Shooting incidents involving patrol officers are examined for the effect of suspect race and degree of hazard in the number of shots fired and hits made on suspects. Additional tests examine frequencies of shooting incidents among Blacks and Whites with respect to city population and various measures of police‐citizen contact. Finally, fatalities are examined with respect to involvement in shooting and arrest rates. The results suggest an effect for degree of hazard; however, there was no evidence to suggest police bias against Blacks.

Differences in the personal nature of police officers as well as differences among the situational constraints due to assignments are considered in an examination of the occurrences of police involvement in shooting incidents. The Poisson and negative binomial models used in accident research are considered for representing the occurrence of shooting incidents. Data were gathered from incidents in a large metropolitan police department over a 34‐month period and used to test the two models. Various analyses indicate a good Poisson fit. Implications of the data are discussed.

In the finite-horizon stochastic (s, S) inventory model with periodic review the parameters of the optimal policy generally vary with the length of the horizon. A stationary policy, however, is easier to implement and may be easier to calculate. This paper studies optimal stationary policies for a finite horizon and relates them to optimal policies through their relation to optimal stationary policies for an infinite horizon.