So, do y'a think excessive force was used?
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Oh yeah, I heard the verdict here today. It's a very complex case, more than I care to elaborate on right now.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
At the very least that's unprofessional and reckless behaviour. Even if the guy was armed, it only takes one bullet to put a man down and keep him there. If you have to reload while shooting someone that isn't firing back, that's usually a clue you're doing something wrong.
Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
Yeah, that's what gets me. I can understand maybe, unloading your weapon once in the whole adrenaline rush, but reloading and emptying it again is a whole 'nother thing. The NYPD is generally armed with Glock 17 9mm's, with a 15-17 round magazine, so this guy fired between 30 and 34 consecutive rounds. And the guy who was shot in the shoulder, at near point blank range? I can understand that, but when the cop put 4 more rounds in him, along with the 11 others that his buddies pumped into the poor guy...
Around here, cops get suspended for giving 15 year old crime scene footage to the media, but cops in NYC get off of firing 50 rounds at 3 men.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
As someone who's not really that up on firearms, does semi-automatic mean you have to squeeze the trigger every time you want to discharge a round (as opposed to automatic which will continue to fire as long as the trigger is depressed)?
Either way, it takes alot to fire that many rounds, but they did say the police thought they were under fire. You would think they would be a tad more coordinated than that, but if they thought they were being fired at by the people in the car, they may have felt justified in going all in.
I was comforted to see that Al Sharpton is involved. That will no doubt bring dignity and reason to the situation. (end sarcasm)
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Aban:
Yes.
Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
Semi-Auto means the weapon requires you to pull the trigger to fire a round which discharges the weapon, ejects the spent shell casing and loads the next round into the breach. You must then release the trigger and pull it again to fire the next round.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
Whereas automatic is a simple point-and-click interface. ....Sorry.
Yeah, I think upon hearing "he reloaded the gun and emptied it again" if I was on the jury I'd just go ahead and vote guilty. Cuz in my opinion even if that poor guy *had* a gun, uhh, that's a bit of overkill for chrissakes. During the reloading you really out to be able to notice whether or not there is return fire coming at you. But I get the impression they don't bother to teach cops to tell a wallet from a gun in NYC so maybe they're just badly trained.
Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
Or, maybe they are taught 18th century fighting tactics- " Boys, put as much lead in the air as possible, and you might hit something once or twice"-or 16 times.
Anyway, if you really look at it, only that one cop who reloaded used "overkill" tactics. He accounts for at most 34 of the bullets fired, and for the other 3 cops there, that would make five rounds each, which is a more normal number in this type of situation.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Yah... I can see unloading once if you thought people were shooting. But during the reload, you'd think he would've noticed that nobody was shooting anymore. The other guys only fired 11 and 4 times, right? That's less that a clip each. They wouldv'e been done long before he started in on clip number 2.
But hey... I've never been under fire. Of course, it doesn't look like these guys were either.
Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
You ever seen the vid clip of the Ohio shootout between the Keyhoe brothers, and a police officer? Both the brother and the cop emptied their guns at ten feet, and failed to hit anything. I'm sure somebody can find the video somewhere.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
quote:Originally posted by Aban Rune: Yah... I can see unloading once if you thought people were shooting. But during the reload, you'd think he would've noticed that nobody was shooting anymore. The other guys only fired 11 and 4 times, right? That's less that a clip each. They wouldv'e been done long before he started in on clip number 2.
But hey... I've never been under fire. Of course, it doesn't look like these guys were either.
Like I said, at best it's criminal incompetence. I don't care how scary it was or threatened they felt, they're supposed to be trained professionals. Not to make this an issue about Americans in general but living where I do, I've spoken with a fair few squaddies just come back from the Iraq or Afghanistan and allot of them have commented at just how crazy and jumpy the Yank soldiers are out there (their words, not mine.) You'd think it's mostly down to a difference in training, I mean some of our lot have decades of experience at this sort of soldiering in Northern Ireland but I've even heard the 19 year old kiddies say the same thing. One story that stuck in my mind was this tankie bloke who said that some of the yanks tear around on patrol with thrash metal (or something similarly angry) blaring away to (in their words I'm told) pump themselves up and that he'd heard stories of American soldiers just loosing their rag and shooting at nothing in particular. I'm not sure how much of this is true, while speaking to any squaddie there's often an element of the bullshit involved, however, the accounts I have heard from different people are reasonably consistent. The reason I bring this up here is because this shooting in NY reeks to be of a panicked reaction with supposedly trained professionals acting out of their emotional state rather than their mental state. I say that because if it was a knee jerk reaction to what they thought was a weapon it would have been BANG, one bullet, perp goes down. Here they clearly just bricked themselves and opened up on the guy until he stopped twitching or the red mist cleared. I wonder if the state of national paranoia you government put you lot through in the years right after 9/11 is starting to put a strain on the national psyche.
