Police Mag Dump

[gregr]

Here`s my take;
Yes, without doubt, there are some rogue cops out there who are Gestapo, and we just cannot tolerate that. Period. But, I believe the VAST majority of law enforcement officers are reasoned professionals who do the very best they can in a VERY difficult, very frustrating job.
No, it`s NOT alright for an officer to act out just because he`s "having a bad day". I know many would like to allow officers that much latitude, and I sometimes wish we could do that, but it`s not ok. We are not a police state and ought not be in fear of the police. But conversely, police have the absolute RIGHT to defend themselves when they are confronted by violent felons, or otherwise, violent street thugs. It`s a fine line without question. I have to temper my support of police with the understanding that law-abiding citizens ought not live in fear of law enforcement.
All that being said, with very few exceptions, I always support our law enforcement officers, and it`s nearly criminal NOT to.

 

[Timjoebillybob]

I don’t have the exact numbers of officers involved in the Akron case. However as I stated in an earlier post in my experience as an LE
trainer the problem is everyone is teaching how to shoot fast and a lot but almost no agency is training officers how to STOP SHOOTING. Part of this is the emphasis to basically ballistic masterbate at .20 splits they can not asses the situation AND that speed also causes them to miss OR not hit the upper thoracic area that tends to stop BGs rather quickly. Example LAPD SWAT standards are .50 or 1/2 second splits. But to a USPSA shooter that is slow. Well LAPD SWAT doesn’t miss and a parking lot doesn’t have a 5 minute walk through all targets get 2 rounds or more with a no penalty Mike.


I get we can find an exception to the one or two high round count cases (surprised nobody brought up the “why I carry 147 rounds on duty”)

Fact of the matter is when you shoot a suspect (legal use of force application) anything more than 20 hits (hits not total rounds fired) it’s bad optics all the way around. Not saying it can’t be justified but a lot of things get questioned and scrutinized (a lot more than a proctologist exam you get with a one or two round count shooting)

I almost brought up the 147 rds one.

 

[ECS686]

I was hoping that people could watch the video and make comments on current training, past training and what could be added to police firearms training. I am not a cop hater, by any means. Some cops have huge egos and can't abide criticism, but firearm trainers should be able to observe objectively and attempt to improve an officer's performance under extreme stress. I understand that many top police officials don't care one bit about training, especially firearms training. That's the worst part.

Here’s the problem facing LE firearms training. Either the lead trainers are in it to be the agencies safety monitor and just administering a “test” every year only ensuring minimum scores.

Or you have a solid Firearms training cadre that WANT to bring solid training from places like Gunsite Spaulding etc but are told NOPE you shoot once a year etc

And then line staff themselves. When I was a trainer we had a 10% 80% 10% breakdown. Top 10% went to training on their own time and dine exceeded standards. 80 met minimum standards (which didn’t mean they were proficient) and bottom 10 which caused agencies to dumb down stuff.

And most of the 80 meets minimum as in passes by 20 points or less. And are the ones that are “well good enough til next year”

Agencies that have some in administrative folks that back up the trainers are few and far between.

 

[Frank_N_Stein]

I was hoping that people could watch the video and make comments on current training, past training and what could be added to police firearms training. I am not a cop hater, by any means. Some cops have huge egos and can't abide criticism, but firearm trainers should be able to observe objectively and attempt to improve an officer's performance under extreme stress. I understand that many top police officials don't care one bit about training, especially firearms training. That's the worst part.

Your message was received, your delivery sucked.

 

[BE Mike]

Your message was received, your delivery sucked.

Tough questions often elicit visceral responses.

 

[Frank_N_Stein]

Tough questions often elicit visceral responses.

Wording questions a certain way may not elicit any responses.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

I was hoping that people could watch the video and make comments on current training, past training and what could be added to police firearms training. I am not a cop hater, by any means. Some cops have huge egos and can't abide criticism, but firearm trainers should be able to observe objectively and attempt to improve an officer's performance under extreme stress. I understand that many top police officials don't care one bit about training, especially firearms training. That's the worst part.

I did that in post #11. The correlation to behavior between realistic simunitions training and real world results is strong. Obviously a reasonable amount of marksmanship training is required, but until you stress inoculate you are going to have stress reactions that run subconciously. Not everyone goes to sewing machine trigger under stress, just like not everyone freezes under stress, different people react differently but until you are exposed to survival stress you don't know. Real world shooting, especially in a tense, uncertain, and rapid evolving situation is so much more than marksmanship. You have a finite amount of computing power in your brain, and it needs to make sense of all the sensory input that is happening, make decisions, etc. How much does that leave for concentraing on tasks like trigger control? The 'lose fine motor skills' argument comes from this in reality, brain power and adrenaline reaction. The more complex the situation, the longer it can take to get through the OODA loop and the easier it is to overwhelm the conscious brain and shooting problems run the gamut from one on one with an obvious bad guy doing obvious bad guy things to extremely chaotic scenes with unknown bad guys mixed in with unknown neutrals, guys moving like maybe they are bad guys but can't be shot yet, the ever present realization that a wrong decision means death or prison because doctors can kill you without repurcussion but police have to be 100%, and all the other social and legal worries that pop in your head...

