Modern American Police

[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.

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.

Ok, so it´s been mentioned a couple of times that shooting somebody in the leg can be fatal. The real question is, is it more likely to kill someone by shooting the leg or shooting the center of mass.

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.

Well, the statistics really make it look like they go for the legs. If this is a good or bad tactic i can´t judge from a medical standpoint because i lack the knowlege but the statistics make it look like good idea.

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?

No, this is not about fatalaties on the cops side. This is about shots being fired from police guns at persons. Here´s a statistic. It´s in German. Maybe some other German on this forum can testify that what i say is right. It´s an official statistic of the Land Baden-Würtemberg ("Land" is a similar governmental entity as a state or a province). It says that in 2004 there were 63 shots from police guns aimed at persons with 9 fatalities and in 2003 there were 44 shots from police guns aimed at persons with 3 fatalites in Germany.

Here´s a link:

PDF to statistics

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?

I´m afraid that i can only provide German sources but here are a couple of examples:

Source
A farmer attacks four investigating cops with an axe and an iron rod. One cop manages so wrestle the axe out of the farmers hand but gets injured in the hand.
The guy runs away and the other cops run after him. The farmer hits two cops with the rod.
Somewhat later the farmer threatens a woman with the rod.
The cop is forced to draw his gun and shoot the guy in the leg.

Here´s another one:

Source 2

A rioting camper attacks cops with knives. Neither pepper spray nore warning shots can stop him. The cops aim and shoot at his legs.

Source 3

Guy attacks people with tools. Police shoot him in the legs.

[Darth Wong]

This is an interesting argument. A wound to the legs certainly can put down an assailant, and it may even increase the likelihood that the assailant will live. On the other hand, it is more dangerous to everyone other than the assailant. It is much harder to hit a leg than a torso, particularly since a person's legs more much more when he's running, as compared to his torso.

[seanrobertson]

This is an interesting argument. A wound to the legs certainly can put down an assailant, and it may even increase the likelihood that the assailant will live. On the other hand, it is more dangerous to everyone other than the assailant. It is much harder to hit a leg than a torso, particularly since a person's legs more much more when he's running, as compared to his torso.

That's a damned good point, Michael. Damned good.

I hope this isn't too terribly off-topic, but since it does deal with modern police and you reminded me of it, I figured I'd toss it out here ...

What do you good ladies and gents make of the "high-speed chase" as shown on so many COPS show deriviates?

Personal anecdote: I actually witnessed one of those chases.

In my undergrad days, I commuted to school via a major interstate.

One day I was going to meet my then-girlfriend at school extra early, around 5:30 or so, so we could have breakfast, study for an exam that day and ... ahem. "Unwind" for awhile before our test

I was running a little late, so I was going [admittedly too] fast in the leftmost of four lanes.

Next thing I know, some idiot went tear-assing by me at a clip that had to be 30-40 mph greater than my own speed. (He had to be pushing 110-115 in a 60 mph zone.) He swerved in front of me and slammed his brakes -- presumably as to bring me to a full stop, which he damned near did -- then he took off again.

I was rattled by that, so I can't be sure how long it was before what happened next ... two seconds? Three, maybe?

Anyway, three Highway Patrol cars came bearing down on me in an instant. Two pulled over two lanes to clear me, but one came so close that, when I saw him in my rear view mirror, time seemed to slow down. I honestly thought he was going to slam into me.

He didn't, but I'm damned sure he would've collided with me if I had come to a dead stop after the crook break-checked me.

Thank mighty Crom, my ex was a real trooper that day, foregoing our sexy time to listen to me sputter on about the whole affair

Personal stuff aside, I Google-searched dangerous high speed chases. I realize that identifying a fleeing criminal by a car's make and even license plate can be meaningless; some truly murderous, evil asshole could steal a car, haul ass away, ditch it and continue to elude authorities. That's no good.

On the other hand, is it worth risking other motorists' lives to catch such a person/people?

In "my" case, it was beyond lucky that, since I was on the road so early, traffic was negligible. Had that happened at rush hour and the N.C. Highway Patrol didn't exercise much more restraint, I or someone else on the road that day could well have been among the statistics in that Google search

[CmdrWilkens]

No, this is not about fatalaties on the cops side. This is about shots being fired from police guns at persons. Here´s a statistic. It´s in German. Maybe some other German on this forum can testify that what i say is right. It´s an official statistic of the Land Baden-Würtemberg ("Land" is a similar governmental entity as a state or a province). It says that in 2004 there were 63 shots from police guns aimed at persons with 9 fatalities and in 2003 there were 44 shots from police guns aimed at persons with 3 fatalites in Germany.

