Once having a rep for some of the sloppiest marksmanship in Christendom, the NYPD had spent brazillions of dollars on training for its officers and by all accounts, both publicized and anecdotal, it appeared to be paying off, with such notable successes as
that one detective who batted 1.000 on the dude with a malf'ed TEC-9 (or whatever it was) in front of a crowded Times Square hotel lobby.
And then you get
the clown show at the Empire State Building the other day.
Come on, Bloomberg: Step in front of a camera and tell us how only the police have the training and professionalism to handle a pistol. Maybe you could do it in front of a scrolling backdrop of the hospital bills you're going to be paying because The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight went cyclic on a city street.
That's gotta suck for Bloomie. What appeared to be an ideal soapbox for a
little blood-dancing national conversation on how America's lax gun laws are hurting Mike's fat-free, sugar-free, low sodium gun-free paradise turns into a national conversation on why the hell can't Mike's cops shoot?
If a New York concealed carry licensee had stopped a murderer, (and there are some: let's say it's Bill O'Reilly)....but shot nine extra innocent bystanders, can you imagine how arrested, charged, sued, savaged in the press, et, et they would be?
ReplyDeleteTwo things I want to know...
ReplyDeleteDid the officers have Tasers? (hindsight & whatnot)
Has NYPD reverted back to FMJ ammo to cut costs? (this is only a guess)
MSJ,
ReplyDelete1) Regular NYPD patrol officers aren't issued Tasers, to the best of my knowledge. (Not that I'd expect anyone to tase somebody who was pointing a gun at them.)
2) Again, not as far as I know.
Based on the video, one officer was using two hands, but his buddy was channeling his inner Hopalong Cassidy by using the "cowboy snapping" technique. Guess who my money says got the hits and who got the misses (and misters).
ReplyDeleteJust a thought (I am in a armchair, Monday morning quarterback and all that) if the suspected shooter is walking away through a large crowd but not threatening or brandishing his weapon, why not just follow the guy to a better location for the OK corral shoot em up? The NYC cops have radios still? I use the same logic when it comes to high speed pursuit in high traffic areas, why do it? Most times they have enough info to find the driver parked somewhere later without killing others on the road.
ReplyDeleteThe best that I can tell, it was the "two-hander" firing left handed that had a crowd behind the target. The "one hander" was firing from a different angle.
ReplyDeleteBut I don't know where the victims were standing when hit.
http://youtu.be/OZFgBGqAwGQ
Perhaps this explains the purchase of 6 million rounds of ammo for "training"
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 10:56,
ReplyDelete"Perhaps this explains the purchase of 6 million rounds of ammo for "training""
What's with the scare quotes? I damned well hope they bought more than six million rounds.
That's less than 175 rounds per uniformed officer. What are they supposed to shoot after lunch on Training Day One?
Jim Cirillo weeps.
ReplyDeleteGerry
Gerry,
ReplyDelete...and Pat Rogers cusses. ;)
I just wonder if this will help or hurt our side of things...how long before the spin is 'if we didn't have guns on the street, our police wouldn't have to carry icky guns'.
ReplyDeleteThen we could call them Bobbies and Constables!
From what I read in one of the stories, these guys were 15 year Veterans. That tells me that they probably have spent more time watching "How to Be Politically Correct" Training Films than Trigger Time at the range.
ReplyDelete12# or whatever the hell NYPD triggers are don't help any. Imagine the Hits-On-Nonthreats they'd have in an IDPA match.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Bloomie can hire this guy to train the NYPD how to shoot?
ReplyDeleteInstead of this guy: FBI agent shoots self
ReplyDeletejf
jf,
ReplyDeleteLee Paige is (was?) a DEA Agent.
Those officers certainly made the decision early about whether their safety or the safety of the people on the street was more important. They go with officer safety, every time. The heck with the poor sheeple standing around.
ReplyDeleteWhats all the fuss, as long as they followed procedures, their covered by sovereign immunity. Isn't that whats important?
