Acts of aggression by law enforcement personnel have been well publicized by the media in recent years. This article discusses the importance of hiring law enforcement officials who understand how to use their aggression selectively. Following a discussion comparing excessive use of force and excessive force, the article discusses how situational factors can affect both expressions of use of force. After indicating the importance of being able to identify aggressive or aggression prone officers, the article describes the 12-item version of the Buss-Perry Aggression Scale used to ascertain aggression among law enforcement personnel. Statistical and external validation methods such as factor analysis in order to assert that this inventory of physical, verbal, anger, and hostility factors may effectively be combined into a super factor called aggression were employed. Furthermore, the analysis found that subscales of this instrument demonstrated meaningful correlations between law enforcement departments’ measurements of citizen complaints of verbal and physical abuse and shooting incidents among law enforcement officials and actual incidents. The authors maintain that this short aggression inventory tool may be valuable as an additional tool in order to screen law enforcement officials who may need remedial courses in order to manage their aggressive tendencies. References