Modern American Police

[Broomstick]

I think it's worth pointing out that Toronto cops have extremely strict protocols on using their weapons (they have to fill out paperwork and justify their conduct to superiors every time they draw a weapon, never mind discharging it), and that there have been very few incidents in the news of police being too quick to fire their weapons. I actually can't recall any at all, at least not in recent times. It is not necessary to disarm the police.

At the time my uncles were on the St. Louis force that was also standard operating procedure - you had to justify drawing a weapon, much less firing it. I can't speak for other cities or more recent times, but cops do fill out a lot of paperwork regarding whatever they do in a day, and they have to be able to justify their actions.

[His Divine Shadow]

I can't see the assault rifle being more dangerous than any other weapon a police officer could choose to use in such a situation. With an assault rifle you aim and fire, most likely i semi mode. An assault rifle is just a rifle with the option for fully automatic fire. That doesn't mean you have to or even should use it. And lots of police rifles (if not most) are semi only AR-15s anyway and not fully auto M4s or M16s.

You got three choices wrt firearms here, the rifle/carbine, the shotgun or a handgun.

Out of the three the first is safest I think, shotguns spread (not like in games at all, but a little) and penetrate better than 5.56 soft point bullets, handguns are just hard to use properly and only training all the time keeps your skill level up there. The rifle to me is the safest option to choose.

[Vendetta]

You got three choices wrt firearms here, the rifle/carbine, the shotgun or a handgun.

British police use submachine guns.

[His Divine Shadow]

Okay well those are more or less a carbine in the way they are held and aimed so pretty much the same thing, they just use pistol ammo such as 9mm.

[loomer]

You know, if a cops first reaction to a teenager with a knife is to shoot them, or if you're preparing a non lethal solution and "run out of time" maybe you shouldn't be a cop or go for a shot that will stop them, but not kill them.

A firearm is not a non-lethal option. If you are drawing a firearm in self defense, you don't aim to 'disable', you aim to kill. This is done by shooting into the centre mass - the torso, where you have both the highest chance of hitting something to begin with, and of hitting something disabling.

You can't really shoot someone to 'stop' them without risking a fatality. Shoot them in the leg? Still risking a fatality thanks to the major arteries in the thighs. The arms? Same deal. Further, they might decide to keep coming at you, risking both your life and their's.

If, however, you fire into the torso, as police are trained to do, you have a very high chance of hitting something almost immediately disabling as well as possibly fatal. Most people will fold when shot in the liver, kidney, heart, lungs, or spine. These things are all easier to hit than a non-vital, disabling area of a limb, especially under duress.

Further, assuming prompt medical care, this method actually has the highest likelihood of survival for everyone involved. So long as they are immediately disabled, de-threated, and then have pressure applied until an ambulance arrives, most such lethal shots can actually be rendered merely threatening, whereas a limb shot can easily miss, resulting in a pissed off suspect, a wounded officer, and a critical situation. When someone has a chance to actually attack, fatality rates shoot through the roof thanks to the tendency of even well trained individuals to fire repeatedly into the chest and stomach in self defence.

This does not excuse the frequent over application of lethal force, but it is absolutely required that you understand a firearm is ALWAYS a lethal option, and should never be employed in any other capacity unless firing specially designed ammunitions for that capacity.

[salm]

I never understood this "when you shoot, then shoot to kill" mentality or why it´s supposed to be only possible for hollywood heroes to shoot the legs. Around here few shots fired by cops at people are lethal. The usually aim at the legs and disable the attackers. I doubt that the cops here are hollywood heroes. They´re moustaches are way too mid 80s.

I´m not sure about the official procedure but i think they´re trained to shoot the legs if possible. Cops shoot at people around 30 to 50 times per year while the fatalities are in single digit numbers. Also, whenever you read an article about cops shooting someone it often mentions that they disabled the attacker by aiming for and shooting at the legs.

