Further, your recommendation would appear to be a “shoot first; ask questions later” solution. That doesn’t seem adviseable to me.
what about the 300 round thing? there’s no way around it on my part. i read earlier posting that said the last stand took place in a cramped office. that seems even more excessive to me.
Hmm, maybe I wasn’t clear enough. To put it another way, there is 0% chance that a dead guy can hurt anyone.
300 shots fired by groups of officers over 3 engagements is far from unreasonable.
The 300 round figure was likely an exaggeration; it was made by the mother of the slain child. However, the last story I linked from the L.A. Times includes an account from the cops of “dozens” of bullet holes in the interior walls of the building where the man was shot. It’s not clear who fired the shots making most of those holes, but yeah, that seems quite excessive to me, too. That story also says that a total of 11 police officers fired their weapons. Again, excessive.
Well. Thanks for stating the obvious; that was a quite valuable contribution to the discussion.
Yes, it is wholly unreasonable. Particularly in a hostage situation. 300 rounds sounds like uncontrolled fire; wild shooting at anything that presents itself as a target. And just plain random firing at the building the guy was holed up in, too, apparently. It’s ridiculous. Cops are primarily “peace officers,” but that seems to have been forgotten here.
It was to clear up your confusion here.
UncleBeer
Get it now? :rolleyes:
UncleBeer
Yeah this drivel comes up a lot. 11 people are not of one mind. They can’t all instantly decide in the heat of combat who will shoot and who will not. And it usually comes down to personal survival. Shoot so hopefully you don’t die. And shoot a lot.
Nor can a dead teenager screwing around with a cap gun.
Having your policy be “shoot first, shoot always” ensures that you are going to kill people who either aren’t an immediate danger or can be reasoned with, plus by shooting you are putting everyone in the situation in danger. There’s no guarentee that you’ll get the hostage taker cleanly, or even get them at all. You’ll have escallated the situation without any pressing needed.
SWAT teams and hostage negotiators have a lot of experience dealing with these situations. Many (most?) get talked out without a shot being fired. This is generally a good thing for everyone involved. While I have diminished sympathy for a hostage taker, it doesn’t go to zero.
The criminal in the situation chose that for themselves. The hostage did not choose to be victimized. When there is a chance that hostages may be killed, I’d rather not gamble with their lives. When given the go, a sniper will only take a sure, clean shot. If it never presents itself, no shot is taken.
Don’t want to die at the hands of the law?
Live a peaceful life like the rest of us.
Otherwise we can do without you.
Excellent advice. Too bad Randy & Vicki Weaver weren’t allowed to follow it.
But yet you advocate cops directing gunfire towards the hostage. Remarkable.
Sounds like it but consider this…
10 police officers with weapons drawn when he steps out of a doorway and shoots in their direction. Every one of them is probably going to return his fire. They will also fire more than once (IIRC most depts actually have policy guiding them to fire 2, 3, 4 whatever times if they are in a shoot situation.)
3 shots x 10 officers x 3 engagements = 90 shots
That in itself may sound excessive but as has been mentioned many times details are lacking as to the exact situation time targets presented, at what range, with what kind of cover, so on, so forth. If the guy fired more than a couple times at once the number of shots fired by individual officers and the number of officers returning fire will quickly increase. We also don’t know if every time he engaged officers if the child was present on all occasions.
Containing and supression of hostile individuals is maintaining the peace.
If this is true, our children cannot afford peaceful lives.
Not neccesarily. Say a hostage taker has a gun to the hostage’s head, couldn’t shooting the perpetrator cause him to reflexively pull the trigger?
How’d I know that would come up?
UncleBeer
No, not exactly. Only a surgical, precise shot by sniper.
Blalron
Yes necessarily. What I’m talking about is a guy laying on the floor with his head empty. How can he possibly hurt anyone?
And yes, you’re right he could reflexively pull the trigger. A sniper doesn’t shoot when there is that possibility.
Fear Itself
How would you suggest handling hostile individuals?
In this case, where the suspect is isolated in an office, withdraw, take cover and wait him out. No hostage negotiator I’ve ever heard of would advocate anything else. This was clearly a case of cops who couldn’t stand to take fire without returning it, no matter what the consequences.
Right. But that sure sounds like containing and suppressing to me.
I really don’t get this from the descriptions in the news.