Why shooting to wound doesn't make sense scientifically, legally or tactically
pfoa.co.ukThe New York Post has just reported that Brooklyn Assembly Members Annette Robinson [D.-Bedford Stuyvesant] and Darryl Towns [D.-East New York] have introduced a "minimum force" bill that would require officers to "shoot a suspect in the arm or the leg" and to use firearms "with the intent to stop, rather than kill."
This is what happens when people think TV and movies are an accurate representation of reality. Beyond the problem of police not getting enough firearms training in the first place, it just isn't possible to shoot anything other than center mass with any hope in hell of hitting with a handgun for the average officer.
This is almost as stupid as thinking a taser is non-lethal. Getting hit by a taser can kill people. New research into low lethality weapons for police would be great, but I'm not holding out much hope given the funding.
Perhaps we can stop with the fantasy and start concentrating on things like over use of SWAT, actual police oversight, and liability of the chain of command. On the other side, stop demonizing police before the facts are in.
Agreed. Been shooting in the military since 2006, and I just left the active duty Army after 5+ years. Was an Infantry Platoon leader...been to a bunch of shooting courses...This idea that you can "shoot to wound" is just not based in reality. Like, at all. Shoot someone in the leg, huh. Better not hit that femoral! They'll bleed out in ~2, maybe 3 minutes, depending. Better practice your tourniquet. Watch your background, too, because if you miss that leg/arm you don't wanna hit anything else that bleeds.
One thing I've noticed in watching videos of police recently is that they seem really quick to draw their weapons on a target.
Perhaps that's where we should start, with this assumption that citizens are constant, dynamic threats and that cops, when out on patrol, only exist in a constant high-threat environment. Idk. I'm not a cop, but this place has to be safer than Afghanistan.
"One thing I've noticed in watching videos of police recently is that they seem really quick to draw their weapons on a target."
That is what scares me along with the use of SWAT. I would love to have stats on drawn weapons per encounter through the year (yeah, pipe dream). I'm not sure its more frequent or we just have a ton more video. My brother had a gun drawn on him by a young highway patrol officer while he was stranded by the side of the road putting a new belt in his car. His first knowledge of the officer was hearing the clicking of the gun. He and the person with him (standing on the engine push down on the alternator with a 2x4 so they could slip the belt on) were not amused.
I agree that we should reconsider what situations call for the use of a SWAT team. But when that situation arises, it's perfectly reasonable for SWAT teams to always have their weapons drawn no?
Yep. It goes with the definition of what SWAT is supposed to do. The problem is using them to serve warrants and other non-emergency situations. SWAT was formed to deal with a bad situation normal police officers couldn't. Its evolved into a hammer that is overused.
Then you'll also know that part of the design of the NATO 5.56mm was to wound and not specifically kill.
Ehh IIRC, we made a trade off. Stopping power for accuracy. It was not designed to "wound". Actually, I'm not really sure how you'd go about "designing a round to wound".
Perhaps that what rubber pellets are.
Mostly it was to be cheap, though.
Agree. a better solution would be to just eliminate the firearm as standard issue. Most cops dont need to be armed to do their jobs.
How about loading the first round with blanks. Some times just the sound of the shot is enough to startle and stop a suspect. Shooting in the air would be an option too, but it could be a little problematic, as what goes up, must come down. The blank option would also give an officer a split second to maybe rethink his actions. And if the officer really needs to use lethal force, it's easy to quickly squeeze off 2 rounds, with the second one being the real deal.
No. From experience, the only other rounds that would go into my magazine were tracer rounds. Additionally, the mechanics of how these weapons work make that not possible.
Edit: Beyond the above, from a tactical perspective...just think through the game theory on that and you'll see why that would be unwise.
Hmm, I am no expert in guns. Is it not possible to use blanks in a standard automatic pistol? I have seen people use blanks in revolvers. Is it because a blank cartridge would be missing the bullet part, so it would be shorter? Just curious.