As for this case, I hope it can go to appeal as the judgement really needs to be overturned. Just from a public relations standpoint it's a disaster for the NYPD to allow these men to get off on what amounts to manslaughter due to incompetence. If they were private citizens, I guarantee they'd be on a murder charge.
Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
Posted by Reverend-
"I've spoken with a fair few squaddies just come back from the Iraq or Afghanistan and allot of them have commented at just how crazy and jumpy the Yank soldiers are out there (their words, not mine.) You'd think it's mostly down to a difference in training, I mean some of our lot have decades of experience at this sort of soldiering in Northern Ireland but I've even heard the 19 year old kiddies say the same thing."
And a lot of our troops grew up at around the same time as Mr Butler, and have seen way too many action movies. They fail to understand that the M-16 had the full auto feature removed for a reason. And anyway, American soldiers have always been jumpy. It's to what degree they can controll it and let their training take over.
I think a jumpy cop is actually good, as they are so paranoid that they notice everything. I have no problem with the NYPD employing such people, my only complaint is that they shouldn't give them Glocks. The ONLY physical saftey is built into the trigger. If I ever do decide to become a cop, I refuse to carry a Glock. I prefer Sig Sauer pistols. I think the BPD lets you choose your firearm though.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Nooooo...a "jumpy cop" is NOT a good thing. Holy shit- anyone with a firearm should neither be jumpy nor paranoid- here in sunny Fort Lauderdale, cops sometimes rest their hands on the butt of their guns as they talk to you- out of reflex. That's scary shit.
Most cops would never pull the kind of crazed response these NYC cops used- the police department runs cops through obstacle courses with those pop-up targets for a reason: so the cops wont shoot first and make excuses later.
It seems like the cops thought a drug deal was going on and went ballistic (no pun intended)- the real scary thing is, they might have been conditioned or coached to shoot first to protect their own safety before asking questions (or, you know, restraining someone to the ground, tasering the suspect, calling for backup, etc.).
Another nail driven into the public's preception of law enforcment.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
I agree with Reverend about our troops and cops. It seems like it started in Vietnam - hell with the cool-calm-and-collected stuff, shit bricks and fire! I don't care if it's a schoolchild, kill it!!! Not that I'm trying to minimize the really terrible conditions the soldiers in 'nam were under, it just seems like in WWII our soldiers weren't like that...and now they are.
Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
That's mainly because the troops thought that Vietnam would be like the stories that WWII and Korean war vets told them. It was a whole different type of war. I'd much rather have fought in WWII, where most of the time, you knew who was what, where the enemy were, and you knew that the Germans and Japaneese would stand and fight. Vietnam, you weren't sure whether you would be impaled by a pungee stick, or dissappear in the explosion of a grenade whose trip whire you just stepped on, or ripped apart by a blast of AK-47 rounds during an ambush. The NVC and Viet Cong didn't stay and fight. THey would pop out of nowhere, and dissappear as soon as possible. Not knowing where your enemy is can be a huge bust to morale. That might make a soldier jumpy. It's similar to the conditions faced in Iraq.
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
Don't lets get into war. We badly bungled Vietnam. Stop me if this sounds familiar, but "we never should have gone in there..." However, we muffed it in two key points.
We were actually accomplishing somethign when it was just special forces slipping in, assimilating the native dress, lingo, and habits, and using the VC's tactics against them. It was when they were pulled out and the regular Army was sent in that everything went to shit.
And second, we tried to fight a limited war there. Any student of military history knows that that's a one-way ticket to moral defeat and eventual quagmire. Total war or GTFO.
I would agree with the police issues raised -- not enough training, too many action movies, and limited (if any) early education in respect for and handling of a firearm and/or warrior ethic.
