[Ads-l] officer-involved shooting (1972)

[Ben Zimmer]

"Officer-involved shooting" was nominated for Euphemism of the Year in the
2020 ADS WOTY voting, and we covered it in the Aug. 2021 installment of
"Among the New Words" (AmSp 96.3). As I wrote at the time, "A search on
newspaper databases reveals its use in a 1972 article in the Independent
Press-Telegram of Long Beach, California, a profile of homicide detectives
in the Long Beach Police Department. By 1974, the Los Angeles Times was
reporting on the work of the 'Officer-Involved Shootings Section' of the
LAPD. A closely related phrase, _police-involved shooting_, also had its
roots in Southern California, appearing in the Los Angeles Times in 1975."

Here are the clippings that went with the citations:
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/55988815/officer-involved-shooting/
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/55989094/officer-involved-shooting/
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/55989158/police-involved-shooting/

On Thu, Feb 5, 2026 at 9:30 AM dave at wilton.net <dave at wilton.net> wrote:

>
> Not in OED.
>
> It appears to have started as an internal jargon term in Los Angeles-area
> police departments.
>
> Leppard, Stan. “L.B. Detectives Hunt Killers.” Independent Press-Telegram
> (Long Beach, California), 2 July 1972, B12/2. Newspapers.com.
>
> "Do Long Beach homicide detectives have any function other than the
> investigation of murder?
>
> “'A FEW,' Hurlbirt said, 'Such as cases involving attempted murder,
> officer-involved shootings, mayhem, assault with a deadly weapon,
> kidnaping, illegal abortion, wife beating, child beating, battery on police
> officers, common assaults, firing into an inhabited dwelling, and drawing
> and exhibiting a firearm in a rude and threatening manner.'”
>
> By 1977, it, and the initialism OIS, was being used as the official name
> of an LAPD police unit:
>
> Hazlett, Bill. “Special LAPD Teams Track Police Bullets.” Los Angeles
> Times, 23 January 1977, A3/2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
>
> “'Every shot fired by a police officer that results in death or injury is
> our direct responsibility,' said Det. Lt. Charles Higbie, who heads LAPD’s
> Officer Involved Shooting (OIS) team."
>
> The earliest non-LA use of the term that I've found is from Las Vegas in
> 1979:
>
> Weiss, Clyde. “Record Number of Homicides Plaguing Police.” Las Vegas
> Review-Journal (Nevada), 25 March 1979, 3A/1. Readex: America’s Historical
> Newspapers.
>
> "The bloody numbers have shocked the Las Vegas community and staggered the
> Metropolitan Police Department.
>
> "After Tuesday’s drug-related gun battle and officer-involved shooting
> that left three men dead, the violent death tally had risen to 25 reported
> homicides this year—a record."
>
> Almost all of the 20th-century uses I've found are in reference to either
> Los Angeles or Las Vegas. Widespread adoption of the phrase, according the
> Corpus of Contemporary American English dates from 2010.
>
>
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org