police shootings

[neoolong]

Perinquus, I thought that as a police officer, you're trained to shoot someone in the center of mass or something? Is that right?

[Sea Skimmer]

So, what happens if they're behind a car door with a shotgun? Beanbag doesn't work
What if there more then about 10 meters away? Beanbag doesn't work
What if the officer is facing more then one suspect? Beanbag doesn't work very well

Beanbags only work for highly specialized situations, and you need a grenade launcher or shotgun to use one in the first place. It is not easy to carry one of those, ready to be used as quickly as a handgun, while keeping your hands free for other tasks.

Driving with a 12 gauge slung across the chest is also rather difficult.

Metal Storm O'Dwyer VLE. Seperate barrels for non-lethal (beanbag and weird arse "shock" rounds) and lethal. So the cop can take their pick depending on the circumstance. Plus beanbags would be fairly effective when fired in an 8 rnd burst from a Metal Storm pistol.

Eight round burst? That's a good way to cause extensive trauma. And anyway, it won't work. Beanbags need to move fairly slowly and be wide. You can do that with a handgun.

Metalstorm is expensive crap in any case. Anyway you can already get shotguns, which have double tube magazines, which you can switch between. Those also happen to be far cheaper then Metalstorm. However police don’t use them because a beanbag is hard to use and highly specialized.

[Master of Ossus]

They've done a lot of psychological studies about shooting incidents involving self-defense. Basically, once you start shooting, it's very unlikely that you'll STOP shooting until you run out of ammunition and have to break to perform the complex action of reloading the weapon and preparing it to fire again. It's not really a measure of police cowardice that they all opened fire lots of times. All of the police saw a person lunging at them with a knife, and decided to open fire. Once that decision was made, it would surprise me if they all stopped shooting as soon as the person went down, or became too injured to fight.

Incidentally, the officers involved in this shooting probably didn't even remember how many shots they had fired. They'll remember firing a few shots, but the psychological processes involved frequently make it seem to them as if they had fired only a few shots, when in fact they had fired many.

[weemadando]

Then again there are cases of excessive force where it wasn't neccessary. Like here in Tassie a few years ago the SOGgies got a call-out because there had been reports of people with guns running around a neighbourhood.

SOGgies rock up in full kit ready to do some damage and find out that the UNINVESTIGATED call was in regards to some 8-10 y/o kids with waterpistols.

But that's not the fault of the officers or there training or equipment. It's the result of poor information from the caller and the dispatcher.

I wouldn't blame the dispatcher, I'd blame the police for not even driving a patrol car past to check it out first. I mean, really...

[Darth Wong]

I wouldn't blame the dispatcher, I'd blame the police for not even driving a patrol car past to check it out first. I mean, really...

Doesn't that depend on the complaint? If somebody calls the dispatcher and says there's a whole gang of armed thugs running around the neighbourhood, are two guys in a squad car going to want to go in there by themselves to check it out?

It is unreasonable to expect police officers to put themselves at undue risk.

[Sea Skimmer]

Then again there are cases of excessive force where it wasn't neccessary. Like here in Tassie a few years ago the SOGgies got a call-out because there had been reports of people with guns running around a neighbourhood.

SOGgies rock up in full kit ready to do some damage and find out that the UNINVESTIGATED call was in regards to some 8-10 y/o kids with waterpistols.

But that's not the fault of the officers or there training or equipment. It's the result of poor information from the caller and the dispatcher.

I wouldn't blame the dispatcher, I'd blame the police for not even driving a patrol car past to check it out first. I mean, really...

If they thought they needed tactical guys, then having someone drive by in a car would seem semi suicidal.

[weemadando]

I wouldn't blame the dispatcher, I'd blame the police for not even driving a patrol car past to check it out first. I mean, really...

Doesn't that depend on the complaint? If somebody calls the dispatcher and says there's a whole gang of armed thugs running around the neighbourhood, are two guys in a squad car going to want to go in there by themselves to check it out?

It is unreasonable to expect police officers to put themselves at undue risk.

Knowing the area of town it was in, they could have had a perfect view of the scene from a hillside about 4 blocks away. Or they could have kept the woman on the line and gotten more details.

I'm not saying that they should have put themselves in harms way, but damn, those kids would have been scared shitless.

Also, I'm surprised that noone got shot, because, damnit the SOGgies don't kit up and drive out to somewhere only to be told to go home again, they wanna shoot some shit while they are there.

