NY Cops shoot 9 people trying to kill bad guy. Reckless or not?

[doreen]

@Alessan

Then they either should have not fired, or fired more carefully. Unless you’re firing from a tripod, if you shoot 10 rounds in rapid succession, only the first three or so will end up anywhere near your target - the others will *always *go wild. Newton’s Third Law of Motion demands it. The cops should have fired two or three shots, paused, assessed the situation, aimed, and fired again if necessary. That is, if they’d had any training.

They probably were trained that way. That’s more or less what I was taught, too. But I’ve never had someone less than ten feet away pointing a gun at me , not knowing what kind of gun they had , not knowing how much ammo they had, not knowing what their intentions were. I don’t know that in that situation I wouldn’t have fired more rapidly, and I don’t understand why people seem to believe that if there was a bad result then someone must have done something wrong. People can only make decisions based on what they believe at the time , and all the training and practice in the world still leaves all of us human.

And while you might not be complaining if the police had not fired and the gunman had killed an additional four or five people, others certainly would have.

Plus, since when does emptying a magazine make tactical sense? What if the guy had had an accomplice?

Aside from the fact that NYPD officers carry spare magazines (at least two I believe),what make you think either one emptied their magazine? There were sixteen rounds fired, nine by one officer and seven by the other.
on preview- if you only mean that the incident should be analysed to see if we can improve the outcome in the future , I agree. But

Thus, they screwed up.

sounds like blame

[Battle_Pope]

I can’t say I’m that suprised. The cops I knew via my ex-BIL (cop himself) would be lucky to get their guns drawn without shooting themselves and the safest place to be would be in front of the guy they were shooting at.

They had to re-certify each year with their handgun but due to time & budget restraints that would usually involve going to the police range and blasting one magazine off down-range to show they could still remember how to load and fire the thing. That was the extent of their gun-handling.

This was Australia of course but at the time I was doing some competative pistol shooting and the average club member was a far better shot than the occasional cop we had show up for a days shoot.

[Martin_Hyde]

Shooting a gun is an extremely small part of why we pay police. We pay them to respond to disturbances, maintain order, arrest criminals, regulate traffic / enforce traffic laws, serve warrants etc etc and all the other “passive policing” type activity.

It’s probably not reasonable to expect them to be better at shooting than people who shoot 40 hours a week as a hobby; police actually have a real job to do and most work more than 40 hours a week at that job so it’s highly unlikely they are going to be able to spend even a tenth of the time at a range as a gun enthusiast.

[Martin_Hyde]

What’s interesting is people bitching now about police always wanting to go “straight for their guns.” I thought the standard SDMB anti-cop screed these days was that cops use TASERs too much. I guess it’s ever-shifting to what ever position is most condemnatory of the police.

What I find amazing is just how childish and ignorant most of the SDMB is on any issue relating to law enforcement. You guys do realize we need people to keep order and enforce law in society, right? That’s one of the things that makes modern society modern.

[Battle_Pope]

@Martin_Hyde

Shooting a gun is an extremely small part of why we pay police. We pay them to respond to disturbances, maintain order, arrest criminals, regulate traffic / enforce traffic laws, serve warrants etc etc and all the other “passive policing” type activity.

It’s probably not reasonable to expect them to be better at shooting than people who shoot 40 hours a week as a hobby; police actually have a real job to do and most work more than 40 hours a week at that job so it’s highly unlikely they are going to be able to spend even a tenth of the time at a range as a gun enthusiast.

Sure, but I would like them trained enough to hit what they are shooting at if they do have to fire. That’s something I don’t have a lot of confidence in.

Part of the problem was the belief that a record of being at the range and getting practice time could be used against them if they actually had to shoot someone.

The idea being that if they had a record of practising with their service weapon then any investigation of a shooting would show that and the next thing they know they are in court with a hostile layer painting them as being over-eager to go for their gun, and having records of extra shooting practice as proof.

I don’t know if that was a valid belief or not but it was what these guys thought.

[Enkel]

My vote is absolutely NOT reckless. How can anyone make the argument that letting the guy (who had already killed one person) go would have been a responsible act? Should they have played on-the-spot psychotherapist and ‘talked’ to the guy aiming a pistol at them from about 10 feet away? The shooter had 10 bullet wounds, it still isn’t known how many of those bullets went entirely through the shooter. The shooter was at an angle to the one cop, making a harder target. The shooter didn’t fly over dead on the first hit, he actually advanced toward the cops before he finally fell. How were the cops supposed to know that he wasn’t on PCP or something else? How were they supposed to know that the shooter wouldn’t just start spraying the area with gun fire?

