The present study develops a theoretical argument that research on police use of force should begin to examine the phenomenon in terms of police occupational templates above and beyond the traditional escalation of force paradigm. Investigating police use of force through the lenses of occupational templates (e.g., the symbolic assailant and the asshole) may provide insight into the goals of police officers when they applied the force - i.e., whether they primarily wished to control suspects from a distance, or retaliate for an affront to their authority. The study uses an analytical strategy designed to examine a categorical use of force dependent variable, which relaxes the assumptions of rank-order, in an effort to distinguish different applications of force based on a set of independent variables. Though the data are severely limited, the study finds evidence that supports the use of occupational templates in the examination of use of force. (Published Abstract)