I suppose that logically speaking, if I know that most cops have a blank loaded as their first shot, logically, I shouldn't be startled by the first shot. But that said, an encounter like that is so traumatic, to both the officer and the suspect, that I hardly think any one in that situation is thinking very logically at the time of the encounter.
Automatics commonly work on recoil, sometimes on gas pressure. Without a bullet, recoil is less (see Newton's laws) and so is gas pressure (there's no temporary plug in the barrel). Most semi-auto pistols will not operate with blanks unless modified in a way that would make them incompatible with regular ammo.
Ah, interesting. Never mind then, stupid idea on my part :)
Pistols can use blanks quite happily, both revolvers and the semi-automatic pistol used by most as they use recoil.
I think the issue being raised here is rifles that make use of the pressurised gas produced by the bullet leaving the rifle... as there is nothing to retain the pressure it will not load the next.. Which is why they have 'Blank Firing Adapters' to create the pressure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blank-firing_adaptor
That sounds a bit too close to Russian roulette. What happens in the case where you really need to incapacitate rather than warn? But, no you have a blank in there.
This has a likelihood of being a nice idea which in practice makes things worse.
On the other hand, in Germany, dogs are used more widely to stop people who don't need the orders to halt.
That's a terrible idea. Now on top of an already stressful situation, the cop has to remember whether the round that is about to go off is a blank or not. Also if the suspect is quickly approaching the cop, the blank round would only serve to slow down the officer's reaction time.
Shooting to wound is absurd. However, keep in mind that Bill Lewinski is a pseudoscientist who makes his living justifying killings by police.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/us/training-officers-to...
No, it really isn't absurd. The German police do it very frequently.
http://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/polizeibericht/article205518...
... for some values of "very". German police don't shoot much at all.
That said I'm a former Norwegian King's Guard, and we were told to aim for the legs first if shooting was absolutely necessary. Admittedly, since we were shooting with 7.62mm NATO rounds at the time, a shot in the leg would basically be a very crude amputation. They use 5.56mm NATO now, but I bet getting hit in the leg is still not much fun. We were stationed at posts including the palace and the fortress, which are both in the centre of Oslo, so if you're really looking for trouble the threat is not academic. I've never heard of a guard firing at anyone since ww2 though (except themselves in suicide).
additional source consideration, pfoa.org.co.uk: Police Firearms Officers Association
The only instance in which an officer should ever be firing a weapon in the field is to stop a target that is posing an immediate and lethal threat. In that situation, shooting to kill would be perfectly justified.
Why can we not address and punish cops who think firing rounds into someone's back as they flee is acceptable instead of trying to mandate that they shoot an extremity (which they will undoubtably 'miss' in the 'heat of the moment' in favor of center mass)?
I honestly don't think anyone would disagree with those rules of engagement. The cops simply make errors of judgment. Bringing them to justice would be ideal, but it seems to be a case of some are more equal than others (esp. if you're in a powerful union).
More important, when they do miss, the bullet will keep going, possibly actually killing a bystander.
This all makes a very compelling case for "using firearms in an optimal way is outside the limits of human ability, so police should not use firearms." That's assuming your terminal value is not "police life matters more than any other consideration."
Indeed, perhaps we should aim to have weaponized drones following cops around that can precisely target weak points when the cop orders.
This article also makes a compelling case that when the necromorphs come, cops will be useless to protect humanity.
The real problem is that most officers have such minimal training and conditioning in hand-to-hand combat combat (specifically, grappling), and as a result they panic and shoot-to-kill much more often than they should, or use excessive force to control a suspect also resulting in unnecessary deaths.
Instead of passing stupid legislation (anyone who's used firearms extensively knows aiming for limbs is not realistic, you have to aim for center-mass), they should work on improving ongoing officer training and conditioning so that officers would feel much more comfortable controlling a suspect without killing them.
Why would a police officer ever risk his own life by engaging in hand-to-hand combat? If a situation arises that calls for hand-to-hand combat, then the police officer should probably either use a taser or gun right?