--Jonah
Posted by Da_bang80 (Member # 528) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sean: I think a jumpy cop is actually good, as they are so paranoid that they notice everything. I have no problem with the NYPD employing such people, my only complaint is that they shouldn't give them Glocks. The ONLY physical saftey is built into the trigger. If I ever do decide to become a cop, I refuse to carry a Glock. I prefer Sig Sauer pistols. I think the BPD lets you choose your firearm though.
NO, no, no, no.
A jumpy cop is NOT good. The last time I got pulled over on my bike the damn cop pointed his gun at me. He claimed he thought I'd run on him, but c'mon, he had a fucking gun on me for a traffic stop. That might sound a little crazy but it's actually quite common in some parts of the country that have problems with bikers running. Not saying it doesn't happen, but I would not want to go through that again. Jumpy, paranoid people and guns do not mix, are you off your fucking rocker dude?
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Even if you did run, what was he going to do? Shoot you? I'm pretty sure that's a murder charge right there.
And, I don't mean to defend the cops in the New York case in any way, but, to those who are saying it only takes one bullet to put someone down : Remember that it was 4 a.m., and the victims were inside a car. You could fire one shot, but you'd have, I think, quite a bit of trouble seeing whether you'd hit anyone or not.
Posted by Da_bang80 (Member # 528) on :
Yeah, I doubt he actually would have shot me if I did try. But the fact that I actually pulled over and turned the bike off should have given him the notion that I wasn't going to run.
Cop or not it's still pretty unnerving to have a gun pointed at you.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
quote:Originally posted by TSN: Even if you did run, what was he going to do? Shoot you? I'm pretty sure that's a murder charge right there.
Yeah, but would you be willing to bet your life the prat is clever enough to know that? I mean, he was stupid enough to pull his gun on a traffic offence in the first place.
quote:Originally posted by Sean: That's mainly because the troops thought that Vietnam would be like the stories that WWII and Korean war vets told them. It was a whole different type of war. I'd much rather have fought in WWII, where most of the time, you knew who was what, where the enemy were, and you knew that the Germans and Japaneese would stand and fight. Vietnam, you weren't sure whether you would be impaled by a pungee stick, or dissappear in the explosion of a grenade whose trip whire you just stepped on, or ripped apart by a blast of AK-47 rounds during an ambush. The NVC and Viet Cong didn't stay and fight. THey would pop out of nowhere, and dissappear as soon as possible. Not knowing where your enemy is can be a huge bust to morale. That might make a soldier jumpy. It's similar to the conditions faced in Iraq.
Ok, that's hysterical coming from a Yank. You do know that half the reason you won your revolutionary war against us is precisely because your militias resorted to guerilla tactics, yes? Our (admittedly slightly thick) generals were stuck in a mindset of "civilised warfare". That's pre-arranged battles, agreements between gentlemen and all that, then all of a sudden the smelly colonials start doing hit and runs, sniping officers and all sorts of unsporting behaviour instead of "standing and fighting". So belive it or not, your founding fathers were terrorists of a kind. You can't expect an enemy to behave as if you're on equal footing when you have them out numbered and/or out gunned. They are going to fight any way they can and if they means planting roadside bombs, taking pot shot from behind the bushes or stoning the enemy to death then that's what they're going to do. Doubly so if you happen to be invaliding their homes. As far as the continuing problems in Iraq goes, half the problem is that American soldiers like to live in a kevlar lined bubble and their idea of public relations is handing out pixie sticks and plastic flip flops to children. They need to loose the helmets and start doing two man patrols on foot rather than tearing around en mass in humvees in full armour, heavy machine guns and mirrored sunglasses.
As for how things were different in WWII, according to my grandmother (who was a nurse at the time) they were an bunch of arrogant swaggering aresholes then too. Though I'm sure most of the ones that fit that description were new recruits and replacements. That kind of war has a way of weeding out the idiots. I think I also remember something about having to restrict which pubs the yanks could go in in Southampton. Mostly to separate the white Americans from the black ones as otherwise (so I'm told) they'd actually start knifing each other.
Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
Yeah, that occasionally happened when alcohol was involved. And some people were pissed when the army was integrated back in the early fifties.