[viperpilot]

okay. i conceed. i think i'm coming around. while i still feel that some restraint should be used however. but you're right. if you're dumb enough to break the law and tangle with a cop then oh well, shit on you.

oh, and no superman, i have no intentions of tangling with cops. i'm not that stupid. i've just seen people who weren't themselves do stupid things and pay dearly. but then again, now that i think about it, don't do stupid things and you're most likely to be okay, accept in freakish extreme circumstances.

so look. i've been convinced. you challnged my thinking and hey i've been converted.

cheers!

[Perinquus]

Perinquus, I thought that as a police officer, you're trained to shoot someone in the center of mass or something? Is that right?

Yes. we're trained to shoot center mass. And a slight modification to what Master of Ossus said. What he pointed out does tend to happen a lot, i.e. once you open fire, you keep firing until you run dry. But there is another effect that is also observed with men who train really extensively. They incorporate their training so thoroughly into their method that it becomes completely reflexive. In other words, if you train extensively to draw, aim, fire a double tap into the target and lower the weapon slightly to view the target and evaluate the threat, then that's what you'll do unconsciously under stress. In fact, a lot of departments are trying to modify their qualificatioon courses to fix this, since it has occasionally resulted in an officer being shot by his wounded, but still active attacker during that pause to evaluate the threat. The latest approach is to train on pop up targets that have to be shot a random number of times, and you keep shooting till they go down.

As for this call everyone is discussing, I'd want to look at an accurate account of it before I try to Monday morning quarterback the officers. But just to give you an idea how dangerous it is to respond to "person with weapon" calls, in 1984, Norfolk police officer Doug Drye was shot while getting out of his car responding to such a call. He parked his police cruiser about a block away, in order to approach behind some cover. You never want to pull up right in front of the location of the incident. In this case, he did everything right, but unfortunately, the shitbag was waiting for the police to arrive, and had a scope sighted rifle. As soon as Drye stepped out, the suspect shot him in the head. He probably never knew what hit him. This is why cops tend to respond somewhat, ah... "aggressively", shall we say, to this kind of call.

At the risk of repeating myself, we just want to go home at the end of our shifts.

[weemadando]

Yes. we're trained to shoot center mass. And a slight modification to what Master of Ossus said. What he pointed out does tend to happen a lot, i.e. once you open fire, you keep firing until you run dry. But there is another effect that is also observed with men who train really extensively. They incorporate their training so thoroughly into their method that it becomes completely reflexive. In other words, if you train extensively to draw, aim, fire a double tap into the target and lower the weapon slightly to view the target and evaluate the threat, then that's what you'll do unconsciously under stress. In fact, a lot of departments are trying to modify their qualificatioon courses to fix this, since it has occasionally resulted in an officer being shot by his wounded, but still active attacker during that pause to evaluate the threat. The latest approach is to train on pop up targets that have to be shot a random number of times, and you keep shooting till they go down.

As for this call everyone is discussing, I'd want to look at an accurate account of it before I try to Monday morning quarterback the officers. But just to give you an idea how dangerous it is to respond to "person with weapon" calls, in 1984, Norfolk police officer Doug Drye was shot while getting out of his car responding to such a call. He parked his police cruiser about a block away, in order to approach behind some cover. You never want to pull up right in front of the location of the incident. In this case, he did everything right, but unfortunately, the shitbag was waiting for the police to arrive, and had a scope sighted rifle. As soon as Drye stepped out, the suspect shot him in the head. He probably never knew what hit him. This is why cops tend to respond somewhat, ah... "aggressively", shall we say, to this kind of call.

At the risk of repeating myself, we just want to go home at the end of our shifts.

I understand completely. But to be utterly honest Tassies police have shot each other more often over the past few years than been shot by others...

[Perinquus]

I understand completely. But to be utterly honest Tassies police have shot each other more often over the past few years than been shot by others...

Well, that's a training issue. Sounds like they need to improve theirs. It may also be necessary to dismiss a few people who never should have been hired in the first place, but I'd have to see them in action to be sure.

[weemadando]

I understand completely. But to be utterly honest Tassies police have shot each other more often over the past few years than been shot by others...

Well, that's a training issue. Sounds like they need to improve theirs. It may also be necessary to dismiss a few people who never should have been hired in the first place, but I'd have to see them in action to be sure.

The main problem is that the fools keep having NDs with their glocks, half the time they're still in the station when they do it.