3 NYC Cops Shot in Friendly Fire Incident

[carebear]

3 NYC Police Officers Accidentally Shot While Attempting to Subdue Attacking Pit Bull

NEW YORK Jul 23, 2006 (AP)— Three police officers were accidentally shot Sunday as one or more officers took aim at a pit bull attacking a member of their crew, police said. All were in stable condition.

The three officers suffered minor graze wounds and a fourth was bitten, said police Officer Doris Garcia.

The men had been responding to a dispute between a landlord and tenant in a Bronx building when the animal ran from another floor and attacked one of the officers, police said. The dog was killed by the gunfire.

The four remained hospitalized at Lincoln Medical Center following the shooting, which took place at about 12:10 a.m. on Concord Avenue.

The identities of the officers were not immediately released, and no further information was immediately available, police said.

Before this goes all "oh we're superior to LEO's in general and NYPD in particular", let me say trying to take down a quick critter like a dog in a crowded hallway with everyone shooting is a recipe for this kind of thing.

Talk about a knife fight in a phone booth.


Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

 

[Mannlicher]

There is a certain amount of humor in this

 

[Erebus]

The Keystone Cops came to mind. That's too bad. Shooting ducks in a barrel is easy if you aren't in the barrel. I hope they are in good enough shape to be sharing a couple laughs themselves over it.

 

[Archie]

A major problem in LEO training...

... is lack of 'team' training.

SWAT gets it, usually. But regular line officers are seldom even lectured on the concept of automatically forming a perimeter, or who does the shooting, or what do you do if?

Obviously, it's not possible for agencies to train all officers in every possible combination of problem and number of officers present. However, officers need to be aware of the problem. When walking up the stairs to see the people involved in this, the officers themselves could have said...

"Okay, Joe, you do all the talking. Fred and me will watch the arguers; Fred gets the manager, I'll watch the tenent. Willy, someone said something about a pitbull, he's yours. Joe, if one of us yells 'gun', you just get behind us and we'll do the shooting."

Something as simple as 'a plan' can prevent crossfiring into one another.

 

[Taurus 66]

3 NYC Police Officers Accidentally Shot While Attempting to Subdue Attacking Pit Bull

NEW YORK Jul 23, 2006 (AP)— Three police officers were accidentally shot Sunday as one or more officers took aim at a pit bull attacking a member of their crew, police said. All were in stable condition.

I read this far into it and began to think, "Oh no! The officers didn't form a circle around the dog, shoot, and hit each other now."

I know there was a country that had formed circling firing squads, but I forget which country.

 

[dartos]

We almost had a similar incident a few years back on a major four lane freeway in minneapolis, a cow transport involved in an accident lost a few cows they were wandering around the freeway, all were rounded up except for one that would not move, the local TV news crews captured the whole incident on video,3 or 4 MN HP and local LEO's drew their sidearms FACEING EACH OTHER with the cow standing in between them and proceeded to empty their mags...shooting the cow in between them...somehow the officers missed shooting each other or any of the passing motorists on the other side of the freeway...the incident was shown on the news for days and the officers were repremanded for endangering each other and the passing motorists...

 

[Lupinus]

sorry to hear but it warrents asking....

why are cops the only ones professional enough to be allowed guns?

 

[DKSuddeth]

cops need to be trained how to deal with dogs and how dogs attack. any cop that shoots at an animal, when that animal is not being sat upon by said cop, especially with other people around, really need to stay out of the situation before they kill someone.

 

[TallPine]

so what about "overpenetration" into other rooms of the building ...?

 

[Preacherman]

Please post a link to the original source of the story when publishing information like this.

I Google'd the story, and found this link:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/4065862.html

 

[carebear]

Sorry Preacher,

I did remember the AP tag.

Got the story off Fark.com which linked to the ABC news webpage.

 

[ilbob]

sorry to hear but it warrents asking....

why are cops the only ones professional enough to be allowed guns?

It is pretty easy to forget basic gun safety rules when a snarling beast is trying to eviscerate you.

They are going to be OK, and hopefully they learned something, and others will learn from their mistakes.

It is sort of amazing they did not think to use a taser on the dog in such tight quarters. Maybe they are not issued them. Or maybe they did not have time to think and just started shooting. I suspect that once one guy started shooting, they all joined in. Human nature is really hard to overcome that way.

 

[Crosshair]

I have a Monty Python skit forming in my head right now.

 

[Rogerthat]

I agree with ilbob, a taser would have been the appropriate thing to use if available and/or issued. When I worked in Law Enforcement over a decade ago, tasers were still kind of new and expensive. Thinking back there were a few times that I could have used a taser to subdue a suspect. We did have Pepper Spray, but a taser would have worked better in some situations. Just my 2 cents.

