You are not firing wildly at a busy strip club in a very densely packed neighborhood
CON:
Potentially dangerous, and extraordinarily likely drunk, driver gets away and is on road
Big difference between this and the VA incident is that, if memory serves, the VA officer was in uniform. At a NYC club, when someone makes any kind of statement about going out to get his gun, these statements should be taken quite seriously, and the victims might not have realized the person waving a gun at them was a police officer. Obviously the police officer paniced. Do we have any reason to believe that those on the business end of a handgun wouldn’t or shouldn’t panic?
I will amend, as more details have become available, that there were multiple officers in the vicinity, not just those shooting. As I’ve never visited Kalua Cabaret, (and never paid much attention when I’ve passed by it), I can’t speak to the ease or difficulty of potentially blocking the vehicle, staying out of its path, and trying to resolve the situation without, again, firing 50 shots at a busy club in a dense neighborhood.
To clarify - I’m not in any kind of position to say that firing his pistol at the car was totally, 100% wrong. But 4 officers firing a total of 50 times, with one of the officers accounting for 31 of the shots, is inexcusable by any measure.
Looking at the crime scene photos again, what’s amazing is that none of the cops hit each other. There were five cops on the scene, two in the van in front of the victim’s car, one on foot beside the car, and two behind the car.
That’s a circular firing squad if I’ve ever seen one. Given that LESS THAN HALF of the bullets fired hit the car, I’m amazed the cops didn’t kill each other. Especially Officer Thirty-Rounds-Spray-And-Pray.
I have no firearms experience whatsover, but based on the reports that I read about this sort if thing, it seems that when people unexpectedly find themselves in a bullets-whizzing situation, everything goes to hell except the muscle memory, i.e. pulling the trigger and banging in magazines. Unfortunately, those are pretty much the only situations where normal cops would end up using their guns rather than letting the specialists handle it with a proper amount of mental set-up time first.
Which would suggest that when you have a bunch of armed people standing around in a dark car park or hallway or whatever and suddenly a shot is fired, the default expectation should that a total fuckup will ensue. Unfortunately, I don’t think making ‘count to ten backwards and have a good look round before drawing your weapon’ part of the firearms drill will ever be practical, for obvious reasons.
It would be nice if the boys in blue could do a health & safety assessment before whipping their guns out in fear of their lives, but I think these sorts of mass shootings are an inevitable part of the gun culture that exists in the US. Everyone will do their best to minimise their occurrence, but they will keep happening as long as everyone is walking around packing heat, which is one of the reasons I’m a little sceptical of the whole CCW concept - I suspect one day we will have a situation like this where a dozen ordinary citizens blaze off a hundred rounds in all directions, and then the SD servers really will melt down.
You don’t really believe that for a moment, do you ?? Several cops careers are over? Jail time? -snerk-
You don’t know a lot about Mayor Bloomburg. These ace shots are on full PAID leave. They get to hang around, firming up their One True Version with the PBA’s attorneys and waiting for the next atrocity to come along so it can quietly go away and they can get back out on the street.
No jail time. No careers over. Just wait, and see.
But, in this instance, the only shots fired were from the policemen. As with Diallo. He had no gun. These policemen caused their own panic. And the dog? He didn’t have a gun either.
At least it isn’t Guiliani. If it were, he’d have sided with the officers before the last echoing round faded, have released everyones juvenile records, and have made some up if there weren’t any.
That’s not Bloomberg’s fault; he’s actually said things Giuliani never would have: “it sounds to me like excessive force was used,” “inexplicable,” “unacceptable.” The cops would be on paid leave no matter who was Mayor.
Which “specialists?” In any case, you’re extrapolating one incident to the whole of American law enforcement. Considering NYPD’s track record, and the recent shooting in Atlanta, there would seem to be something to suggest that some of the major metro PDs might have a problem.
That should never be the default expectation. But, I’m not a law enforcement instructor, so I cannot speak as to what training methods might be more effective in preventing these sorts of occurances. But I’m fairly sure that they exist.
Two separate issues, which you are attempting to link together. “Whipping out your gun and blazing away” is never acceptable; not for cops, not for CCW holders, not for private citizens. You say “…everyone is walking around packing heat…” Do you have some numbers about how many CCW holders there are in the US? Do you have some data that suggest that widespread civilian ownership of firearms causes police to fire 50 rounds at unarmed civilians?
This ain’t about the guns. I smell a fish, and I’m willing to bet it’s red in color.
Well, I thought most police forces have firearms specialists that they call up when they have a reasonable expectation that there is going to be a need for shooting. Those chaps with the sub-machine guns, helmets, stun grenades and whatnot. Isn’t it the case that cops generally just carry pistols for emergency use when it turns out that pepper spray, baton and cuffs are insufficient? Or are they expected to engage in gunfire on a regular basis?