I've been training in a grappling sport (BJJ) for over 9 years. The advantage a trained person has over an untrained one is massive. Even someone who has been training a few months could easily handle an untrained person without anyone getting hurt.
You can see hundreds of videos out there of police shooting people without apparent just cause - just because they "felt threatened". If they had the confidence they could deal with a physical confrontation if needed, I'm certain the amount of unnecessary shootings would decrease significantly.
Would you risk your life by confronting an aggressive person in hand-to-hand combat if you had no knowledge whether he had a knife or gun on him?
Brit here. Is the 'stop or I'll shoot' thing a myth or does it actually happen in the US?
i.e. do police in the US shoot suspects when there is no threat other than the risk they will get away?
No. Well, they're not supposed to anyway. There's a cop in South Carolina being charged with murder[0] because he shot a fleeing suspect in the back. The only reason that officer is being charged is because someone caught it on video. Had it not been for that, he probably would not have been charged.
So yeah, I suppose it happens. But it's not legal.
[0] http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/06/08...
'probably'
> do police in the US shoot suspects when there is no threat other than the risk they will get away?
Yes, but the better question to ask is, "Do police shoot citizens who do not (or are not known to) pose an immediate threat?"
The answer is yes. Here's a recent murder, complete with two other officers attempting to cover it up:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/30/samuel-dubose...
It's also worth asking how so many citizens are able to "shoot themselves" while handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-teen-shot-self-in-head-wh...
I see that sort of incident in the news several times a year, and I can't possibly be seeing all of the reported incidents. There are just too many deaths for one person to keep up with:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc...
And those lists probably don't include suspicious deaths in police custody (squad cars, jail cells).
From Wikipedia:
Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 (1985)[1], was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that, under the Fourth Amendment, when a law enforcement officer is pursuing a fleeing suspect, he or she may not use deadly force to prevent escape unless "the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others."
Which to say, yes. Although I don't think there's actually a requirement to verbally warn them.
>> do police in the US shoot suspects when there is no threat other than the risk they will get away?
> he or she may not use deadly force to prevent escape unless "the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others."
> Which to say, yes. Although I don't think there's actually a requirement to verbally warn them.
Which is to say: not legally.
If you're running from a cop, you must be guilty. Right?
Which means you're a criminal; which means you're probably a serious threat to others.
It's a bit of a toothless ruling because it's about the cop's state of mind at-the-time which is damn hard to disprove, harder when it's a cop's word.
"If you're running from a cop, you must be guilty. Right?" - Guilty or not is for judge and jury to decide. So far the only charge will be "fleeing/evading the police".
"Which means you're a criminal" - you are not a criminal unless convicted.
"which means you're probably a serious threat to others." - 'probably' is the key word. Cops cannot shoot people because they are probably dangerous. "Probable cause to believe" is not the same as "probably".
Well I mean, it's kinda like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you are running from a cop, then you are evading the police, which is a crime.
> the officer has probable cause to believe..
"stop or I'll shoot" implies delay or warnings being given by police, which is a stretch.
April 4, 2015: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Walter_Scott
July 19, 2015: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Samuel_DuBose
In 1985 the Supreme Court ruled that police are allowed to use deadly force to stop a fleeing suspect only if they have "probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious bodily harm to the officer or others." It was soon tightened up to a standard of "objective reasonableness", so one can't simply "believe" in a threat.
Before 1985, using force, including lethal force, to stop a "fleeing felon" was accepted from common law--for any party, not just police. Lethal force would not be acceptable for minor or non-violent crimes. Doubtless the trope comes from practices pre-1985. I'd imagine the same provision of common law applied in the UK at one point, but I couldn't say when or how it stopped. Perhaps quite a long time ago.
Police and civilians also have legal justification for use of lethal force in defence of one's self or others from imminent use of deadly force (and usually other serious violent crimes like kidnapping or rape). Exactly how that line is drawn varies slightly; some states have a strong "duty to retreat" whenever possible, but most don't.
