police shoot bystanders, charge mentally ill man with assault

When I went through LEO training, our firearms training consisted of a variety of groupings, single shots, ranges, and different actions in between shots.

While we did train with the Mozambique Drill (2 to the upper mass 1 to the head), we also trained other groupings such as 25 yards from target 5 shots to the upper mass, eject your magazine, reload with a fresh magazine and 5 shots to the head. Or from 1 yard, 2 shots to the head, or from 75 yards 10 shots, close to 50 yards 6 shots, eject the magazine reload with a fresh magazine.... and so one. But it was never trained to fire in three shots, and when using the Shoot/Don't Shoot simulator you did fire until the threat was neutralized.

The department I trained with, and worked for did use sim rounds (paint pellets fired from our service weapons). That step always had at least 2-3 people decide to leave, it wasn't until that point that we were actually in live fire scenario, and it was nothing at all like the range training, or the simulator. We did ear and eye protection, as well as our vests but one girl was hit with a sim round right above her vest in the chest (right below the throat) she had a fairly serious panic attack and resigned. Others resigned because of the threat and fear they felt, some also left because until then they realized that they couldn't fire on another human. To me, it was one of the most intense and nerve wracking experiences I've had, but at the same time it was thrilling and like nothing I ever experienced before.

Zey vere chust following ordahz.

If they acted poorly then they should get in trouble losing their job or even their freedom.

The rules of gun safety are a good standard everyone should follow. In the home and on the range or out hunting.

But it is the height of naivety to believe that those rules should be applied out on the street with the same zeal and fanaticism as in those other settings.

Let's deal with the two Prufrock highlighted:

1. Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.

Not always possible. Take for example the officers who would respond to a mass shooting. They are covering a lot of people with their muzzles because they don't know who is and who isn't the shooter. Or officers clearing a building. It's not always clear cut.

Now obviously that doesn't mean officers are reckless about it. You better have a damn good reason for pointing your gun at someone but there are plenty of situations you could find your muzzle covered something that in the end you were not willing to destroy.

1. Be sure of your target and what is beyond it.

Almost impossible on the "street" as while you do want to take care not to be reckless it's impossible to control all the variables. Again let's say you're involved in a shooting and you miss and your bullet goes through a wall and hits someone on the other side. Are you liable? What if the bullet goes through the person you're shooting and hits someone behind them and kills that someone? Are you liable? This actually happened to NYPD officers with full metal jackets passing through targets and hitting innocents. It got to the point that NYPD was one of the last agencies in the country to finally switch to the JHP (hollow point) bullets in 1998. Yes you read the year right. 1998!

What if you just plain miss? Again it's not easy shooting a living moving target. If you're not reckless and are trying to hit your target but still miss can you really be punished for it as Lanzman and others heavily imply? This assumes that you are justified in shooting in the first place. If you're not justified then it doesn't matter one way or the other as you're going to be in trouble.

I think too many do not understand the whole responsible for every round out of your gun thing. Yes anyone, not just law enforcement people, who shoots a gun is responsible for the rounds leaving their gun. If you are reckless and careless you deserve what's coming to you. If however you're not reckless or careless and you're doing what you can to hit what you're shooting at AND you're justified in shooting then you can not be held liable. You're within the scope of the law.

If we punished people who were justified in shooting at a target, weren't reckless while shooting and yet who missed and hit an innocent we would as a society be as bad as the target who caused the shooting. We would be punishing people for protecting themselves and/or others from the target.

Hit your target and nothing else or lose everything up to and including your freedom!

With that type of standard you'd see a lot more "why didn't they shoot!!!" complaints as people hesitated far too long before deciding to shoot.

It should be a requirement to be shot at with sim rounds and to be in situations where you're shooting at someone whose shooting back at you.

Jubal Early agrees!

I don't get the reference.

Firefly.

I know Firefly but what's the point? Did he say something in the episode similar to: "It should be a requirement to be shot at with sim rounds and to be in situations where you're shooting at someone whose shooting back at you."?

Yeah thank goodness in this country they aren't the only ones with the guns.