And yet, it seems to happen with reasonable regularity, no? Several armed people, one or more shots are fired for whatever reason, everyone breaks out their guns and open up on what appears to be a threat in the heat of the moment. Afterwards everyone is baffled by how several seemingly rational people can have rattled off dozens of rounds at a dog/van/man armed with wallet/whatever.
It’s just a function of people+guns+stress. So far it seems to have only occured in situations with police officers, but I can well imagine that if there was to be a shooting near a group of armed civilians you would get exactly the same dynamic. Shots fired, people draw their weapon to protect themselves while looking around for the maniac who is shooting at them, see wide-eyed gun-wielding person(s), misunderstanding ensues. I’m not particularly bothered one way or the other, since I don’t live in the US, but it would seem to me that such a situation is more likely to happen the more people carry weapons, unless there is some special way of making people behave calmly under stress that I am not aware of, or unless police officers in the US are more prone to mistakenly shooting at people than the rest of the population.
-cackle- True, true. He’s a stand-up Doper. I understand he’s also kind to woodland animals and small birds.
As the cops were quoted as saying back in the day, " This is Guiliani’s New York ". Were he still mayor, the officers would already have been handed their new Detective’s badges for putting their lives at risk in the performance of their…their…oh god one just fucking chokes on this. :mad:
Anyway, my thanks to Marley for the correction on Bloomberg. I am glad to hear he’s being a bit cautious about this one, and I didn’t know he’d said any of those things.
Anybody know under what circumstances an NYPD officer would be placed on UNpaid leave? I mean, these guys were clearly in the middle of something where shit went very very wrong- and NY’ers are still paying their rent. Hmph. :dubious:
My google-fu is weak, but I believe they get unpaid leave for being caught (i.e. arrested) engaging in an illegal activity, such as selling drugs, DUI, non-police related shooting, etc. As this was in the course of duty, and while excessive, has not yet been officially termed illegal, the department can only use administrative leave.
And my favorite, as a NYC resident and a ferret owner:
Like any NYer whose memory exceeded two months, I was overjoyed to see him go, as should anyone who ever ends up on the wrong side of an overzealous police officer.
Yeah, Guliani was a nasty piece of work. I like how NY’ers gave him the foot in the ass when he tried to undo his own term limits law. The rest of the country could not understand why NY’ers were so willing to give him the heave ho. Could have been his abysmal civil liberties record, his spiting of all boroughs except Manhattan, his policy of political payback against communities whose representatives he didn’t like or the fact that he, personally, was a raging asshole.
Unlike Bloomberg, who I love and have voted for twice (don’t tell me I vote straight party!) who seems to actually care about the well being of this city and it’s citizens. Even those who end up on the wrong end of a cops gun.
You’re talking SWAT. I’ll leave it to LE Dopers to address this issue, and the various policies concerninguse of deadly force (firearms).
And yet, outside of law enforcement, it actually doesn’t happen with regularity. Or even very seldom.
Ah. I think I see your misunderstanding. If 39% of the US populace is “armed” (owns a gun), that doesn’t mean 39% of the populace is carrying concealed at any given time. Concealed carry represents a very tiny fraction of the gun owning public, and it’s not universal nation-wide.
If you’ve ever seen a bunch of US cops on a public shooting range, you might be suprised (and appalled) at their arrogant disregard of even basic firearm safety, and “range courtesy” to other shooters.
In over 34 years of shooting, I have rarely met the stereotypical civilian fuckwit with a gun (yes, they do exist, yes, I have seen and met them, but they are either rare, or infrequent visitors to public shooting ranges); I have seen numerous examples of cops scaring the bejeebus out of everyone on the shooting range.
Even for the vast majority of defensive gun uses by non-law enforcement, which typically result in no shots fired.
I’ve seen cops mishandle firearms, I’ve seen them ‘play’ on the range in unsafe ways, seen them brag about still having the original ammunition they started with their first day on the job, and seen them basically unable to hit the broad side of a barn at 25 feet as they joke about how they only fire enough rounds in a given year to retain their qualifications.
And these are the people who are supposed to be more trusted with guns than an average Joe like me.
I’d far rather the average Joes have guns.
And how about the cop who was showing his gun to an elementary school class and shot himself in the foot?
If you follow firearms safety rules, you can’t shoot yourself in the foot (or anywhere else)!
In any case, you’re extrapolating one incident to the whole of American law enforcement. Considering NYPD’s track record, and the recent shooting in Atlanta, there would seem to be something to suggest that some of the major metro PDs might have a problem.