If the suspect is making advances towards the officer - even without a visible weapon - yes. The Tueller Drill [0] offers an explanation that few people seem to be aware of. A person 20ft/6m away is still dangerous. The issue is that a large amount of the public consider this a "safe, non-threatening" distance. Many people even think 6ft/2m is a safe distance because it is "outside of arm's reach".
At distances of ~5 meters the officer could be overpowered, wrestled to the ground, and have their own gun used to shoot them. So "unarmed" is a pathetic joke when people (and the media) use it as a synonym for "not dangerous".
Tueller Drill departs from the premise that you can only use your hand gun. This attitude is part of the problem. There is more to self-defense than wielding a hand gun. In certain situations, e.g., in a crowd of people, using a hand gun is definitely not a good idea. The notion of what distances is dangerous seems like a red herring; to me it only seems to prove that distance is not a very good indicator of what is threatening.
The number isn't plucked out of thin air and has some variance due to factors such as reaction speed and speed of the runner, but it's an average. 21 feet is a good "rule of thumb" but isn't an exact measurement of "safe distance". You could have a bit more distance - you could have less. It's a rule of thumb.
>Tueller Drill departs from the premise that you can only use your hand gun. This attitude is part of the problem.
TASER guns have a single shot. I wouldn't risk my life on me hitting my target in a single shot. Stunguns require proximity.
For pepperspray, would you bet your life on an 85% chance of something working? OC spray is not 100% effective and some people are straight up immune to the spray. AFAIK, humans are not immune to bullets.
I'd advocate for the use of the above non-lethals in reliable scenarios where the officer is concerned about possible escalation but does not yet feel to be in mortal danger. Which isn't many scenarios and draws into question if force was needed at all. Many non-lethal actions seem to be punished more than lethal actions, because "if force was necessary it should have only required lethal force if their life was in danger".
Which brings me back to the "legitimate danger" vs "public concept of danger" issue...
If you want more non-lethal options to be used, the justification of using them needs to be realistic - which involves educating the public on what is and isn't a dangerous/escalating scenario. I don't see that happening anytime soon, which is unfortunate.
Here's a video to illustrate this:
Yep. Watch the Walter Scott footage: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/shot-and...
I am really disturbed by the difference between the report filed and the video. I almost want to say that we need to start thinking about mandating video recording whenever deadly force is used... for example, the cops could deploy this thing whenever they were dealing with a suspect (although I'm sure its creators never intended for this particular use lol): The Lily Camera https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vGcH0Bk3hg
When I was 14 a cop drew a gun on me while I was running away and said, "Stop or I'll shoot".
Actually, I think it was, "Stop or I'll pop a cap in your ass!"
And? Did you stop?
EDIT: I had posted a link to the Walter Scott video, but others have posted more informative posts with better details and examples.
What exactly do you means by "there is no threat"?
IF someone is running by foot, he is not a threat to anyone, unless he is swinging a weapon of somekind. Shooting someone while fleeing is terrible in so many levels.
If he is running by foot at the officer, he is a threat. If he is running at another person, he is a threat. If he is running away, he is NOT a threat. Simply, "unarmed and running" is not enough information.
I think he means that a suspect does not have a weapon in hand but the officer still has a gun pointed at the suspect.
I get the feeling from talking to folks who were tribal police or reserves, that charging a police office will get you shot. Trying to take a weapon from a police officer will get you shot.
The answer is no sane officer is going to shoot a non-dangerous person. Although the nature of non-dangerous is the problem. Several cases (New Mexico) that should have been national outrages have gone unreported, but a case (Ferguson) that the final report said was justified were demonized (although the report does make some very valid points about the police department in general and should have been part of an investigation years before). How we keep ignoring the problems with flash bangs, I will never know.
1. Dead men tell no tales. 2. Aiming at smaller and easier to miss areas is a great way to introduce bullets to whatever is behind the intended target. 3. Getting shot is not a guarantee of a cessation of hostilities.