ReplyDeleteRemember, Police carry guns to protect themselves, not to protect you.
ReplyDeleteWhy then do many departments have on their squad cars "to serve and protect"?
ReplyDeleteWhat concerns me is the high round count with, as I understand, an 80% miss rate. Center hits stop critters. Center hits end shootings/gunfights. Misses, one way or another, whether the cops claim immunities or not, create liabilities. Spray and pray... And they call us unprofessional.
The cars haven't been updated to reflect the change in mission focus of the past 3 decades or so.
Delete@Mustanger: "Why do police cars have "to serve and protect" painted on them?" thas' called false advertisin' by Gummint, Bubba! B-)
DeleteGRASSHOPPER !
ReplyDeleteWHAT HAPPENED TO ZEN MARKSMANSHIP ?
Well lets see; Ya got Cops who, train twice a year with glocks. Qual.ONCE a year.AND.Holy Shit Batman THEY CAN'T HIT SHIT. But, they Can pull the trigger till every man/woman/child is down.This kind of panic shooting has become common with cops nation wide. Piss poor training caused by budget cuts,is leading to Fat ,Stupid , poorly trained cops with very poor skills and huge numbers of M-16s, glocks and shotguns.Its only gonna get worse.
ReplyDeleteLack of training, 12# tirggers, and panic reduced them to stem memory (e.g. pull trigger till empty) and hope to hell they hit the target!
ReplyDeleteOnly a dozen attaboys? My experience with both suggest that you might have misquoted by about a factor of five.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/nyregion/bystanders-shooting-wounds-caused-by-the-police.html
ReplyDelete"The police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, confirmed on Saturday that all nine were wounded by police bullets, bullet fragments or shrapnel from ricochets. Mr. Kelly also confirmed that the shooter, Mr. Johnson, never fired another shot after killing a former co-worker, Steven Ercolino, moments earlier."
Early reports said that surveillance video released showed the shooter pointing his gun at the cops, but that the video was inconclusive as to whether he shot
As an awful postscript:
ReplyDeleteAt the range today was a police officer getting ready for some quals this week.
Granted, he was a young ex-.mil guy fresh out of the academy, shooting a Glock 27, but his bullets were kicking up dust clouds ten yard out with his target on the seven yard line.
I felt bad for him and all, and wandered over with the intent of offering a helpful tip or two, but I'm just a simple civilian... :(
I think we can reduce the NYPD collateral damage rate by removing their guns, and issuing them one (1) fragmentation grenade each.
ReplyDeleteIt couldn't be worse.
New York Times says nine shots missed the perp. Nine bystanders were hit. What are the chances?
ReplyDeleteA close acquaintance of mine at city that shall not be named, ( to protect the innocent) leaves the range when the local police show up to practice.
ReplyDeleteI quote: "Life is too short as it is to spend time on a range where the "trained police" are acting in a fashion that would get anyone else kick off until they had verified SAFETY training, much less observing their utter inability to hit (their own) targets at ranges where most new-to-handguns people can be taught to hit in a few minutes."
In the PD's modest defense there are several VERY good shooters there, but their line guys terrifyingly bad.
It seems that the NYPD shooters broke 3 of the 4 rules of gun safety. And it reminds me of what Clint Smith says about people that pooh pooh the rules in combat: the rules were designed for combat. They keep you from doing stupid things like shooting your own guy or, ahem, shooting bystanders. It doesn't matter if these jerks had enough training to be good shots or not. If they had obeyed the 4 rules, their lousy marksmanship wouldn't have harmed anyone.
ReplyDeleteBravo! As usual.
ReplyDeleteBy crazy random happenstance, I learned this news while deflating my air mattress in the home of the one and only Lawdog. I'll leave the interchange to your imagination.
ReplyDeleteTo Serve and Protect?
To Serve their own best interests
To Protect their own A$$.