[Absolute]

@Martin_Hyde

What’s interesting is people bitching now about police always wanting to go “straight for their guns.” I thought the standard SDMB anti-cop screed these days was that cops use TASERs too much. I guess it’s ever-shifting to what ever position is most condemnatory of the police.

Don’t forget the wailing and teeth-gnashing whenever the police use any kind of weapon that is more capable than whatever the criminal had.

“Why’d they shoot him? He only had a baseball bat! They should’ve walked up and gently disarmed and restrained him! They were probably afraid he would hit them! What cowards, what do we pay them for if not to take a baseball bat to the face?”

[Martin_Hyde]

@Battle_Pope

Sure, but I would like them trained enough to hit what they are shooting at if they do have to fire. That’s something I don’t have a lot of confidence in.

Part of the problem was the belief that a record of being at the range and getting practice time could be used against them if they actually had to shoot someone.

The idea being that if they had a record of practising with their service weapon then any investigation of a shooting would show that and the next thing they know they are in court with a hostile layer painting them as being over-eager to go for their gun, and having records of extra shooting practice as proof.

I don’t know if that was a valid belief or not but it was what these guys thought.

I don’t like getting personal, but what is your experience with firearms? Anyone expecting absolute precision is just being unrealistic.

[Battle_Pope]

@Martin_Hyde

I don’t like getting personal, but what is your experience with firearms? Anyone expecting absolute precision is just being unrealistic.

30+ years rifle & shotgun. Hunting & target including 2 years Full Bore. About a year handgunning.

I don’t expect “absolute precision”. I do expect enough training to hit a man-sized target at close range with the majority of shots. I don’t think most of the police in Australia get good enough training for that.

[msmith537]

@Alessan

Why, because we’re analyzing an incident? That’s how you learn.

Now do in in 8 seconds while a lunatic ten feet away is shooting people.
I also feel a need to point out to all those people complaining about shooting a suspect a dozen times. Out of the ten people hit by the cops bullets, only one of them died. People just don’t blow up and fly across the street like something out of a Robert Rodriguez film when you shoot them .

[Martin_Hyde]

@Battle_Pope

30+ years rifle & shotgun. Hunting & target including 2 years Full Bore. About a year handgunning.

I don’t expect “absolute precision”. I do expect enough training to hit a man-sized target at close range with the majority of shots. I don’t think most of the police in Australia get good enough training for that.

I don’t know that that’s a reasonable expectation. It’s very different shooting at someone with a gun pointed at you than shooting at a deer or a target.

[Battle_Pope]

@Martin_Hyde

I don’t know that that’s a reasonable expectation. It’s very different shooting at someone with a gun pointed at you than shooting at a deer or a target.

I guess it comes down to personal opinion. Say an officer gets off 10 shots at a person 7 - 10m away. How many hits (not dead centre - just hits) is acceptable in your view?

[samclem]

@Battle_Pope

I don’t expect “absolute precision”. I do expect enough training to hit a man-sized target at close range with the majority of shots. I don’t think most of the police in Australia get good enough training for that.

10 out of 17 in the incident under discussion. That’s a majority in the US. Is it where you are?

[Essured]

I can’t believe this thread. It’s honestly made my jaw drop.

Coming from a country with restrictive gun control laws (compared to the US), and with some anti-police bias (due to a number of abuse of power incidents that were covered up by other police, or otherwise handled badly), as well as experiencing some unfair police harrassment - basically I’m the first to lean towards the ‘other side’ of the story and definitely do not assume the police are in the right or their word is more trustworthy than any other citizens word… Yet, I can’t see a single thing these cops did wrong!

Yes, it’s a huge shame that so many innocent people were wounded. It really is. But what other choice did the cops have? The guys just shot someone, and was pulling his gun on two approaching cops. Of course they had to shoot! What were they supposed to do? Put their hands up and say “come on, let’s talk about this”??? Seriously, if they hadn’t shot him, there would’ve been two dead cops to add to the story, plus perhaps the gunman would’ve then started shooting randoms, seeing as he had nothing to lose.

In this case, I applaud the cops!

[Absolute]

I forgot another one that I’ve actually heard from well-intentioned but clueless folks: “Why couldn’t they just shoot the gun out of his hand?”

[HMS_Irruncible]

@Stately_Greek_Automaton

That’s a really good point. Not to drag this off topic too much, but this situation kinda blows a hole in the argument that if everyone had a gun, it would prevent mass shootings. Police are trained for specific circumstances like this and as can be seen, even they aren’t immune from hitting unintended targets.

But if everyone had a gun, they could have shot the police before any innocent bystanders got hurt.