Maybe what's needed are better non-lethal weapons for police.
Or better training and actual accountability. It's not like cops use tasers judiciously and intelligently.
Tasers are not all that non-lethal :(
Police ought to be part of the community, rather than some external paramilitary force. Their behavior would then be modulated through social mechanisms.
Also an excellent point. The selling of non-lethal weapons has been a several-decades long exercise in manufacturers lying about the safety of those non-lethal weapons. Rubber bullets, tasers, it's all bullshit.
Possibly.
But, another name for “non-lethal weapon” is “cheap and effective compliance tool”.
With those, we risk making many forms of protest and civil disobedience difficult or impossible.
That's not an issue, as long as police act lawfully, and laws allow protest and civil disobedience.
> as long as police act lawfully
I knew, there is a glitch!
How about using electro-magnetic waves to alter the brain function temporarily and provoke it to lose consciousness? Sounds like a hard technical challenge, but we can already deliver effective tranquilisants remotely and use electrical discharge to disable the central nervous system. Just find a more efficient way of doing that.
Ideally you would want some kind of sci-fi weapon that shoots out some sort of impenetrable web/blanket that wraps around the criminal, holding them until you can safely handle them at a later point.
I like the sticky-slime approach. I first read that in Snow Crash. Targets get glued to themselves and anything they touch. There's an enzyme that quickly degrades the adhesive.
It's mind boggling that a centuries old weapon is a supposition for any problem, let alone such a terribly serious one. It's likely that dog catchers are more advanced in their approach.
I think this article misses the point of recent controversies, which have dealt with lethal force on unarmed suspects. If a suspect is armed, you probably don't want to shoot their legs and hope they drop their weapon. But if a seemingly unarmed suspect continues to run, or approach, it seems more than reasonable to not shoot to kill. Unless you are Judge Dredd.
The part of the article that seems to apply most to that to me is: " "Less-lethal options should be attempted only with tools designed for that purpose," Avery says. "If you deliberately use deadly force to bring people into custody without incapacitating them, you're using the wrong tool for that job."
Of course if it comes to shooting you have to shoot to kill. I think the problem is with too trigger happy cops that are too quick to pull their guns out and are not utilizing their tools to deescalate the situation. And yes sometimes deescalating means letting someone just get away temporarily if he only stole a pack of smokes.
As long as you allow the general public to carry firearms the police will have a hard time establish a power superiority in any stand of without the excessive use of firepower.
As this article talks about firing multiple rounds per encounter is the norm it nigh be worth pointing out that the whole German police fired less than 100 shots at person per year for the last decade. https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffengebrauch_der_Polizei_i...
It is unfair to quote that statistic. Germany has one of the strictest gun control laws in the world and one needs to give a reason for owning a gun and self-defense is not an accepted reason: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_legislation_in_Germany
Given that it is harder for an individual to obtain a gun, it naturally makes it less often that the German police will need to discharge their weapon.
It seems obvious that this plays a role, but I expect a large proportion of guns to be illegally owned, so repealing the 2nd amendment won't magically solve the problem (and it seems unproductive to try either way). I think the fundamental problem is fear, whether justified or not, it's what causes cops to react with disproportional violence.
Remember one of the reasons police officers are 'militarized' these days are events like the North Hollywood shootout, where cops didn't have body armor and used small-caliber revolvers. They were simply out-gunned by two bank robbers with assault rifles and 11 police officers and 7 civilians ended up getting shot.
Maybe, I am from a different planet, but sometimes I heard, that police should protect people, but currently some policemen are more caring about protecting themselves -- and they are trained exactly that way.
This at least, as an European, goes threw my mind, when I read such descriptions and some news from unarmed people shot into the back.
Why does it not make sense that the police should be trained on how to protect themselves? Also EU gun control laws are stricter than in the US so that is why maybe your police force will be nice and not expect everyone to own a gun.
They should protect themselves, but not protect themselves and forget to protect others. So, they become a part of the problem.
