The process of taking charge is formally conceptualized and applied to a subset of data gathered during a long-term, large-scale study of police-civilian interaction. Most officers seek four goals in the midst of interaction with civilians; information, civilians' behavioral order, civilians' respectful manner, and appropriate resolution of the encounter. The officer takes charge of the encounter by asking a question, making an accusation, using an imperative regulation, exhibiting coercive regulation (such as force). These three forms of regulation--definitional, imperative, and coercive--are used to avoid disturbances to any one of the four goals representing information, order, respect, and resolution. Using a subset of such process data gathered during 1,622 police-civilian encounters, the study analyzes the data from the perspective of general systems theory. The analysis shows that officers dominate encounters primarily by definitional and only secondarily by imperative regulation. Coercive regulation is rare. Moreover, officers use definitional regulation at the beginning as well as during the process of interaction. Their most common technique is repetition. When repetion is ineffective they gradually escalate in forcefulness until the disturbance is overcome. Generally, the type of regulation is consistent with the type of disturbance. Thus, the role of the officer in a typical interaction is not the sterotyped brute but the questioner, interrogator, or accuser. Diagrams and 17 references are appended.