Any dumbass can run a trigger when all they have to do is run a trigger given enough practice, but run the trigger while reciting the alphabet backwards and I shock your nuts with a Taser for every mistake or 2 second pause. Suddenly that trigger control isn't in the forebrain any longer. More marksmanship training won't change that and a room full of people who have no idea what it's like to be in a gunfight or think marksmanship is the answer won't change that. Realistic training, preferably with pain feedback, and introducing decision making into shooting events is the only way to do it without being in a real shooting. This is neither new info, even on INGO, nor controversial in the slightest. It is widely known and widely accepted, but given the logistics and cost of providing this sort of training, it is not widely and routinely available.

There's really nothing further to be said other than details that aren't relevant to this level discussion since none of us here are putting together a program. If you want a deeper dive, rather than just rhetorical questions, head over to Force Science Institute and start reading and follow that trail as long as you care to. Because, frankly, most people don't know what they don't know and a discussion among them results in nothing relevant or useful until they have that background.

 

[Leadeye]

I'm curious about the doctrine involving the use of long guns in these situations. Are they incorrect for some situations like the warrant service here, or is there no set policy?

 

[BehindBlueI's]

I'm curious about the doctrine involving the use of long guns in these situations. Are they incorrect for some situations like the warrant service here, or is there no set policy?

Varies by department. Especially since cops are the bad guys and you need to look soft and cuddly so you aren't militarized. I got a talking to once for putting on a helmet to look for a gunman in a grocery store because it may cause people to be scared. We used to have to have supervisor permission to take a rifle out of the car absent exigent circumstances, but now it's up to the rifleman to use their own judgement. Higher risk warrants, you'll generally have long guns available but you need officers without a long gun as well for all the things you need free hands for. You really don't want to be wrestling with sumdood with a long gun in your hands, even if it's slung, and you get a lot more uncooperative/assaultive behavior that's not shootable then is shootable.

 

[Leadeye]

I was curious if long guns had an intimidation factor or if it provoked just the opposite.

 

[ECS686]

I was curious if long guns had an intimidation factor or if it provoked just the opposite.

Real Thugs facing real felony warrants don’t give a hoot about long guns.” And actually expect them. If they are in a “gonna fight mode” they gonna fight. unless you get them with the whole Speed surprise violence of action and totally dominate it.

 

[Leadeye]

Varies by department. Especially since cops are the bad guys and you need to look soft and cuddly so you aren't militarized. I got a talking to once for putting on a helmet to look for a gunman in a grocery store because it may cause people to be scared. We used to have to have supervisor permission to take a rifle out of the car absent exigent circumstances, but now it's up to the rifleman to use their own judgement. Higher risk warrants, you'll generally have long guns available but you need officers without a long gun as well for all the things you need free hands for. You really don't want to be wrestling with sumdood with a long gun in your hands, even if it's slung, and you get a lot more uncooperative/assaultive behavior that's not shootable then is shootable.

So using the shotgun like a club is considered bad form these days.

Wyatt Earp clubbed far more people than he shot and the Remington 1875 was built with a heavy reinforced rib for this purpose. Times change.

 

[Twangbanger]

I watched the videos, and I guess I'm going to push back on the OP a little bit. The camera always makes stuff look farther away, but there was some significant distance here, and the perp was moving even farther away. The cops did not have longarms because they were going into a "big booty picnic" and have to balance their objective against not terrifying picnic-goers, because the threat is concealed among them and "looks like one of them." The guy started running as soon as he saw police. Yes, a long gun could have dropped him quicker, but there is also a "prairie dog effect" to that. With a long gun being held at port-arms while walking through the BBQ, the "other prairie dogs" would have alerted the perp to danger much sooner, too. The officers don't know if the perp is going to be an "MMA Star" or a "Track Star." Once he goes "Track Star" on them, the officers have to make a running, continuous decision between running to keep up with him, and stopping and shooting with stationary precision, and that decision has to be made as a team because they don't want to be shooting past other officers in pursuit. Taking the chance of letting the target exit the park and lose sight of him because you went stationary but still failed to stop anyway, is a very real possibility, and not a good one. Because that outcome probably exposes others to more risk than if you're engaging him out in the middle of a field where he's isolated and visible.

