Officer confuses handgun with taser - Man dies

[Agent Fisher]

I have had plenty of experience.

Far be it from me to question God, but what exactly is your experience?

[Broomstick]

I really think you must elaborate..... "God".

[Zaune]

Given that tasers and handguns are extremely illegal in the UK, I shall give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he's an Authorised Firearms Officer in one of our police forces.

One who thinks "God" is a good username.

I wish I could honestly say I found this even slightly implausible.

[God]

Yes, armed police.what us wrong with my username?

[Broomstick]

It's more than a little pretentious.

Also, as this board is dominated by atheists many other posters will simply refuse to believe you exist.

[God]

It's just humorous.

[Shroom Man 777]

If it was very up close and personal, the police officer might not have even had time to bring the weapon up to eye level. The officer might have had instinctively fired the weapon from hip-level or something, if there was no time to raise the weapon up to take aim.

[PeZook]

What causes officers to draw their pistol rather than their TASER is that officers practice their pistol draw, at a minimum every time they qualify with their weapons and during any other firearms training, whereas TASER draw is not practiced nearly as often because TASER cartridges are expensive and there is little point in the sorts of accuracy shooting drills that are suitable for firearms. Muscle memory makes the firearms draw more familiar and where the brain is likely to go under stress when it issues a "draw" command.

I have to wonder why officers are not universally required to practice both draws during drills, and carry the taser in a separation system. I'll put it down to "taser doctrine" not being as well developed through experience as firearm procedure, plus of course there's the perception that tasers are safe, so mistakes with tasers are less dangerous than with guns. It's not like you have to use a cartridge every time you draw a taser for training, either.

Of course, I'm not a cop, and thus there may be reasons for the problems that I just plain don't know about. One that comes to mind is the fact police departments in the US are funded by local munipicalities, so the training and procedure varies.

[SVPD]

[
I have to wonder why officers are not universally required to practice both draws during drills, and carry the taser in a separation system. I'll put it down to "taser doctrine" not being as well developed through experience as firearm procedure, plus of course there's the perception that tasers are safe, so mistakes with tasers are less dangerous than with guns. It's not like you have to use a cartridge every time you draw a taser for training, either.

Of course, I'm not a cop, and thus there may be reasons for the problems that I just plain don't know about. One that comes to mind is the fact police departments in the US are funded by local munipicalities, so the training and procedure varies.

I don't know what you mean by a "separation system." I've already described a "separation system" of carrying them on opposite sides of the belt, and they are carried in different holsters already. Why all agencies do not specify they are to be carried across the body from each other I do not know; I would guess that it is, as you say, the fact that TASER doctrine is less develoepd as TASERS have only been around about 25 years or so IIRC whereas firearms have been around for hundreds of years, and even pistols that fire more than one shot in the form of revolvers for well over 100.

As to "practicing both draws during drills", there's no real purpose behind practicing a TASER draw, since moving from the holster to an established sight picture is really not important with a TASER; it simply is not that accurate and its range is exceedingly limited. Firearms, on the other hand, require far more fine control to use well, and a much wider variety of situations for practice. They also require repeated firing to establish skill, and that lends itself to repeated draws.

Drawing a TASER over and over, however is not done because doing so would be, quite frankly, silly. It takes a lot of draws to establish muscle memory and in order to establish the kind of muscle memory that would avoid this problem would mean doing something like having officers stand there and draw over and over and over while someone randomly called out "TASER!" or "gun!". Not only would this mean spending time and therefore money on training whose only benefit is allowing carry on the same side of the body, officers would hate it. It would be bad for morale, and not taken seriously, and therefore would probably not be taken seriously. Arguments that "professionalism" should override that will fail here since any officer with a modicum of common sense would know that the entire problem could be circumvented with cross-body carry, or at the very least would think of that after 15 or 20 minutes of such nonsense.

[Simon_Jester]

Doesn't that create a problem if people are reflexively acting on their muscle-memorized pistol draw in an emergency, without thinking of their taser? Or did I misunderstand the thrust of the earlier posts about how people often react in confused ways by doing ineffective or incorrect (memorized) actions in a crisis?

[SVPD]

Doesn't that create a problem if people are reflexively acting on their muscle-memorized pistol draw in an emergency, without thinking of their taser? Or did I misunderstand the thrust of the earlier posts about how people often react in confused ways by doing ineffective or incorrect (memorized) actions in a crisis?

Doesn't what create a problem? Putting the TASER next to the gun and relying on color, feel, and practice, or putting it on the other side of the body?

Putting it on the other side of the body does not. Stress does not create a huge problem with gross muscle movements, and muscle memory dictates how you accomplish things (i.e. how you draw a gun-like object from your belt on your strong side) not what you do; unless you get to the point of total panic you are still able to evaluate the situation and select an approriate response.

This is why putting the TASER in cross-draw is so much safer than other options. It's not that there's anything wrong with making it look or feel different (aside from the need to make it basically comfortable and ergonomic to use); it's that these simply are not as effective because they rely on much finer awareness and muscle control. Putting the TASER on the other side of the body is not fool-proof either; I am quite certain sooner or later despite this practice some idiot will mange to shoot a person they meant to TASER.

It's more a matter that this method requires A) no changes to the design of the TASER B) no additional training and C) can be readily implemented; existing TASER holsters work for it because the TASER needs to face the opposite way on the other side of the body to be easily drawn anyhow. The only reason I can think of that departments haven't amde it mandatory is that it simply hasn't occured to them that a problem might occur.

[Shroom Man 777]

How widespread are tasers anyway? Over here, I'd be surprised if the cops had any tasers or mace aside from their wooden beating-sticks and guns.

[JointStrikeFighter]

every other cop carries one here (Brisbane Australia)

[Agent Fisher]

How widespread are tasers anyway? Over here, I'd be surprised if the cops had any tasers or mace aside from their wooden beating-sticks and guns.

Well, around here in Sac, about half the deputies and police have tasers. And at the security company I work for, if you are an armed officer, you carry a taser. Gives you more levels for the 'force continuum'.

[Todeswind]

The campus police force I worked for supposedly implemented a policy of giving tasers to all the officers the year after I graduated. Up till then the only self protection gear they'd given the officers consisted of a radio and a massively oversized mag-lite that doubled as a small mace in a pinch.

[Sephirius]

I don't know if this was completely covered yet, but a large many varieties of taser these days have a grip SPECIFICALLY the same contours as a Glock, to minimize re-training and maximize muscle memory in these sorts of situations. What happened here was the freak downside of such an idea.