Here´s a link:

PDF to statistics

Okay as a rebuttal I'm going to run you in a few circles:

1st Point Down on page 34 of this file there is a note that datais still being collected but preliminary findings for the 1995-97 group indicated that about 5% of cases involving Police use of force included firearms.

2nd Point Based on the provided figure of 422,000 use of force/threat of force incidents we would arrive at the number involving firearms as roughly (ROUGHLY) 21,100 fierarm incidents with police per year.

3rd Point This survery includes two noteworthy items. the first is that on an annual basis for the 22 years covered (1976-98) an average of 390 justifiable homicides were recorded each year. The other point the survey makes is:

While the database has primarily a statistical purpose, one statistic that is impossible to obtain from it (or from any currently existing database) is the number of murders by police. Murder is a type of nonjustifiable homicide. If a police officer deliberately kills someone and the homicide is not justified, that type of nonjustifiable homicide is supposed to go into the database as a "murder." Undoubtedly some of the "murders" in the SHR database are murders by police officers, but their number is unknown because nothing in the database distinguishes murders by police officers from murders committed by others. Consequently the annual number of nonjustifiable homicides by police in the United States is unknown.

Anyway from what we do know the justifiable homicides would occur ROUGHLY (let me stress that word heavily) 1.8% of the time when the use of a firearm occurs.

Now if the statistic you provided for the Baden-Wurtemberg department/region is indication of actually rounds fired then we have no chance of comparison but if it describes 9 homicides from 63 shootings and then 3 from 44 you would get an average of 11% of incidents resulting in death of the suspect over the two years covered.

All that said there are a SHITLOAD of qualifiers with that comparison which I hope I've made. The first is that someone would have to check the nuances of the Geman to see if the 63 and 44 refer to number of incidents or the actual number of rounds discharged. Furthermore the compliation of data on the US side, as noted, does not include unjustified homicide and does lack some other data points. That being said even if the number of killings by police in the US were equal to the number of justifiable homicides (thus resulting in 780 fatal police shootings annually) all police shooting deaths would occur less than 4% of the time when firearms are deployed.

[Glocksman]

Anyone who's fired a .38 revolver back-to-back with a 9mm pistol knows that the former has decidedly more stopping power.

For per round stopping power, it depends upon the ammo choice.
On the rare occasions that I actually exercise my right to carry a concealed weapon, that gun is a Smith Airweight revolver and not a 9mm Glock 19.

The reason why is that IMHO for most civilians, the .38 snubnose loaded with proper ammo is a better choice than a 'wondernine' for the simple reason that the '.38 snub on your belt beats the hi cap 9mm left at home'.

Simply put, a Smith Airweight doesn't 'sag' my pants like even a Glock 19 does and per shot is pretty effective given the proper ammo.

Though I'll freely admit if I knew I was going into a gunfight, a Smith snubnose isn't my preferred weapon.
In fact, my preferred weapon for a known upcoming gunfight is the local SWAT team.

[Simon_Jester]

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 suspect that the headshots do not carry through to police. Deliberately shooting people in the head is... contraindicated in police work. Even in a lethal force situation, the police objective isn't going to be to kill the person being shot at; it's to stop them. It just happens that in this situation, stopping them is urgent enough that killing them is forgivable according to law. But the fact that it's forgivable doesn't mean it's encouraged.

Whereas in an army, the goal often is to kill the target, or might as well be: killing the target is not considered a downside, and the soldier is more likely to be congratulated than condemned if they do so.
______

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.

Or where the guy was threatening but standing still. If someone is waving a pistol around, putting a bullet through their leg (and then covering them to shoot for the center of mass if they don't drop the gun) might actually be a viable tactic. If they're charging you, not so much, for all the reasons others have pointed out.

Hitting a stationary target with a few seconds to aim is always easier.

[Glocksman]

This is an interesting argument. A wound to the legs certainly can put down an assailant, and it may even increase the likelihood that the assailant will live. On the other hand, it is more dangerous to everyone other than the assailant. It is much harder to hit a leg than a torso, particularly since a person's legs more much more when he's running, as compared to his torso.

That difficulty you mention is the reason why reputable firearms (both police and civilian) courses stress 'center mass' fire.
It may or may not kill the assailant, but the odds are greater that it will stop the attack than aiming for the extremities would and is easier to do so under stress than aiming for the harder to hit extremities.