Also, i was playing with realistic looking bbguns once as a teenager and the cops came by thought we were carying real ones and aimed at the legs.

[Andrew J.]

I never understood this "when you shoot, then shoot to kill" mentality or why it´s supposed to be only possible for hollywood heroes to shoot the legs. Around here few shots fired by cops at people are lethal. The usually aim at the legs and disable the attackers. I doubt that the cops here are hollywood heroes. They´re moustaches are way too mid 80s.

I´m not sure about the official procedure but i think they´re trained to shoot the legs if possible. Cops shoot at people around 30 to 50 times per year while the fatalities are in single digit numbers. Also, whenever you read an article about cops shooting someone it often mentions that they disabled the attacker by aiming for and shooting at the legs.

Also, i was playing with realistic looking bbguns once as a teenager and the cops came by thought we were carying real ones and aimed at the legs.

Really? A gunshot wound to the leg is more likely than not to damage an artery and lead to death from blood loss withing a minute or two. Where are you from?

[Thanas]

^Germany.

And apparently it does not lead to the scenario you describe.

[Knife]

I never understood this "when you shoot, then shoot to kill" mentality or why it´s supposed to be only possible for hollywood heroes to shoot the legs. Around here few shots fired by cops at people are lethal. The usually aim at the legs and disable the attackers. I doubt that the cops here are hollywood heroes. They´re moustaches are way too mid 80s.

The thought process, and I agree with it, is that if you use a gun as a non-lethal weapon by shooting to 'disarm' then you will encourage the use of the weapon more. The fact that shooting to 'wound' involves a trickier shot; thus, increasing the chance of hitting something or someone you do not intend to is there as well.

I´m not sure about the official procedure but i think they´re trained to shoot the legs if possible. Cops shoot at people around 30 to 50 times per year while the fatalities are in single digit numbers. Also, whenever you read an article about cops shooting someone it often mentions that they disabled the attacker by aiming for and shooting at the legs.

Also, i was playing with realistic looking bbguns once as a teenager and the cops came by thought we were carying real ones and aimed at the legs.

Hitting the leg is an iffy proposition though. Not a lot of mass in legs as compared to the torso, the risk of all that kinetic energy transferring to the few critical things in your legs, bone and arteries, goes up unlike a gut shot with plenty of connective tissue and 'bulk' that can absorb the hit as long as you don't actually hit a vital organ. You rupture that artery, femoral or common iliac, and you bleed out in two to three minutes long before emergency care can get there. A gut shot, as long as it misses vital organs, or a direct hit to an artery (since the bulk of the torso will absorb the KE better than the leg or arm) will take more time to fuck you up.

I'm not saying a gut shot is 'safer' than a leg shot; however, you are running a greater risk in the leg and the surrounding area than a well aimed shot center mass.

[tim31]

Also I don't really see what difference it makes if cops carry modern pistols or not, are they under some sort of obligation to remain behind the times?

No?? And you're absolutely right about the .38 vs 9mm; I only compared those two calibres because that was what was mentioned. It would have been more reasonable in a discussion on civil law enforcement service arms to compare the 9mm to the .40 S&W, which for those who don't know, was requested following the 1986 FBI Miami shootout where 9mm rounds failed to take down a perp who continued to kill and wound agents.

Is there any truth to the story I got told about the Berettas being subbed for .45s in Iraq due to the failure of a 9mm round to quickly take down men who did not care about gunshot wounds on account of preparing to annihilate themselves and everyone else in a thirty foot radius anyway?

All that said HDS, I'll have to defer to your knowledge on firearms, because you get to play with them a lot more often than I do

[His Divine Shadow]

Re: Berettas and Iraq, the military uses FMJ so no wonder their 9mm isn't performing as well as it should. Ofcourse I don't think .45ACP is that much better when limited with the same ammo.

BTW that last part about police and remaining behind the times wasn't really aimed at you, it was just an impression I got from the article (oh lordy the good old days!).