 

[RustyShackelford]

why sworn LEOs use DA only weapons...

This incident reminds me of why many PDs/federal LEOs use DA only pistols, .

Striker fired pistols can be discharged with lighter trigger pulls that can cause ADs and other major problems.

About 10-15 yrs ago I read about a SWAT LT who had an AD when his HK P-7 9mm discharged into a pregnant female who shut a door on his arm while the SWAT did a raid on a drug house. The PD had a big lawsuit and weeks of bad PR from this shooting.

SA pistols/striker fired sidearms get a lot of use by spec ops/SWAT but LEOs need to understand the risks of this type of duty sidearm.

Rusty S

 

[medmo]

When you have a land shark darting around looking for a leg to remove things just might go wrong. I'm sure these guys had plenty of cross fire training but they might have been a bit unsettled in this situation.

Unconscious Thought: "I think I just might rather wing my partner then have that THING clamp on to me somewhere."

A Taser on an unleashed pit bull? I would put all of us to that test. Which holster would you draw from dealing with that THING? I definitely know which holster I'm drawing from if he is making a bee line towards me.

 

[mete]

They are now saying [ www.nydailynews.com] that the three officers were rookies and that 26 shots were fired !!! The friendly fire wounds were ricochets .......

 

[svtruth]

A baton

would seem to be a safer, more effective and more appropriate weapon in that situation. It is almost certain the dog did not have a hidden knife or gun. It would be nice to hear from our LEO members what sort of training they received regarding dog attacks, especially since it is a recurrent theme here.

 

[AJAX22]

I'm sorry I have to chime in here, A Baton is NOT an effective or appropriate weapon for use on a pit bull.

Pit bulls are bred to bite and not let go. The reason they are called 'Pit' is because they were bred for fighting in the dogpits. most dogs fight for dominance, the weaker dog goes limp and the stronger dog lets go. but any pit bull that released the weaker dog, was killed by the breeders. All that were left really do have a killer instinct.

The only way I know of of making a pit bull release is to take a garden hose and put it in the mouth of the dog, the water will cause a gag reaction that makes the dog release its locked jaws. Beating it with a baton is just futile, sure if its all you've got, try it. I don't think you'll be so lucky if it's already got its teeth into you.

when these dogs attack, they are dang near impervious to beatings and the way they are built and the way their nervous system works, makes them the canine equivilant of a tank.

I wouldn't try a tazer either, all you need is a 90 pound muscle spasm attached to you by its jaws.

 

[HankB]

There's probably some city lawyer trying to figure out a way to blame Fido's owner for the gunshot wounds to the officers, even though they were all from police gunfire.

 

[Coronach]

It would be nice to hear from our LEO members what sort of training they received regarding dog attacks, especially since it is a recurrent theme here.

Basically: "Shoot the dog."

If it is a small dog, kick it or baton it. If it is a medium-sized or larger dog, just shoot it. We are trained to beware of backstop and cross fire, but putting such things into play when Cujo is running around like a wild thing, gnawing on your partner, and there are a bazillion things happening all at once is a little hard.

The real problem is that there is almost NO WAY to train that scenario.

Mike

 

[Group9]

Unless you have had an angry, mission oriented pit pull come at you at close range, you really can't imagine how large of an adrenalin dump you can have. Basically, when a pit bull jumps you in an enclosed area like that, there isn't going to be any big scale manuevering around, changing weapons, or stuff like that. You are just going to be trying to stick your gun out between you and that charging set of teeth, and yanking the trigger and hoping you get enough rounds into him to stop him before he locks on.

The last time it happened to me, I was still trying to get my heart rate back down ten minutes later. When I hear someone say they think they can do a better job than that, I just say, "Uh, huh. You go ahead and do that."

 

[Mannlicher]

DK,

cops need to be trained how to deal with dogs and how dogs attack. any cop that shoots at an animal, when that animal is not being sat upon by said cop, especially with other people around, really need to stay out of the situation before they kill someone.

You just can't train for every possible thing that might happen. What the police need to do, is hire folks with some plain old common sense.

 

[crazed_ss]

I'm suprised this doesnt happen more often. Whenever they show cops on TV with their guns drawn, the cops always surround the suspect. I always thought that was so stupid due to the possibility of missing and hitting your own people in the crossfire. And there's always like 10 cops pointing guns at each other's backs and everything. Whatever, they're highly trained I guess.

 

[cassandrasdaddy]

dogs are fast

i've been gnawed pretty good by my dogs. and thet are family pets. i sympathise with how scary that is.i got stun gons around house to keep it from happening again.