What's REALLY scary is how NON-Dynamic this shooting was. All three shooters were simply standing their ground and doing their thing until it was over (minus the officer who did do the smart thing of back off and angle-up on the shooter).
ReplyDeleteFor the closer officer this was LITERALLY what the easiest stage of the NYPD qualifier was. Stationary target, 7 yards (actually a bit less for both from my view. Looks like 8 and 15 feet for the officers).
Many moons ago I took a job as a night watchman at a bank. Since my only handgun at the time was a C-96 (I swear I'm not making this up) I bought a not-very-much-used Model 15 and a couple speedloaders.
ReplyDeleteMy reasoning went thus: My job consists of babysitting an empty 10-story building. If I need more than six shots and two reloads to reduce any threat I'm likely to encounter on the job, either
1) I should be running away and calling the police
2) I have no business owning a firearm in the first place.
There was a mandatory one-day class where we learned company policy and the law in Indiana regarding lethal force. It was a good class, taught by a good instructor, and I felt like my time was well-spent.
There were five of us, and I was the only one with a wheelgun; everyone else had autos, some very nice. The instructor inspected each sidearm, and I noticed that his approval of mine was different from his approval of the others.
After lunch we went to qualify at an indoor range. One of the trainees was a Gary cop. Because of my revolver, all the training was limited to six-shot strings. First iteration was slow-fire, full-sized silhouette at 7 feet. On the command "Fire" I shot three "controlled pairs," double-staging the trigger for each shot. My string was around 3 inches' diameter - it would have been much better had I been allowed to shoot single-action (the Model 15 is spooky accurate), but the instructor insisted on double-action only and it was his range and his rules.
I looked to the lane next to me and saw the fellow had about a 5-inch group. So on down the line until I looked at the target in Lane 1, which was a Gary cop. It only had 5 holes in it.
From 7 feet.
To this day I'm completely mystified as to how you can miss at 7 feet.
gvi
Actualy, I'm surprised both officers didn't go to slide lock. . .
ReplyDeleteNYC isn't part of Christendom.
ReplyDeleteI'm just sayin'. ;)
mariner: So it's OK to use crossbows there on the natives?
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised NEITHER officer went to slide lock. The official round count doesn't empty either magazine - 7 from one officer and 9 from the other.
ReplyDeleteI'll be the contrarian. Two officers identify and confront a man who just murdered a guy. The goblin pulls out the self-same 1911he just used to kill said guy. Officers react. Presumably the goblin would not have yanked the 1911 unless he intended to use it on the officers. One officer has some concealment with the planter and some cover with the planter box beneath it. The other officer, who some have criticized for shooting one handed, moves off to his left. This increases the angle, divides the target from the goblins perspective and makes cover for the bad guy hard to find. Seems like very good tactics under great stress. While moving to his left, shooting one handed with the right hand is not only instinctive one might properly argue it gives him an advantage - although unquestionably usually not the most stable shooting position. But for a right handed shooter, moving smartly to the left and shooting to the right is awkward and the element of 'stable' suffers. Also, I haven't heard much concern about the effect of the bad guy's shooting on the civilian population if he'd been given the chance to empty his magazine.
ReplyDeleteI, for one won't second guess these officers. I see some good tactics in a dangerous field. Easy to quarterback when no one's getting ready to shoot you.
Jeff S.
Jeff S.,
ReplyDeleteI'm not criticizing the necessity of shooting the guy: They had every reason to drop the guy in his tracks.
BUT! There is no amount of whitewashing that will make hitting nine bystanders look like good shooting.
It's pretty sad that we've come to the point of thinking, "I'm just glad the cops didn't KILL any of the bystanders."
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, the original shooter hit his target with every shot, and wounded no bystanders.
ReplyDeleteTam,
ReplyDeletecan't find recent data. Has the NYPD switched from ball to HP? I'm pretty sure they were issued ball when they originally switched to Glocks, etc.
Lots of rock fragment injuries to the bystanders. I'm guessing people standing next to the building walls.