[tim31]

You mean the days when police were sworn in, and assigned a badge, gun, and moustache?

[Themightytom]

Also I don't really see what difference it makes if cops carry modern pistols or not, are they under some sort of obligation to remain behind the times?

No?? And you're absolutely right about the .38 vs 9mm; I only compared those two calibres because that was what was mentioned. It would have been more reasonable in a discussion on civil law enforcement service arms to compare the 9mm to the .40 S&W, which for those who don't know, was requested following the 1986 FBI Miami shootout where 9mm rounds failed to take down a perp who continued to kill and wound agents.

Wow that wikipedia article is really well written

[KroLazuxy_87]

I'm curious as to what he may have been doing there? I'd imagine there was a valid reason... unless the NYPD has a raffle for "Who gets to stand in the random part of downtown in full gear today?!?!"

Phoned in threat to the J.P. Morgan building?

[[R_H]]

The MacDonald killing sparked an unusual amount of public outrage. This shooting, in particular, was hard to grasp. An empty park and a tiny teenager hardly make for a life-threatening situation for the officers. Couldn’t they just have backed away and used nonlethal alternatives such as pepper spray? The police admitted that they were readying a beanbag gun in the parking lot when the officers claimed that “time ran out.”

If the guy was high on something like PCP, crazy, or really determined, the pepper spray wouldn't be that much of a deterant.

As to the equipment being more and more militaristic, there's always the DRMO program, which provides surplus military equipment (like rifles or night vision optics, for example) cheaply to law enforcement.

[Zixinus]

I never understood this "when you shoot, then shoot to kill" mentality or why it´s supposed to be only possible for hollywood heroes to shoot the legs.

Because of reality. Hollywood heroes can hit a can of beer over 50 miles away, with half a leg up, being spun around and while blindfolded. Real people need to aim.

That and bullets do not have the energy to just hurt people but not kill them. They will go and not stop, and most guns have enough energy to cause serious harm by penetrating deeply or right trough. Even purpose built "non-lethal" rounds are renamed "less-lethal" because they can still cause enough damage (in certain circumstances) to accidentally kill a person or cause a wound that only immediate hospital care could heal. Even then, something that will knock out a 30-year old body-builder might do serious harm to a 80-year old grandmother.

Look above for loomer's analysis why "aiming at the legs and arms" is a bad idea. There are very important arteries in the legs (a lot of blood is in there you know) and guess what happens if you cut your wrist. I also recall something about the possibility of a penetrated bone and how bone fragments can travel up into your heart. To add further, aiming at legs or hands is difficult and likely to miss. That is a problem when you will likely not have enough time for a second shot. Fights in real life are not like those in Hollywood: they are short and brutal, and when its done the gloves are off and anything goes.

The only people that are encouraged to play "trick shots" are SWAT or equivalent forces, and even then, only by marksmen or snipers in a prepared positions. Even then, they try to be a bit creative and don't try to shoot arms or legs. I recall a very famous police sniper that shot the leg of a chair (those one-piece, white garden-type ones) that a guy with a gun was sitting on, threatening to do something violent (either open fire on the police or it might be shooting a child).

If you don't want to kill, use pepper sprays, tasers, rubber shotgun rounds or even the standard rubber batons. Police are trained to use them with a reason.

The idea of "shooting the legs or arms" is a Hollywood dream to show good guys are goody and don't kill even though they have a gun in their hands. Because guns are cool and you have to have your protagonist cool but killing people is a messy business that's immoral on many levels (including possibly violating things like the Hays Code). However, shooting the weapons out of people's hands is an impressive display of skill (one that also usually doesn't work in real life, as the effect can be very iffy) so therefore the question of moral crisis is averted. It's a compromise that works well in fiction if used right, but not in reality (except in certain circumstances but even then, its a desperate measure). In reality, a gun is a death-giving tool that must be treated as such. Imagine trying to use a bow or crossbow in a non-lethal manner in every possible situation and you'll quickly see the problem. It's like saying that you use a double-bladed battleaxe only to slap people around a bit.

