Error in Headlines

The BBQ Pit
21

[QUOTE=OtakuLoki]
Please note: I’m most emphatically not against giving the police tasers, nor many other non-lethal weapons. But I’m also not an idiot - I don’t expect them to be 100% non-fatal, just more forgiving than guns. Some people really do seem to think that non-lethal weapons or devices must be 100% to be used at all.
[/QUOTE]

The other argument is that police having tasers will use them unneccesarily. In other words, the police will use a taser in a situation that, pretaser, the police would have settled without the use of force at all.

22

You’re quite welcome, Jayn. I’m glad I could do something positive about ignorance.

If you want a real brain-hurting view of the logic here, look into the Cold War efforts to develop anit-pilot laser weapons, which had the specific goal of blinding the pilots of enemy aircraft. There were a number of loud voices saying that deliberately trying to cause optic damage to humans was cruel and inhumane. What was never stated was the alternative was making the plane run into bits of heavy metal moving at high speed, instead. Sure some people will survive having their plane shot out from under them, but most are going to be killed outright.

Non-lethal, or less-lethal, weapon systems are a fascinating field, just to look at the reactions they generate, IMNSHO. For that matter, look at the recent Dope reaction to the Army’s testing of an “Agony Ray.”*
On preview: Captain Amazing - I do acknowledge that risk. (And did so in the post you quoted.)

I will point out that the wiki article I’d linked about taser controvery mentioned that since tasers have started going into general use injuries from police subduing suspects using more traditional methods have gone down.

I’m not trying to trivialize the concern you bring up - just saying that there are two sides to having tasers used in situations that wouldn’t have been met with the use of a firearm in the past.

*Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a thread on the Dope when it’s about a modern “death ray” and one has forgotten it is also known as an agony ray? Oy vey.

23

Of course, then there are stories like this one, which go a long way to convincing people that some police officers shouldn’t be given custody of anything more dangerous than a stick of gum. :smack:

Which is not to suggest that cops can’t be idiots with traditional guns, either - wasn’t there some DEA agent giving a firearms safety lecture to school kids who shot himself while being videotaped a few years ago?

24

What happened to shooting to immobilize a suspect? One shot to the leg or the arm is what I would expect from professionals. I always believed that police were well trained in marksmanship - 20 shots with most of the bullets missing the suspect is appalling.

I lived in NYC when Amadou Diallo was shot - 41 bullets.
The grandmother here in Atlanta, Kathryn Johnson - another barrage of bullets.
Sean Bell - over 50 bullets.

The odds seem great that, since most of the bullets are missing their targets, bystanders will be hit. Actually in the case of Mrs. Johnson the police were hit by “friendly fire”.

Someone mentioned inaccuracy in the use of using taser weapons. More inaccurate than service revolvers?

25

[QUOTE=jali]
What happened to shooting to immobilize a suspect? One shot to the leg or the arm is what I would expect from professionals. I always believed that police were well trained in marksmanship - 20 shots with most of the bullets missing the suspect is appalling.
[/QUOTE]
This is the kind of unrealistic expectation one gets from watching too much television.

Even with good conditions on a firing range, few officers are going to be able to reliably hit the silhouette of a criminal in an arm or leg (there is also the problem of a peripheral shot not deterring a determined, crazed or drug-addled criminal). Add in the uncertainty of dealing with an apparently deranged suspect who you think may be about to try and kill you, with all that adrenaline pumping, and it’s not surprising that it takes multiple shots to bring the suspect down with most of them missing. If there was a requirement that all shots be aimed at an extremity and not mid-torso, the accuracy rate would be far more dismal and there’d be more chance of a bystander getting hit.

I’m not making any conclusions in this specific case, and if there are non-lethal means of subduing people that can be used in these situations I’m all for them.

26

Well, one factor is that I believe you’re comparing apples and oranges. Marksmanship usually is a measure of accuracy on a firing range, with all the conditions ideal: a stationary target, no stress (I’m sorry, even compared to shooting for the championship cup, with a lifetime stipend isn’t going to be as stressful as shooting at someone you think may have a gun, and is talking about using it on you, or your teammates.) and often no time limit.

Now, if you want to say that you think that police officers should be trained in ‘shoot houses’ which do a much better job of simulating the stresses and surprises of actual real-life firearms use than firing ranges can I’ll agree completely. But consider simply the human costs of the FBI’s Hogan’s Alley, and you’ll see why most local police agencies can’t really use that level of training for what is a very rare situation. FTM, it’s my impression that most FBI agents see training there pretty rarely, too.

