perhaps mag dump isn't always the best tactic

[RecoilRob]

How many times have you pointed a loaded gun at someone's head?

Three. But this is not about me. Not everyone panics when under stress and shoots when they don't need to or shouldn't shoot. All of the Police in the questionable shooting didn't fire....only 3 of them and it looks like one or both of the guys on the right are the ones that hit the woman. Perhaps this detail will come out later....or it might not be made public.

 

[tipoc]

Things begin to go wrong here from the moment the police arrive on the scene.

Police officer's are usually trained to take control of potentially dangerous situation and scenes. To isolate the threat, to assess the situation, to understand what is going on, to move innocent's out of the way of potential danger, etc. Here they did the opposite.

They arrive to a calm situation. No violence is visible. No immediate threats to anyone can be seen. The officer's arrive and leave their vehicles with force, weapons at the ready and aimed, shouting orders. They point loaded firearms down range in a courtyard with over a dozen people in it sending those people running for their lives. At this point they lose any control over the situation. Everyone there who sees those guns pointed in their general direction now knows from long experience that they are in danger and that someone is now likely to die. The police officer's, rather than calming things down, have now ratcheted up the tension. Doing this was voluntary on their part and increased the level of danger to everyone in that courtyard. Especially the woman in the walker in their direct line of fire who was physically incapable of moving out of that line of fire (the people behind the suspect can be seen running out of the line of fire).

"Never point a firearm at anything you are not willing to destroy", "Be aware of your target and what is beyond it" two of the four basic rules...for us anyway. By pointing their loaded weapons in the general direction of innocent people, when they did not have to, the officers altered the situation out of their favor and out of their control. They allowed an innocent person to remain in their direct line of fire by their actions. They made no effort to change that. They treated her as if she was a stage prop.

The suspect did not comply with their orders. He did not drop the knife or chair. He advanced on them. At that point the officers ceased being the prime actors in the scene. The knife/chair guy was now directing the action. The officer's ceded that to the suspect. They gave up control of the situation to the suspect. This was voluntary on their part and a result of their actions when they first arrived.

The actions of the officers when they first arrived set things rolling downhill. They did nothing to stop that momentum. Rather than slowing things down, they sped things up. They created a situation where split second life or death decisions had to be made and by doing so increased the likelihood of a bad conclusion.

I'm not gonna speculate on what they should have done.

 

[mbok1947]

I witnessed an almost identical situation in the 1970s when I was a crime reporter. In that case the suspect was armed with a handgun and had abducted the female hostage during a convenience store robbery and wound up driving in her car to a park near a local lake, with ultimately a half dozen police cars in slow pursuit. Once there he pulled her out of the car and held her close with the gun to her head shouting various threats. The police deployed in a semi-circle, most in prone positions, about 25 feet away.

I was lying between a patrolman with a .44 carbine and a detective with a 30 caliber carbine. After some exchanges of "put the gun down" the woman managed to break free and dove to the ground about 8 feet from the suspect. In response to shouted commands to "drop it" he raised the pistol in our direction. The two carbines fired almost simultaneously, followed within a second or so by at least one 12 ga shotgun and several .357 revolvers. Of course the suspect, struck by a dozen or so rounds, dropped and died within minutes, The hostage was unhurt.

The outcome can I think be credited to good trigger discipline and to the judicious use of more accurate long guns. I also believe there is a case to be made that the near universal use of high-capacity semi-automatic pistols in law enforcement today has resulted in more rounds being fired in encounters and less accuracy.

Having said all that, and having been present on a number of occasions when police officers fired their weapons (and many more when they aimed them without firing) I am always loathe to second guess the split second adrenaline fueled reactions of cops in the field. The fact is it is very very rare for a hostage to be hurt or killed in such situations. In the video case it was obvious that the officers on scene had to act RIGHT NOW, with no time to deploy a tactical team, snipers, negotiators, etc. The bottom line is that no training can truly prepare someone for such a scenario.

 

[blue32]

Three. But this is not about me. Not everyone panics when under stress and shoots when they don't need to or shouldn't shoot. All of the Police in the questionable shooting didn't fire....only 3 of them and it looks like one or both of the guys on the right are the ones that hit the woman. Perhaps this detail will come out later....or it might not be made public.

