Creating “Windows of Opportunity”: How Police Officers Sense and GenerateMomentum for Gaining Control inPolice-Civilian Interactions

This article examines how police officers generate momentum andcreate opportunities for gaining control in—what they perceiveas—potentially violent interactions. Theoretically, the article aimsto add to interactionist sociology by illuminating the mechanismsthrough which participants anticipate and create shared meanings offuture possibilities for an encounter. I build upon insights into thefunction of social interaction for future configuration proposed byinteractionist scholars since the 1960s. The empirical contribution isto challenge explanations of officers’ attempts to gain control as merecognitivist decision-making, ignoring the embodied dimension ofanticipating. Drawing on ninety-four elicitation interviews with Dutchofficers on violent events and field work observations of police-civilianinteractions, findings show that officers argue they sense opportunitiesthrough an awareness of civilian distraction. To create opportunities foractions that enable gaining control, they refocus civilians’ attention.Officers do this by acting in ways a civilian does not readily antici-pate through bodily spatial positioning and by using material objects,what I refer to as “positional play.” By detailing how officers act uponmomentum, I illustrate that embodied sense-making and attunementtoward serendipitous circumstances is key for police action. The articleenriches interactionist scholarship by showing the mise en scène ofhow the police realize control on an embodied level.Keywords: violence, interactionist sociology, police-civilian interac-tions, control, embodied sensing