[Kamakazie Sith]

I suspect that the headshots do not carry through to police. Deliberately shooting people in the head is... contraindicated in police work. Even in a lethal force situation, the police objective isn't going to be to kill the person being shot at; it's to stop them. It just happens that in this situation, stopping them is urgent enough that killing them is forgivable according to law. But the fact that it's forgivable doesn't mean it's encouraged.

Whereas in an army, the goal often is to kill the target, or might as well be: killing the target is not considered a downside, and the soldier is more likely to be congratulated than condemned if they do so.

Headshots do carry though to police, but not in the same sense that it is for the military. A shot to the head would be delivered if shots to the body were proving to be ineffective due to either hidden body armor or drugs. It happens like this; two shots to the head then if there's still a threat one shot to the head.

[Kamakazie Sith]

This is an interesting argument. A wound to the legs certainly can put down an assailant, and it may even increase the likelihood that the assailant will live. On the other hand, it is more dangerous to everyone other than the assailant. It is much harder to hit a leg than a torso, particularly since a person's legs more much more when he's running, as compared to his torso.

It is more dangerous to everyone other than the assailant and that's contradictory to police work. I don't understand why different cultures feel they should put the life of the dangerous person above that of other citizens and police.

[Zixinus]

Well, the statistics really make it look like they go for the legs.

How? Statistics are just numbers, without context, you can't draw any more conclusions from them than what they explicitly state. Don't you think that there is the possibility of an alternative explanation? Like, that sometimes cops shoot when they shouldn't or that the suspect gets away or surrenders?

[Knife]

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 suspect that the headshots do not carry through to police. Deliberately shooting people in the head is... contraindicated in police work. Even in a lethal force situation, the police objective isn't going to be to kill the person being shot at; it's to stop them. It just happens that in this situation, stopping them is urgent enough that killing them is forgivable according to law. But the fact that it's forgivable doesn't mean it's encouraged.

Whereas in an army, the goal often is to kill the target, or might as well be: killing the target is not considered a downside, and the soldier is more likely to be congratulated than condemned if they do so.

Lol. you have an odd sense of military goals. Did you serve? Or are you just extrapolating?

Military's, and people in them, try to accomplish goals. Much like police, a military force will try to perform a goal and an objective. If people need to be killed to complete that objective, so be it. Police work under the same concept, though ROE's will differ, but I will say people are not congratulated for killing in the military, they are more often congratulated for saving lives and/or just completing a goal.

[Tribun]

After reading I think it really depends on the country how the useage of firearms is handled. Here in Germany, it's really strict. My father works in the police, and he told me, that useage of a firearm is really restricted. You can only use it if really no other way is left. And to make sure that this is true, every such incident is checked afterwards, and dare you, should they discover that the usage of your gun wasn't neccassary. One way or another, the gun is mainy carried just to show the authority of the state. Actual useage is only very seldom.

Btw., this is how German policemen look like. Don't wonder if they are all smiling, it's from when they presented the new uniforms (which replaced the old green ones).

This is how they look when going into much more dangerous situations. Note the the color is outdated, the uniform is now blue instead of green. They're generally armed with H&K MP-5.

Not shown is the SEK, which is like american SWAT, and only called if the shit is really hitting the fan.

[tim31]

Jester, you know better than that. These days a battlefield becomes a forensic investigation as soon as the shooting stops.

In fact, my preferred weapon for a known upcoming gunfight is the local SWAT team.

Ooh, touche.

Yeah, I should have qualified on the specifics, but I will say this: I've fired a .38 Blackhawk, 9mm Glock, .45 M1911, and .44 Redhawk in one sitting and that order, and the colt felt like the 'heaviest', then the .44 by a large margin, then the .38 by not much, then waaaay down here was the Glock, which felt like firing a .22 target pistol.

[TheLostVikings]

Yeah, I should have qualified on the specifics, but I will say this: I've fired a .38 Blackhawk, 9mm Glock, .45 M1911, and .44 Redhawk in one sitting and that order, and the colt felt like the 'heaviest', then the .44 by a large margin, then the .38 by not much, then waaaay down here was the Glock, which felt like firing a .22 target pistol.

Since the amount of recoil absorbed while cycling a new round into the chamber depends on the design, you can't really compare guns directly like that. Especially when is half/half between revolvers and semi-automatics.

[tim31]

Yeah, we covered that earlier in the thread, but thank you anyway for the breakdown of my own subjective interpretation.

