In the first study, 72 Amsterdam police officers and 48 men with no police experience were asked to approach a video stimulus as though it were a real person imparting a story. Analysis indicates that police observed an average interpersonal distance of 61.03 cm, while civilians observed an average distance greater than 71.71 cm. Thus, police officers are more inclined than civilians to move into the zone of personal space in which most targets feel moderately uncomfortable. In experiment 2, 131 officers viewed a video fragment portraying a police-citizen interaction in which the citizen did or did not exhibit defensive behavior in response to an officer who did or did not violate the citizen's interpersonal distance. When the citizens exhibited defensive behaviors, police officers viewed them as being more suspicious, even under conditions where a situational attribution of behavior (i.e., the officer's too close approach) could have provided a more obvious explanation. Results suggest that incorrect interpretations of the interaction process may be counteracted by helping police increase their insight into more plausible interpretations of defensive behavior by citizens and adjusting their manner accordingly. 2 tables and 27 references.