Even, when you expect everybody to have guns, it does not justify shooting others into the back.
I never mentioned anything about shooting others in the back.
But I did and that is what is happening. And just keeping quiet about it, does not make it better.
Someone needs to invent a "shoot to incapacitate" weapon (that is not a Taser).
That said... we have the technology, today, to make a gun that automatically targets, in a split second and with high accuracy, the arms and legs (and any other part) of a person. So why don't we just do that?
1. Did you just not describe a taser?
2. Where is this weapon?
1) I specifically said not a Taser. A Taser has a number of negatives- short range, need for both contacts to penetrate adequately, small chance of death of subject
2) I do not know of one that exists, but I am sure that one is possible with today's technology. Perhaps I should gather a team and build it
My point exactly is there is no other practical or efficient weapon available or else one would be made already.
I wonder how the London police manage to keep order without carrying guns ?
Because western European cities are vastly less violent: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/lets-hold-off-cel....
Baltimore, where I live, has 25x the per-capita murder rate of London. Chicago has 13x the murder rate. New York, the safest large city in the country, has 3x the murder rate.
B-more the city that bleeds.(I live there too) That said, the murders usually occur in the same bad areas over and over. If you live in a good area, you notice it only on the evening local news.
I don't get the connection, it's not cops being killed at a higher rate.
Because outside of rural areas guns and permits are extremely hard to come by, so the cops don't need to presume a threatening person has a high likelihood of having a gun.
Because the general public isn't expected to be armed with firearms either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangs_in_the_United_KingdomThere are several armed criminal gangs in London.
Sounds like a strawman. Who advocates shooting people just to wound them? Why not shoot to disable a threat?
People who don't like the idea of police shooting someone not just a few times but a few dozen or hundreds of times.
When the police seem to abuse their power by shooting many, many more times than is necessary it's natural for people to ask what can be done to restore a bit of balance between the police and the public.
http://ktla.com/2015/05/23/cleveland-officer-michael-brelo-f...
Sorry, I'm discussing the nomenclature: "shoot to wound". It sounds like something someone would do as torture. Why shoot to wound someone? To what end? Just to cause them pain?
However, there would seem to be something worth considering in a "shoot to disable" policy, as opposed to a "shoot to kill" policy.
No, call it what it is. I think "shoot to wound" is the correct way to describe it.
"shoot to disable" sounds too abstract, as if guns were something other than machines designed to puncture human flesh with bits of metal, with the express purpose of causing pain, injury and possibly death. Wounding and killing are pretty much the only settings that guns have.
Yeah that makes a lot more sense! Thanks for clarifying.
Well this is obviously a biased piece; that may explain the unflattering phrasing.
Perhaps the solution to police killings is to disarm the police. The current default--police have weapons and can use them as they see fit--seems not to be working.
Some of the HN comments have observed that it's not only the police that need to be disarmed, it is the populace as a whole.
Gun violence seems to be so deeply ingrained into the American psyche that the Congress has found it necessary to pass a law preventing the Center for Disease Control from studying the epidemic of violence. See, for example, http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2013/02/gun-violence.as... and elsewhere. People get so worked up about this issue when they fear their guns will be taken away that they will not support anything which will help mitigate the violence. So much for rational thought.
US police have 2nd Amendment rights like anyone else, so that seems unlikely.
Does it really work that way? Police men should not be able to use any kind of weapon on the job other than the ones they've been assigned.
I'm not a cop or a lawyer, but I can imagine a situation in which people could be expected to sometimes shoot at the cops but the cops weren't allowed to shoot back would meet with a supreme court challenge sooner or later.
That would never work with the amount of gun ownership in America. People wield guns against cops hundreds if not thousands of times a year. Imagine if criminals knew the cops wouldn't have a gun.
This is a problem with the gun violence issue as a whole. The use of guns is absurdly high across the board.
Do you think this is actually a viable solution given how easy it is for somebody to obtain a firearm in the US?