I suspect the target picture here was getting down towards the level where the target is the same width, or maybe less wide, than the officer's front sight. I understand the OP has a precision bullseye background, and I do too, but this isn't an olympic air/standard/free pistol match. I can hit things narrower than my front sight all day long, and you can too, but that's under ideal range conditions. I would bet the overwhelming (and I mean overwhelming) majority of INGO doesn't have a very high stop ratio in situations like this, on a moving target at distance that's shooting at you, and where the perpetrator knows he's being shot at (as opposed to an Eli Mall type situation, where it's possible the bad guy gets bushwhacked while initially unaware he's even being fought back against).

And about the "un-aimed mag dump" thing...let's get our terms straight:

* Your gun going empty before you stop the target isn't the same thing as a mag dump.

* Missing a distant target isn't a "mag dump."

The fat bearded guy wearing a backpack playing 16th notes at Point Blank with an AR-15 from the hip is a "mag dump."

Aiming and simply missing isn't the same thing as a mag dump.

I've watched competitors at matches empty their guns while trying to hit a swinger or take down a 25-yard popper. That's poor marksmanship, but they're still aiming. It's not a "mag dump."

 

[ECS686]

I watched the videos, and I guess I'm going to push back on the OP a little bit. The camera always makes stuff look farther away, but there was some significant distance here, and the perp was moving even farther away. The cops did not have longarms because they were going into a "big booty picnic" and have to balance their objective against not terrifying picnic-goers, because the threat is concealed among them and "looks like one of them." The guy started running as soon as he saw police. Yes, a long gun could have dropped him quicker, but there is also a "prairie dog effect" to that. With a long gun being held at port-arms while walking through the BBQ, the "other prairie dogs" would have alerted the perp to danger much sooner, too. The officers don't know if the perp is going to be an "MMA Star" or a "Track Star." Once he goes "Track Star" on them, the officers have to make a running, continuous decision between running to keep up with him, and stopping and shooting with stationary precision, and that decision has to be made as a team because they don't want to be shooting past other officers in pursuit. Taking the chance of letting the target exit the park and lose sight of him because you went stationary but still failed to stop anyway, is a very real possibility, and not a good one. Because that outcome probably exposes others to more risk than if you're engaging him out in the middle of a field where he's isolated and visible.

I suspect the target picture here was getting down towards the level where the target is the same width, or maybe less wide, than the officer's front sight. I understand the OP has a precision bullseye background, and I do too, but this isn't an olympic air/standard/free pistol match. I can hit things narrower than my front sight all day long, and you can too, but that's under ideal range conditions. I would bet the overwhelming (and I mean overwhelming) majority of INGO doesn't have a very high stop ratio in situations like this, on a moving target at distance that's shooting at you, and where the perpetrator knows he's being shot at (as opposed to an Eli Mall type situation, where it's possible the bad guy gets bushwhacked while initially unaware he's even being fought back against).

And about the "un-aimed mag dump" thing...let's get our terms straight:

* Your gun going empty before you stop the target isn't the same thing as a mag dump.

* Missing a distant target isn't a "mag dump."

The fat bearded guy wearing a backpack playing 16th notes at Point Blank with an AR-15 from the hip is a "mag dump."

Aiming and simply missing isn't the same thing as a mag dump.

I've watched competitors at matches empty their guns while trying to hit a swinger or take down a 25-yard popper. That's poor marksmanship, but they're still aiming. It's not a "mag dump."

Very well put Twangbanger. Just an FYI for anyone interested LEOs that are Expert Marksman only have a 20-30% hit factor in Officer Involved shootings. Evan Marahal in his book Handgun stopping power in the 1980’s it was 19-21% so it’s not improved much.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Very well put Twangbanger. Just an FYI for anyone interested LEOs that are Expert Marksman only have a 20-30% hit factor in Officer Involved shootings. Evan Marahal in his book Handgun stopping power in the 1980’s it was 19-21% so it’s not improved much.

I bet incidents of 1-3 shots fired have much higher hit rates than incidents going 4+ rounds. I've noticed that both police and citizen carriers have rapidly declining hit percentages as shots fired totals go up. Some of this is probably self selection, people who missed earlier didn't solve the problem and have more opportunites for misses. Much of it is the increasing difficulty of the situation, though. One or both parties are moving, and how often do you get to practice shooting a moving target while you are also no the move? People seek cover, people are reacting to incoming fire, sensory input gets overwhelming, etc.

 

[garni]

Nothing to see here folks, move along, typical day.
Bad guy shoots cop, cops shoot bad guy, cops save bad guy's life, crowd shows displeasure, bad guy was turning life around because this was the last police involved shooting he was going to initiate.
I bet not one person in the angry crowd was upset enough to leave the cookout early.

I stayed and the cheese burgers were delicious. They should work on their pasta salad though. Mom's is so much better.