receive additional subject-matter review where appropriate. External review does not confer editorial control over the Lab’s conclusions.

Citation and attribution

Ideas, data, quotations, and findings derived from other sources are attributed appropriately. The Lab seeks to link readers to original research, primary legal authority, and underlying data wherever practical.

Bottom line

The Lab would rather identify a question as unresolved than express a level of certainty the available evidence does not support.