I remember my great uncle telling me something that he overheard a british soldier saying at a fancy dinner once. "They're over sexed, over paid, and over here", but he was a bit senile when he told me of it, so I am questioning whether the guy actually said that. My uncle was an aide to general Patton, so he got to accompany him to some of the more high class functions of war, like fancy dinners.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
I fully note that our founding fathers *were* terrorists. No "of a kind" added. They were British citizens who overthrew the government with guerrilla tactics. What else would you call that? Still, I don't *think* the British resorted to the slaughter of civilians, did they? I mean, in Iraq, we tended to "oops, bombed another grade school" or "crap, that was a hospital, not a military target."
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
quote:Originally posted by Reverend: Ok, that's hysterical coming from a Yank. You do know that half the reason you won your revolutionary war against us is precisely because your militias resorted to guerilla tactics, yes? Our (admittedly slightly thick) generals were stuck in a mindset of "civilised warfare". That's pre-arranged battles, agreements between gentlemen and all that, then all of a sudden the smelly colonials start doing hit and runs, sniping officers and all sorts of unsporting behaviour instead of "standing and fighting". So belive it or not, your founding fathers were terrorists of a kind.[/QB]
For years, I've been noting the irony ("The ironing...it is DELICIOUS!") of the VC doing to to American troops what American troops did to the British regulars. It's hard to win a war when you wear nice bright red coats, walk in a straight line chanting "SHOOT ME!", & stop for tea & biscuits every day at 1630. What that happens and your enemy likes to pop out of forests at all hours, knows the local terrain better than you, & has a diet of hardtack & squirrel meat...well.
Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
I had some hardtack once, during a civil war demonstration at my school. Not something I'm sure I want to repeat.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
We did something similar at our school. But we had hardtack, black coffee with molasses (made in a percolator no less), and grits. Eeewrrugh. Although the hardtack of the civil war was so hard I hear they had to smash it with the butts of their guns to crack it into bite-sized pieces.
Posted by Da_bang80 (Member # 528) on :
You guys should try bannock, it's actually pretty good.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
I have wikied it and decided it sounds tasty.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sean: Yeah, that occasionally happened when alcohol was involved. And some people were pissed when the army was integrated back in the early fifties.
I remember my great uncle telling me something that he overheard a british soldier saying at a fancy dinner once. "They're over sexed, over paid, and over here", but he was a bit senile when he told me of it, so I am questioning whether the guy actually said that. My uncle was an aide to general Patton, so he got to accompany him to some of the more high class functions of war, like fancy dinners.
Uh, Sean, I think you'll find that was Chicken Run. Mind you I think it was a known phrase of the day. Believe it or not, you lot weren't seen to be coming to out rescue (as I'm you've been taught) but just turning up late as usual.
Oh and did your great-uncle tell you if Patton was as big a prat as he looked?
quote:Originally posted by Daniel Butler: I fully note that our founding fathers *were* terrorists. No "of a kind" added. They were British citizens who overthrew the government with guerrilla tactics. What else would you call that? Still, I don't *think* the British resorted to the slaughter of civilians, did they? I mean, in Iraq, we tended to "oops, bombed another grade school" or "crap, that was a hospital, not a military target."
I'd call them revolutionaries. You're only a terrorist if you loose. As for any collateral damage back then, if there were any I'm sure it was quite intentional, given it would have been rather difficult to accidentally blow up a school with the weapons they had back then. At most you're going to get the odd stray cannon ball, but for the most part so long as the civilians stayed away from the battle they'd be ok. Of course if that battle was in the middle of their own town they might have to stay away for a while and may or may not have a home left when they came back.
I have to say though, collateral damage isn't the main thing the American armed forces are known for in terms of military whoopsies. It's friendly fire. I've heard the same thing from British, Canadian and Australian soldiers that they'd much rather have the enemy in front of them than have the Americans behind them. Case in point a few years back we lost a couple of local lads because their (clearly marked) tank column was bombed by an American A-10...and after he made eye contact with the tank commander, he apparantly circled around and bombed them again. Arsehole. I mean it's not like he was skimming the upper atmosphere (where I'm told most USAF pilots like to hide) and misidentified a target with a heat seeker or something. A-10s are low altitude, slow and bloody noisy things. How you can mistake a British tank column for an Iraqi one I'll never know. You can imagine what that dose for troop moral. Better to have a clever enemy than a stupid ally.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sean: I had some hardtack once, during a civil war demonstration at my school. Not something I'm sure I want to repeat.