I wasn't talking about the OP post. I was referring to your remark about those who can't make a head shot at 10' have no business carrying a firearm. I would offer a rebuttal but I can see you don't wish to engage so nothing further.

 

[shafter]

There is a big difference between making a headshot on a static target at the range with no stress, and making one under stress against a small moving target in extremely close proximity to one you mustn't hit. Street cops wear so many hats these days and have many other training requirements aside from shooting and they don't have the luxury of Seal Team Six's training budget. I won't judge the actions of these cops yet because we don't know the full story yet, but so far I haven't seen anything that resembles murder.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

This is supposed to be only the third instance of the police killing a bystander or hostage in LA in the past thirteen years.
However, the last two were in this year.
This may be a statistical fluke or it could be evidence that training and policy need revision.
I'll venture that it will result in a review of training and of use of force policy.

 

[Deanimator]

This is supposed to be only the third instance of the police killing a bystander or hostage in LA in the past thirteen years.
However, the last two were in this year.
This may be a statistical fluke or it could be evidence that training and policy need revision.
I'll venture that it will result in a review of training and of use of force policy.

Well, if you look at the shootings of Emma Hernandez and Margie Carranza during the Dorner manhunt, you can see the level of training... and accountability in the LAPD.

 

[JR24]

I witnessed an almost identical situation in the 1970s when I was a crime reporter. In that case the suspect was armed with a handgun and had abducted the female hostage during a convenience store robbery and wound up driving in her car to a park near a local lake, with ultimately a half dozen police cars in slow pursuit. Once there he pulled her out of the car and held her close with the gun to her head shouting various threats. The police deployed in a semi-circle, most in prone positions, about 25 feet away.

I was lying between a patrolman with a .44 carbine and a detective with a 30 caliber carbine. After some exchanges of "put the gun down" the woman managed to break free and dove to the ground about 8 feet from the suspect. In response to shouted commands to "drop it" he raised the pistol in our direction. The two carbines fired almost simultaneously, followed within a second or so by at least one 12 ga shotgun and several .357 revolvers. Of course the suspect, struck by a dozen or so rounds, dropped and died within minutes, The hostage was unhurt.

The outcome can I think be credited to good trigger discipline and to the judicious use of more accurate long guns. I also believe there is a case to be made that the near universal use of high-capacity semi-automatic pistols in law enforcement today has resulted in more rounds being fired in encounters and less accuracy.

Having said all that, and having been present on a number of occasions when police officers fired their weapons (and many more when they aimed them without firing) I am always loathe to second guess the split second adrenaline fueled reactions of cops in the field. The fact is it is very very rare for a hostage to be hurt or killed in such situations. In the video case it was obvious that the officers on scene had to act RIGHT NOW, with no time to deploy a tactical team, snipers, negotiators, etc. The bottom line is that no training can truly prepare someone for such a scenario.

Very interesting.

In WI, 2016 I think, officers shot a suspect standing in the middle of the freeway. He had murdered I believe 2 people that day, was armed and apparently approaching the officer.

When the officers opened fire, several pistols and what sounded like a shotgun myself and my very pregnant wife just happened to be driving down the other way, directly into the line of fire. I recall, apart from seeing the dude drop and his long barreled revolver bounce on the pavement, seeing several officers to the suspects side and having their weapons pointed directly at oncoming traffic.

Luckily whomever shot has sufficient accuracy to hit the suspect and not us, but that was certainly a bracing event.

 

[Archie]

One of my past employers instituted a plan of action for this sort of thing.

Any pair or team was directed to among themselves select a 'designated talker' and a 'designated shooter'. The talker did all the talking, questioning, wheedling, bargaining or whatever. The shooter watched for indicators of hostile action and was the only one to take action. Ideally, the talker and shooter position at more or less right angles to each other and NOBODY breaks light of sight between either and the subject.

Other signals and protocols could be established prior to contact, depending on the information available.

All the officers involved, the villain and the hostage are going to play much of this by ear no matter what.

 

[Robert]

We appear to be going around in circles at this point.