Jubal Early: You ever been shot?
Simon: No.
Jubal Early: You oughta be shot. Or stabbed, lose a leg. To be a surgeon, you know? Know what kind of pain you're dealing with. They make psychiatrists get psychoanalyzed before they can get certified, but they don't make a surgeon get cut on. That seem right to you?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0579531/quotes

Get the fuck outta here! 75 yards? What's the hold over for that? 20 feet? That would be like lobbing morters.

A pistol is a defensive weapon. Why on Earth would one need to shoot one at 75 yards? I'm a pretty good shot, and with a Beretta 92 or an S&W M&P, it's all I can do to keep the bullets in a plate-sized group on the torso at the maximum distance of my local range (21 yards, IIRC). Unless you're the Lone Ranger (or Hickok45 on YouTube), a hit at 75 yards is going to be mostly a matter of luck.

A: "Yeah, he was 75 yards away, so I emptied my magazine in his direction."

B: "Did you hit him?"

A: "Yep, one shot nailed him dead center on the lower calf!"

B: "Look at you! Mr. Sniper!"

We pay for this with the military, we should expect to provide the same degree of training to law enforcement. For that matter, we train fire fighters in real buildings, so again, why don't police get the same level of situational training?

The department also had its own qualifications aside from the state POST, and that was to be able to hit (IIRC) the target (silhouette with 10% at 75 yards) under cover and prone position. The training consisted of mixing up the shots to the upper mass and head, this was to keep anyone from attaining any specific muscle memory during training, as well as dealing. The POST qualifications for the state didn't require 75 yards, the furthest was for the state POST 25 yards.

As above, that was under cover and prone position.

What's wrong with muscle memory?

To be fair, most law enforcement authorities are local and one way or the other trained for local needs. Chances are a county with 2,000 people do not need a Sheriff and two deputies with the training of a SWAT team.

To be fair, the proliferation of SWAT teams and the concurrent "militarization" of law enforcement agencies is one thing I've staunchly opposed for a number of years. If a city pays and trains a 10 million dollar SWAT team chances are they'll find occasions to use it.

You don't want to shoot say three times and stop, with the threat still active. Which is why we never trained with the same type of shot grouping or technique. We still would attain the muscle memory of actually firing, reloading, clearing jams, etc.. Even though it's been several years now, I still can use a firearm with the same skill and accuracy as well as reloading without the need to actually look down at the firearm (semi-auto).

However, we did have to follow the POST guidelines for qualification, which does have a specific number of shots, distances, and times.

At 75 yards, it would probably take me three or four magazines to zero in on the paper once or twice...even with a bench rest.

Gotta agree. 75 yards is crazy with a pistol. I'd go as far as to say unless the person you're trying to hit is right at that moment trying to set off a WMD you're being reckless with your firearm.

No kidding, I think it took me around 4-5 magazines to score a hit then the rest to score 11-12 out of 100 rounds.

Here's how that works - if someone is "suicidal" and has a weapon, they may harm others, in which case they could be "homicidal." You want to kill yourself, run the car exhaust into your window or jump off a tall building or something.

Here is an excellent video I just found a few minutes ago and watched. I'd recommend everyone watch it.

http://www.forcescience.org/hollywoodvsreality.html

Fucking city boys.......

Yeah it's city boys.....

Maybe you should read it.

It's more like city politicians.

For some reason, when shooting a pistol I've always been a better shot the farther the target is from me.

I used to regularly hit the back row of targets (about 50 meters) on Army pistol ranges, but would have a harder time hitting the closer ones. On a camping trip last Spring, I killed a cottonmouth that was swimming about 20 meters away (blew its head off), but missed one that was only a few feet from the shore.

So what your saying is that you need glasses to see but don't want to wear them?

NYPD is a big city department mostly run by red tape fiefdoms and bean counters.

Bolded for emphasis. What you are describing is text book overreaction. They didn't see a gun. They didn't mistake another object for a gun. They didn't even allow for the possibility of determining whether the suspect was a legitimate threat before opening fire. Let me be clear: A cop's highest priority should not be their own personal survival. They are there to serve the public. Firing wild shots into a crowd to eliminate a potential and undetermined threat is not in the public's interest. This incident is proof of that. What they did should be a crime.