Wash it down with home-stilled whiskey. It make all brain cells go lie down.
Hereabouts, the courts (finally after three years litigation) have setteled lawsuits over the Fort Lauderdale Police Department's policy of strip searching anyone arrested (even for traffic violations) or even held for questioning. Often several strip searches were required of women in an eight hour incarceration. Thousands of people are entitled to $1000 in settlement money. The sheriff that made the policy (Ken Jenne) had to testify from his prison cell (he's away for a few on unrelated charges of extortion, coercion and kickbacks).
Also newsworthy, one of Mirimar's county commisioners goes to trial next month- he pulled a .45 on someone for not having used the self-service checkout at the supermarket (thus making him late on tahnksgiving eve last year). You can YouTube that video of Fitzroy salesman. Hi-Larious.
Seriously guys, can law enforcment and government in general sink any lower?
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Well at least they're being stupid. I'd hate to think what'd happen if they were clever and behaved like that.
Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
Reverend, my uncle said that Patton had a strange sense of humor, and scared him a little bit sometimes. I've heard the phrase used before, like on the History Channel, but to hear him say that he actually heard someone say it..
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
Jason: Oh yes. Haven't you read 1984? Or, well, any dystopian novel? Posted by Da_bang80 (Member # 528) on :
Is The Chrysalids a dystopian novel? I remember reading that in school and it was pretty bizarre. Oh, and there was one book I read where the Ford Motor Co. ruled the world and everyone walked around saying "orgy porgy" Does anyone remember the name of that book?
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
"Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley. ...Actually I'm not sure what you mean by the Ford co. ruling the world, but orgy porgy rings a bell. This the book with soma in it?
Posted by Da_bang80 (Member # 528) on :
I believe so, and I distinctly remember Ford ruled the world.
Ah excuse me, in the book Henry Ford is idolized as the "father of society" according to Wikipedia, which just jogged my memory.
Still, both those books were kind of smutty...
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
Kind of the point, I think. What with the 'everyone belongs to everyone else' and all.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
Sean:
quote:I'd much rather have fought in WWII, where most of the time, you knew who was what, where the enemy were, and you knew that the Germans and Japaneese would stand and fight. Vietnam, you weren't sure whether you would be impaled by a pungee stick, or dissappear in the explosion of a grenade whose trip whire you just stepped on, or ripped apart by a blast of AK-47 rounds during an ambush.
LOL! First of all, blaming an invaded small southasian country for not putting their army on a big field with the US army and slugging it out like 1880's gentleman boxers, that's almost approaching O'Reillyan levels of arrogance.
Secondly, you think WWII was a clean, honest and EXEMPLARY war??? All the things you mentioned that you thought where bad in Vietnam where used many times more and with much more severe results than in Nam. Guerilla terror warfare and demoralizing trap techniques where revolutionized during WWII. I believe one faction had soldiers in trees, dropping long, heavy steel spikes into the heads of enemies passing by underneath.
Regarding the thread topic, I do think it was indeed excessive force and jumpy triggerfingers have no place in law enforcement. Not everyone are cut out to be under-cover cops and the pressure and paranoia you'd likely develop is bad for judgement.
But regarding police procedure during perceived aggression, isn't the strategy of firing for effect, in order to scare and make aggressors scared, a part of it? Personally I think it's shit and would more than likely make hesitant aggressors panic and respond even wilder than they would have, risking innocent bystanders, but I thought I heard somewhere that "unloading" was some tactic used in certain circumstances.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Go easy on the kid, he's still young.
The only thing straight forward about WWII is that everyone was reasonably sure who the enemy was and in which direction they probably were. As far as tactics go, it wasn't all beach storming, marching in columns and big plastic men moving around a map of the world. British Commandos (terrorists in uniforms) for one caused nine kinds of hell behind the lines in France, Germany and all over the place. Bombing rail lines, creeping through the dark and quietly slipping a knife between someone's ribs. You know, nice upstanding honourable behaviour. You see, REAL war, as opposed to the wars we read about or see dramatised are not about trumping round, engaging in battle and having a last man standing wins mentality. It's about not being where your enemy thinks you are, sneaking up behind the bastard and beating his skull in with a rock before he can call for help or stick a bayonet in your guts...figuratively speaking.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
Unless you are in civilized society and visiting a night club, where such behavior would be, shall we say, "frowned upon".
Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
quote:Originally posted by Reverend: ...The only thing straight forward about WWII is that everyone was reasonably sure who the enemy was and in which direction they probably were...
That's what I was trying to say, underneath all the layers of nonsense that came from my fingers. Posted by Kosh (Member # 167) on :
Not excessive force. The cop didn't have a lot of choise. The guy did his best to ignore what the cop was saying. If he had kept his mouth shut, he may have been able to beat the ticket in traffic court. But if a cop pulls you out of the car, don't walk away from him. From that point on he can shoot you. This guy was lucky the cop had a taser. As I was watching the video I kept waiting for him to shoot him again, just for being that stupid. I think I would have shot the woman too, for trying to interfere.
Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
Er, yeah, what's that got to do with what the rest of us were discussing?
Also, about war, I think the idea of honorable war is stupid also and if I were in charge we'd be doing lots of dreadful nasty things and so on, but the point is we would be doing it to military targets and not civilians. Wars go on between governments and hence armies, not between *people* who in most cases (once the war actually reaches them - important point) wouldn't give a shit who wins as long as they can go back to their normal lives.
Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
I hope we won't have to worry about this excessive force thing once phasers are invented... * insert dorky snort here *
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
This should have been moved pages ago.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
quote:I hope we won't have to worry about this excessive force thing once phasers are invented... * insert dorky snort here *
Yes, because we all know phaser fights are accurate, brief and easy on the furniture. *inserts donkey snort here*
Posted by Da_bang80 (Member # 528) on :
And it would be a little difficult to prove that strange smelling vapor was once a black man and his wallet.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"Also, about war, I think the idea of honorable war is stupid also and if I were in charge we'd be doing lots of dreadful nasty things and so on, but the point is we would be doing it to military targets and not civilians."
Of course, the moment any sort of involuntary conscription starts happening, you lose that distinction entirely.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
Stop muddying up the moral waters! IT'S ALL CLEAN AND SIMPLE! *puts hands over his ears*
Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
If only this were in effect before the officers had fired upon the poor schmuck. Maybe they would have thought twice, maybe three times...
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
...the Post?
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
The guy who got shot fired 3 times and missed, while the buzzed cop fired 5 times and hit him at least twice while apparently not hitting anyone else. He must not have been that impaired.
Also... the test is only required if you hit someone... so if you shoot your weapon and miss the bad guy because you're smashed, you're in the clear, but if you hit him and in the process stop a terrible crime from happening, you have to take an alcohol test. Does that seem right?
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"The guy who got shot fired 3 times and missed, while the buzzed cop fired 5 times and hit him at least twice while apparently not hitting anyone else. He must not have been that impaired."
I wouldn't assume that. He is trained, after all. I suspect the other guy was not.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
It isn't the marksman skills that are in question, Abe, it's the person's judgement.
And I don't believe a cop, who fires repeatedly at an alleged suspect and misses, is in any way "in the clear". Maybe from that breathing test, but there'll be other inquiries and "debriefings", I'd assume.
Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
I'm pretty sure that there is an inquiry, as well as a mound of paperwork, everytime an officer discharges his weapon, anywhere but on the range.
I believe that some departments go so far as to inspect each officer's weapon before and after he/she goes on or comes off duty, counting the rounds in the magazine, and checking for any signs of recent firing.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Well, he had the presence of mind to identify himself as a police officer before drawing his weapon. Sounds like decent judgment to me.
Don't get me wrong... I'm not endorsing the idea of off-duty cops drinking then firing their weapons. In fact, if you're a police officer, you shouldn't be allowed to drink while you're armed, on or off duty. I'm actually surprised there aren't regulations about that.
Posted by Sean (Member # 2010) on :
But, there are also a fair few departments that require their officers to carry a weapon at all times, on and off duty ( the Detroit PD for one). So, those guys wouldn't be able to drink, at all. In a field like law enforcement, I'm sure a few drinks once in a while is a nice option.
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