This isn’t meant to excuse the number of rounds fired. It’s a partial explaination, however, for both the high number of total rounds fired, and the relatively poor on target numbers. I’d also like to point out that, for this incident, 20 rounds isn’t quite the horrible numbers it seems at first. With five officers involved, that’s an average of four rounds per officer, something that a semi-automatic pistol, or a revolver can put out in just a few seconds. (Now, if it comes out that one of the officers shot most of the rounds, and that he reloaded, I’m going to have a very different view of the gun handling skills of the officer in question.)

As for shooting to immobilize - my understanding is that such a tactic is pure Hollywood BS. If you’re going to shoot at someone, unless you’re the Lone Ranger, the expectation is that you’re going to probably kill him. You, and your target, may get lucky, but no one trains other than to consider the use of a fire arm as a deadly force.

I suspect that some of the gun and marksmanship knowledgeble Dopers could offer more concrete explainations, but this is I believe a tolerably accurate overview.

27

[QUOTE=jali]
What happened to shooting to immobilize a suspect? One shot to the leg or the arm is what I would expect from professionals.

[/quote]

This has never been the doctrine of any police force that I know of. Handguns are not designed for the kind of accuracy you need to shoot a person in the leg in the middle of a crisis with split-second timing. A trained marksman can do that with a rifle, but that requires the marksman to be set up and entrenched beforehand. That works for a hostage situation where there’s time on your hands, but not an excitable mental case running around and climbing out of windows claiming to have a gun at night.

Very few police officers carry revolvers. They haven’t been issued by the NYPD in decades. Maybe some old crusty detectives on Staten Island still carry .38 specials, but I don’t know.

In any case, long-range accuracy problems with Tasers are due to the relatively slow speed of the projectile and the fact that they have wires trailing behind them. That’s why officers prefer to get pretty close when using a Taser. When a suspect has (or is reasonably believed to have) a gun, you can’t get very close.

28

[QUOTE=OtakuLoki]
Which is not to suggest that cops can’t be idiots with traditional guns, either - wasn’t there some DEA agent giving a firearms safety lecture to school kids who shot himself while being videotaped a few years ago?
[/QUOTE]

Yes. Yes there is.

29

I suppose I do watch too much television since I really didn’t know that officers were shooting to kill.

I understand and appreciate your explanations, but they really scare the hell out of me. “Hit or miss” holds a whole new meaning for me now.

I’m more afraid of the police than ever. What if I reach for my wallet…

30

[QUOTE=jali]
I understand and appreciate your explanations, but they really scare the hell out of me. “Hit or miss” holds a whole new meaning for me now.

I’m more afraid of the police than ever. What if I reach for my wallet…
[/QUOTE]

I don’t blame you for that, in the least.

A couple of years ago I was questioned by a cop for doing something unusual. (I’d run out of gas about 2/3 of a mile from my house, and decided I’d push the car back the rest of the way.) When he showed up, even though it was the middle of winter - I stood with my arms out from my waist, and did all my moving very slowly. The officer was very polite, but concerned because I was doing something he couldn’t immediately understand.

I was not going to do a damned thing that might worry him.

And I don’t have to worry about things like DWB. :frowning:

(We found out, about six months later, that one of the next neighbors had a huge pot farm in his basement and was selling so much that he’d showed up on everyone’s radar. The police patrols we’d been seeing were part of a plan to get as many of the subordinate dealers involved as possible. I’m even more glad, after learning that, that I was so cautious.)

31

I’ve got to ask myself how many people in this thread have had to fire under the stressful and direct threat of static, loose hairs, and dandruff?

I think I know what the answer will be.

32

A bit off-topic, but here it is: It’s still unclear what exactly happened so I waiting for more facts to come out of the investigation before forming an opinion.

However, I did think it was highly inappropriate for the local police chief, Ray Kelly, to get on TV immediately after the incident and pronounce that everything that the cops did was completely within departmental. With the investigation still ongoing, how would he know?

I’m a Black man who lives in the Crown Heights, Brooklyn, one neighborhood away from this incident. I’ve had my unnecessary encounters with law enforcement. Based on what’s out there right now, I do think there is (and was) enough confusion going on that night to give the cops the benefit of the doubt. For now – at least until the investigation is completed.