Communication and Opportunity to Comply

Police commands are often treated as simple events: an officer gave an instruction and the person either complied or did not. In practice, the meaning of noncompliance depends on what was said, whether it was understood, whether the person could physically comply, and how much time was available to respond.

Commands can serve several purposes.

They may tell a person what officers want them to do, warn that force may follow, test whether the person is willing or able to cooperate, or create an opportunity to resolve an encounter without additional force.

But a command does not create instantaneous compliance.

A person must generally perceive the instruction, understand it, decide how to respond, and physically perform the requested action.

In a rapidly changing edged-weapon encounter, those steps can become central to understanding what happened.

The important question is therefore not simply:

“Did the person obey?”

It is:

What instruction was given, what opportunity existed to respond, and what was happening while that opportunity unfolded?

Where it fits in the incident lifecycle

Communication begins before contact and can remain important until the encounter ends.

Pre-Incident & Dispatch Callers may provide information about language, disability, mental state, intoxication, hearing difficulty, developmental condition, or other factors that could affect communication.

Arrival & Approach Officers may identify themselves, ask questions, establish expectations, or issue initial directions before the encounter becomes confrontational.

Encounter & Intervention Commands, warnings, negotiation, persuasion, and attempts to slow the encounter may occur alongside movement, weapon behaviour, containment, and use of force.

Post-Incident & Analysis Video and audio may allow reviewers to examine the exact wording and timing of commands—but should still be interpreted in light of noise, distance, simultaneous speech, physical capacity, and the rapidly changing circumstances.

What to know

1. A command and a warning are not the same thing

A command tells a person what officers want them to do:

• “Drop the knife.”
• “Stop.”
• “Show me your hands.”
• “Stay where you are.”

A force warning communicates a possible consequence:

• “Drop the knife or you will be tased.”
• “Stop or I’ll shoot.”

The distinction matters.

A person may understand what is being requested without understanding that force is imminent. Conversely, an immediate threat may develop so quickly that there is no practical opportunity to provide a force warning.

Warnings can be important where feasible, but there is no universal requirement that every use of force be preceded by one.

2. Opportunity to comply requires time

Compliance is a process.

Even a simple instruction may require time to:

1. hear the command;
2. recognize that it is directed at the person;
3. understand what it means;
4. decide how to respond;
5. initiate movement; and
6. complete the requested action.

There is no universal number of seconds that defines a reasonable opportunity to comply.

The required time depends on the command, the person’s condition, the surrounding threat, and what action is being requested.

“Stop” may require less physical coordination than “turn around, place the knife down, step away from it, kneel, and put your hands behind your head.”

3. Apparent refusal and inability are different

A person who does not perform a requested action may be refusing.

They may also be unable.

Possible reasons include:

• physical restraint by officers;
• injury;
• neurological or developmental condition;
• mental-health crisis;
• intoxication;
• language difficulty;
• inability to hear;
• conflicting instructions;
• effects of a conducted-energy weapon;
• position of the person’s body; or
• insufficient time.

Those possibilities should not automatically be assumed.

But they should also not automatically be coded as deliberate resistance.

4. Previous force can affect later compliance

Force used earlier in an encounter may change what a person can physically do afterward.

This is particularly important with conducted-energy weapons.

A successful CEW deployment can produce neuromuscular incapacitation. Depending on probe placement, body position, and the muscles affected, a person may lose voluntary motor control or experience involuntary contraction.

A knife remaining in a person’s hand during or immediately after a CEW cycle does not necessarily establish that the person has deliberately refused to release it.

Three separate questions should be considered:

• Is the knife still in the hand?
• Can the person voluntarily release it?
• Is there evidence that the person is choosing not to release it?

Those are not the same question.

5. Conflicting commands complicate interpretation

Multiple officers may issue different instructions at the same time.

For example:

• “Drop it.”
• “Don’t move.”
• “Get on the ground.”
• “Show me your hands.”

A person may not be able to perform all of them simultaneously.

Conflicting or rapidly changing commands can make later descriptions such as “refused commands” less informative unless the underlying instructions and timing are examined.

6. Threat can limit the time available for communication

Communication does not operate separately from threat.

Where a person is stationary, contained, and separated from others, officers may have more opportunity to repeat instructions, clarify expectations, change tone, or use additional communication strategies.

Where a person is actively attacking, rapidly advancing, or moving toward another person with an edged weapon, officers may have far less time to wait for a response.

The existence of a command does not freeze the encounter.

The relevant question is whether the person had a meaningful opportunity to respond before the threat required a different action.

What the evidence can tell us

Relevant evidence may include:

• body-worn camera audio and video;
• dispatch information;
• officer and witness statements;
• exact command wording;
• number of officers giving commands;
• timing between command and force;
• whether commands conflicted;
• whether a force warning was given;
• whether the person began to comply;
• physical position of the subject;
• prior force used;
• CEW activation and cycle timing;
• movement of the weapon; and
• changes in threat during the compliance interval.

Video can help establish sequence, but reviewers should be cautious about treating recorded audio as identical to what every participant could hear or process in real time.

What the evidence does not establish

The fact that a command was given does not, by itself, establish that:

• the person heard it;
• the person understood it;
• the person could physically comply;
• sufficient time was provided;
• refusal was deliberate;
• force was justified;
• force was unjustified; or
• additional waiting was safe.

Likewise, failure to comply does not automatically mean active resistance.

Questions to keep in mind

What exactly was the command? Was it simple, complex, or composed of several steps?

Was a warning also given? Did the person know that force was about to be used?

How much time elapsed? Was force used while the command was still being completed?

Did the person begin to comply? Partial compliance can matter.

Could the person physically perform the action? Was the person pinned, injured, incapacitated, or otherwise restricted?

Were multiple officers speaking? Did instructions conflict or change?

Had force already been used? Could a CEW, impact, injury, or body position have affected motor control?

What was the threat doing during this time? Was the person stationary and contained, or was danger increasing?

The takeaway

A command tells us what an officer asked a person to do.

It does not, by itself, tell us whether the person heard, understood, could comply, refused to comply, or had enough time to respond.

Those questions require examining the command, the person’s capacity, the timing, any prior force, and the threat conditions occurring at the same time.

Noncompliance is an observation. Refusal is an inference.