[JRDelirious]

From another thread, a link and a briefer version of my comment:

The video of the actual shooting.

When a gun’s brandished, IIRC deadly force is authorized until he’s no longer a threat. One policeman does step in and out from in between the planters in case the suspect ran to the street side and try to get a proper firing position but with plants and street signs in his way – but I suspect he ma be also trying to not get in the way of his partner, who’s firing one-handed as he runs across the sidewalk. That ruins your accuracy.

Downrange is the corner of 34th St. and 5th Avenue. Once the decision to fire several rounds is made, odds favor more than one miss/ricochet/enter-exit round/fragment hitting some other person or vehicle. Pedestrian traffic at the spot of the confrontation itself was light relative to what it can be, other times in the day there’s a phalanx of tourists lining up to visit the ESB and get on and off of Tour Buses

[Battle_Pope]

@HMS_Irruncible

But if everyone had a gun, they could have shot the police before any innocent bystanders got hurt.

@samclem

10 out of 17 in the incident under discussion. That’s a majority in the US. Is it where you are?

Sure, but not high enough to be comfortable with. I’ll amend my statement to “a significant majority”.

When you’re talking about bullets flying around & hitting by-standers, a “51% means I passed my test” attitude isn’t going to cut it (please note: I’m not accusing you of thinking like that, it’s just a general statement).

Look, I’m not actually having a go at the individual police officers in this incident. I have no problems with them shooting a guy who pulls a gun on them. But, from my (limited & annecdotal) experience talking to police in Australia, I don’t think their (the AFP’s) ongoing training is good enough and it wouldn’t suprise me if other police forces have the same limitations.

@JRDelirious

When a gun’s brandished, IIRC deadly force is authorized until he’s no longer a threat. One policeman does step in and out from in between the planters in case the suspect ran to the street side and try to get a proper firing position but with plants and street signs in his way – but I suspect he ma be also trying to not get in the way of his partner, who’s firing one-handed as he runs across the sidewalk. That ruins your accuracy.

I’d love to see a balistics report on which officers shots went where.

[Chicagojeff]

@Loach

You people are funny.

You said it brother..

Really people.. you can analyze until the sun goes down.. you’re attempting to analyze something you’re not familiar with..

[Raguleader]

I’m willing to give the cops the benefit of the doubt, but at the same time, I’ve always thought that people expected to use firearms in the course of their job should be trained extensively in their use. As others have said, cops tend to be very busy as it is, so I don’t know how they would make this work other than to make it a point-blank requirement and tell them to make it work (that’s how we do things in the Air Force, actually).

Others have said a lot of this, but I’ll throw my loose change into the fray:

“No kill like overkill” - The way we are trained, and I assume police officers get similar instructions, once you have decided that lethal force is necessary, it is your duty to employ it until the threat is dealt with. If the guy with a gun (or a knife, or whatever implement he has that you judge he has the capability and intent to deal lethal force with) is still on his feet, you keep shooting until he is down. You don’t try to shoot the gun out of his hands, or kneecap hip to incapacitate him, or any of that other John Wayne bullshit. You aim for center of mass to get the best chance of actually hitting the bad guy and not a lamp post three blocks away.

That said, police officers are typically equipped with a variety of tools and training to try and deal with a situation before it requires lethal force. Talking down the suspect, pepper spray or batons (or heavy flashlights in some cases, which work just the same as batons), tazers, and finally guns. You use the appropriate level of force for the situation you are dealing with. A kid grabbing a purse and taking off down the street probably doesn’t warrant the gun, or even the pepper spray. A belligerent unarmed drunk, however, will probably get sprayed if he doesn’t cooperate. He probably won’t get tazered or shot unless he pulls a weapon.

On that note, there are a wide variety of things which can kill a person easily, and they aren’t all guns. Knives, baseball bats, etc. can all easily lethally wound a person in seconds. If someone is coming at you or another with the capability and intent to deal lethal force, you do what you have to do to preserve life and limb. So no, a cop will not and should not resort to his gun first if he is equipped with a gun. That’s why he has the whole bat-utility-belt full of things like radios, pepper spray, Mag-Lights, batarangs, and night sticks.

Unfortunately, if you are in a situation where someone might have the capability and intent to use lethal force, you probably don’t have a lot of time to come to that conclusion. Maybe the guy planned to try to shoot his way out, or to commit “Suicide by Cop”. Maybe he was just hopped up on bourbon and sudafed and didn’t realize he was still holding the gun. Hard to ask him now, but if he was going for Option A, we might have had a dead cop to add to the list of gunshot victims. It’s a shitty situation to make a snap judgement in, but once you’re in that situation, you can’t often defer it to someone else.