Around here few shots fired by cops at people are lethal. The usually aim at the legs and disable the attackers.

Then you either know it wrong or the police there know it wrong (or should know better). Any board member that was police or military will tell you this.

Cops shoot at people around 30 to 50 times per year while the fatalities are in single digit numbers.

Where? Where are these statistics? Are we talking fatalities only on the cop's side?

Also, whenever you read an article about cops shooting someone it often mentions that they disabled the attacker by aiming for and shooting at the legs.

Really? Which one? Could you please point an example?

[Zixinus]

Oh and a small addition:

The other reason why shooting arms and legs only is a bad idea is that it will not guarantee that you have disabled the target. A man can still fight with his remaining arm and you can still hop or drag your foot. If the weapon is dropped than it can still be picked up again. No matter how you play it, you only win enough time to shoot your target again for a lot of risk for something that is pussyfooting. You don't use a gun not to kill. The only way to do that is not to fire. If you don't intend to fire, then you're only providing your enemy your weapon. The best you can hope for is never to take out your weapon and when you do, the mere presence of authority giving you your attention and threatening violence if they do not comply will pacify your target, and that you will not meet anyone who won't be.

There are stories that even when a person was shot in the chest, he still kept going on fighting . With that, do you want to go about pussyfooting with trick shoots for every occasion? A policeman uses violence only as a last resort, when negotiation or even talking is not an option (or just a depleted option).

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Also I don't really see what difference it makes if cops carry modern pistols or not, are they under some sort of obligation to remain behind the times?

No?? And you're absolutely right about the .38 vs 9mm; I only compared those two calibres because that was what was mentioned. It would have been more reasonable in a discussion on civil law enforcement service arms to compare the 9mm to the .40 S&W, which for those who don't know, was requested following the 1986 FBI Miami shootout where 9mm rounds failed to take down a perp who continued to kill and wound agents.

Handgun "stopping power" is a mysterious beast. Handguns are not magical death machines. They can't drive a big enough bullet fast enough to wound much more than whatever tissue happens to lie in the path of the bullet. In fact, I believe something like 80% of people who are shot by handguns survive the experience. Interestingly, the 9mm ammunition issued to the LEOs taking part in the shootout did its job. One of the 'bad guys' who was shot suffered a lethal wound (major blood vessels severed, lung collapsed.) Yes, it stopped an inch from his heart, but it had to go through the bone in his upper arm to do so. Had the angle been just a little different, or had the powder inside the 9mm cartridge combusted more completely or more efficiently, or had the barrel dimensions been a couple thousandths of an inch larger, or one of a whole bunch of little things, that bullet could well have penetrated his heart and killed him dead right there.

Is there any truth to the story I got told about the Berettas being subbed for .45s in Iraq due to the failure of a 9mm round to quickly take down men who did not care about gunshot wounds on account of preparing to annihilate themselves and everyone else in a thirty foot radius anyway?

As has been mentioned, military forces are prohibited from using hollow-point rounds in their weapons. The 9mm Parabellum FMJ is a long, round-nosed round designed to promote smooth operation through the firearms of the day. As a result, it tends to just shoulder tissue aside, poking long, deep holes in what it's been shot at. The .45 ACP FMJ has the exact same long, round nose. The chief difference between the two is that the .45 pokes 11.5 millimeter holes in people, as opposed to a 9mm hole. They also mass over five grams more, meaning they typically carry much more momentum. Meaning more inertia, meaning it will penetrate farther after encountering, say, a bone.