[CmdrWilkens]

After reading I think it really depends on the country how the useage of firearms is handled. Here in Germany, it's really strict. My father works in the police, and he told me, that useage of a firearm is really restricted. You can only use it if really no other way is left. And to make sure that this is true, every such incident is checked afterwards, and dare you, should they discover that the usage of your gun wasn't neccassary. One way or another, the gun is mainy carried just to show the authority of the state. Actual useage is only very seldom.

The converse to that is the usage itself appears to be more deadly. I went back in to the PDF that Salm linked to and the nearest translation for "Schusswaffengebrauch gegen Personen" that I got was use of firearms against persons. So for Germany this means that out of 63 shooting incidents there were 9 deaths in 2004 and 3 from 44 incidents in 2003. Adding in the 72 and 99 incidents where the weapon was used as a warning ("Warnschüsse davon" categories) and the 2 and 4 times it was used illegally, "Unzulässiger Schusswaffengebrauch," [I'm not counting in the use against animals or property] we have almost exactly 5% of all firearms incidents resulting in death.

Conversely even under the probably excessive idea that unjustified killings equal justifiable homicides the US rate is less than 4% for all firearms incidents. If we confine ourselves only to justifiable homicides the rate in the US is roughly 1.8%.

[Tribun]

No offense, but a percentage is pretty useless if you don't show/have the abolute numbers. I'm right now studying statistics at the university. So to what absolute number do these 1.8% add up to?

[Batman]

Err yes it is. That's the whole POINT of a percentage. Are you SURE you're studying statistics?

[tim31]

'I'm studying' might mean 'we've just started the unit.'

[CmdrWilkens]

No offense, but a percentage is pretty useless if you don't show/have the abolute numbers. I'm right now studying statistics at the university. So to what absolute number do these 1.8% add up to?

You know I have a post IN THIS THREAD where I gave you the data. Since you must have missed it earlier I'll provide you the relevant points:

- There are roughly 422,000 uses of force per year in the US
- Roughly 5% of those will involve the use or the threat of use of firearms
- This leads to approximately 21,100 fierarms related incidents per year (including threats)
- There have been an average of 390 justifiable homicides per year from 1976-98
- Thus ~1.8% of firearms incidents lead to justifiable homicide in the US
- Data for non-justifable homicides is not available however even were it to match the number of justifiable homicides (a crazy proposition) the rate would be less than 4% of incidents


Now that having been said I honestly wonder if you don't understand why I did a percentage comparison between the Germany and the US (thus arriving at the 5% vs 1.8%) then I question whether you are in fact taking statistics.

[Master of Ossus]

'I'm studying' might mean 'we've just started the unit.'

I fricking hope so. I had heard that European colleges and universities sucked, but if he's been working on that for more than a week and a half then his stat professor shouldn't be a professor.

On-topic, every time I fly to Europe I'm surprised at how heavily armed European police are when they're just walking around airports and such. They all carry sub-machine guns in plain-sight. In the US, all police have a service pistol, but I'm used to seeing that. I'm also sure they have shotguns and rifles and such in their police cruisers, but not when they're just walking around.

[Artemas]

So, I was just looking throught that PDF that salm linked, and under the death and wound totals for firearms incidents (ie the 9/63, and 3/44) there is davon Unbeteiligte, which internet translators translate as innocent.

Can I get someone to explain that bit?

If the internet translation is accurate, then those are just the number of innocent people killed or injured when there were firearm related incidents.

[Thanas]

Police do shoot at legs and arms in germany precisely because it is reputed to be less deadly. The courts themselves have come up with a three-stage test for that. In ideal circumstances (no life threatened etc) this is how it works: If you have to shoot, first you do a warning shot. Then you shoot to disable (leg, arm) and only then are you permitted to fire deadly shots. That is the law as interpreted by our courts and that is why police shoot at arms and legs first.

Wilkens, here is a link to some statistics that show number of shots fired at persons and deadly shots.

[Thanas]

So, I was just looking throught that PDF that salm linked, and under the death and wound totals for firearms incidents (ie the 9/63, and 3/44) there is davon Unbeteiligte, which internet translators translate as innocent.

Can I get someone to explain that bit?

If the internet translation is accurate, then those are just the number of innocent people killed or injured when there were firearm related incidents.

No, you read this the wrong way. The numbers in parenthesis are the numbers of innocents harmed and they show 0 innocents killed or injured for 2004 and 2 injured for 2003.


Also, yes, each shot is counted as one usage iirc.

[[R_H]]

snip

you have to shoot, first you do a warning shot.

In what direction is this warning shot fired? In the air? Towards the ground? Did the courts consider the possibility of a bystander being injured/killed by this warning shot? Do you know if any information is available on the test used to determine the lethality of shooting the extremities?