But, with all that out of the way, to those who suggest the LEOs merely shoot to wound . . . that stuff you only see in Hollywood or comics. Chances are, someone shooting to wound, while under the stress of a potentially lethal confrontation (meaning they'll grip the weapon too tightly, all that adrenaline coursing through their system will make them edgy and twitchy, and cause them to experience a distinct case of tunnel vision,) will miss, and that bullet may hit an innocent bystander with full force. That's why they're trained to aim for the center of mass, since it's a big target filled with important plumbing, which is much easier to hit by a weapon with a sight radius of ~4 inches being held two feet away and weighing about as much as the force required to operate the trigger.

[Broomstick]

I'd like to point out that just because you aim the torso doesn't mean you hit the torso. You may aim at the heart and instead hit the upper arm, or aim at the center of mass and wind up hitting the thigh if the target is moving as you fire. A certain number of shots by the police that hit limbs were actually intended for torsos. You have to take that into account when studying these things.

[Ekiqa]

Is it standard in police training that when you discaharge your firearm, you empty the magazine into the target?

18 rounds into a person seems excessive, as does the 50 rounds into the car by the plain clothes cops.

[Knife]

Is it standard in police training that when you discaharge your firearm, you empty the magazine into the target?

18 rounds into a person seems excessive, as does the 50 rounds into the car by the plain clothes cops.

I'm not sure. Standard military doctrine was two center mas and one to the head, but whether that carries through to police I have no idea. Though, that is immediate action drills, you have to take into account that even if you plug him/her twice in the chest, if they are still a threat to you, you keep shooting till they are not a threat. Just shooting someone in the torso does not automatically equal that person dropping to the ground dead or incapacitated.

[Hawkwings]

18 rounds? Heck, there was a huge media outcry a while back about two federal air marshalls that fired 8 rounds or so total at a guy, 4 shots each. Cries of "Overkill!" and "They should have shot to disable!" and such, and this is just shooting 4 bullets each. I think I remember some training officer explaining that the air marshalls are trained to keep shooting until the target falls down.

[Batman]

Emptying the magazine in the target DOES seem excessive but 'shoot until the target drops' seems like a sensible policy and 'shoot, check to see if the target dropped yet, if not, shoot again, repeat as needed' is not going to be all that feasible in most situations. As has been pointed out, people CAN fight back even with multiple torso hits, so firing one shot, then checking 'is he down yet?' invites you getting shot in return.

And I'm really iffy about german police being trained to go for the leg. While I will not declare this false offhand I would not at all be surprised if this were due to in the situations where that happened, the police had firearms while the bad guys did not, or the police already being in body armour due to EXPECTING a firefight and this being less concerned about being shot themselves.

[Agent Fisher]

From the standpoint of a student who is studying law enforcement at college, our instructors in our firearms classes always taught us to keep firing until they're down. That might mean three rounds, or if you're standing right infront of the suspect and they attack, that means you pull your weapon and keep putting rounds until they stop moving and if someone attacks you from a foot away, you're gonna probably empty the magazine.

We were also taught, and had officers who've been in shootouts, that just because you hit them in the torso doesn't mean they're done. We were told that if the suspect is full of adrenaline, and if you shoot them, taking out their heart, with the amount of blood oxygen left in the brain, and with the pain lessening effects of adrenaline, they have between ten-fifteen seconds of life left. That's more than enough time to empty a ten round magazine, reload and shoot again. So that's one reason we were taught shoot to kill and shoot till they are no longer a threat.

[weemadando]

Is it standard in police training that when you discaharge your firearm, you empty the magazine into the target?

18 rounds into a person seems excessive, as does the 50 rounds into the car by the plain clothes cops.

I'm not sure. Standard military doctrine was two center mas and one to the head, but whether that carries through to police I have no idea. Though, that is immediate action drills, you have to take into account that even if you plug him/her twice in the chest, if they are still a threat to you, you keep shooting till they are not a threat. Just shooting someone in the torso does not automatically equal that person dropping to the ground dead or incapacitated.

I'd always heard that with law enforcement training that once you were committed to using lethal force, then you keep firing until the target(s) are clearly no longer a threat. Which may mean that they end up putting 10+ rounds each into someone if there are multiple police there.