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ChrisJM981

Lack of training for police departments

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We are not given enough enough real life firearms training. When you get in a shooting is your target stationary like a q target. No. As always it comes down to budgets. Just do enough to meet the minimum. This is why i decided to take it upon myself to do it.

 

If agencies gave the proper amount of initial and recurrent training for what an MOS NEEDS to know these days, nobody would ever be out in the field..........................

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A teacher once told me it takes the same amount of time to fail at something then is does to succeed... if your going to have to take time to qualify, why not do it in a manner that is actually productive? instead of shooting at a target 7 yards away, make it further, how about smaller, and possibly moving or with no hit zones?

 

Qualification is not training. Case law (specifically Popow vs Margate) mandates that realistic training be conducted by all Officers. Qualification is a test that you pass or fail and certifies you to carry a firearm in as an Officer meeting the requirements of the NJ Police Training Commission. The Qualification in NJ incorporates strong and support hand firing, different positions (kneeling/squatting and standing) from 1-25 yards. Training must be done in addition to the qualification and must incorporate realistic elements ie: low light, movement, multiple targets, shoot/no-shoot targets, different positions etc...

 

That being said, no training you can conduct will ever prepare anyone for the speed at which a gunfight (or any violent encounter for that matter) will occur. Your comments seem as if you believe that the rounds fired at targets on the range are going to be EXACTLY like what it will be like when they are getting shot at and you are shooting someone. This is dangerous thinking.

 

This one in particular was fast, close, and brutal. These 2 cops are Studs in my book. 2 Officers, who have never shot their weapons while on patrol before, shot 7 and 9 rounds respectively with 10 rounds in the bad guys chest. That is pretty damned good. Was it perfect? No, but such things rarely are, outside of luck. Regardless, they got it done and farily well with a 60% hit ratio and rapid incapicitation of the perp and all witnesses hit were hit with frag and riccochets, not aimed shots. IN spite of all the craziness going on around them, all of their bodies fight or flight reactions gonig on inside them, these 2 guys made sure to not hit any person except their target with direct fire. That is a WIN in my book.

 

The average shooter, this seems like a complete joke, even new guys would say, what the hell are they thinking? Complete and total lack of responsibility on the departments side, to put under-trained LEO's on the street, and putting the people they are supposed to protect in danger. People could probably sue for negligence, considering 9 people were wounded in the incident in NYC. If they were forced to qualify with no hit zones, i'm guessing they would probably have chooses their shot's a little better. Instead of, what the NYC police is basically known for, which is point and unload. If the guy took a hostage and was using a human shield, would they just litter both hostage and bad guy with bullets? Do you just shoot into a crowd of people because a guy is pointing a gun at you? These guys had some serious balls to think there best possible option was to unload into a crowd of people.

 

We can not completely eliminate the risk of civilian casualties in a gun fight. All we can do is fight and win. This is an instance that literally falls under the heading of "That's life in the big city". As an aside, civilians might want to remain aware of their surroundings and when they observe LEOs with guns drawn and shouting commands. They might consider moving and getting behind cover instead of milling around like a herd of gawking sheep trying to catch it on their cell phone's camera.

 

As I saw the video - Perp is walking among the masses dressed in a suit and carrying a brief case. Cops are on the wall. You see construction workers running behind perp, one informs cops of the shooting. Cops close in. Cops begin to split up, getting different angles - good tactics. Perp looks over his shoulder then turns, gun pointed at cops at his hip level. Closet cop is about 4 feet away. The 2nd Cop is maybe 8 to 10 feet away. There is no cover with the exception of a large flower pot that if the closet cop tried to use he would be shot in the top of the head. Cops open fire and perp falls. There are many people on the street. It looked like the cops were going to grab him and he turned, gun in hand.

 

So, jackdawack, imagine you are a cop, on a crowded street, approaching a suspected gunman that just reportedly shot someone in the face with a pistol. You are 4 feet away and he turns and points a pistol at you. Now what? You should eat the bullet from the bad guy because you MAY hit an innocent? How about this... there are people around the suspect that may be hit by your gunfire, there are also people around you that would be hit by the suspect's imminent gunfire. Now what do you do? Hands sweaty, tunnel vision, auditory exclusion, time dilation, forget all that, just make a decision RIGHT NOW: 2 choices 1) Put effective rounds downrange or 2)Let your family greive your death and let the perp get away to possibly shoot god knows who else. Tell me jackdawack, what would you do?

 

Better yet, tell us how much better you actually did do that one time when you engaged a man with a gun at near bad breath distance, with hundreds of people out and about.

 

Bottom Line - Cops very seldom shoot anyone. In fact, cops don't shoot a 100th of the people they legally could and Should according to agency guidelines. NYPD has more cops than they can train past a minimum standard, yet they seem to do pretty well. Should they receive more training? Sure, just don't confuse a desire for more training with being under-trained. Training costs money. Are you going to pay for it and walk their beat while they are at the range that day?

 

I keep on wondering how people with no experience as a cop know everything about what a cop does. :facepalm:

 

I'm sure the 12lb Glock trigger that NYC politicians insist the police officers use had nothing to do with it.

 

While the 12lb trigger is not ideal, it is completely workable. Guys like Jim Cirillo and Bill Jordan did a whole lot of good work with a K frame S&W, which by modern standards would have a horrible 12lb trigger, with "a really long reset".

 

Like anything else it is about proficiency. If you are mandated a 12lb trigger you simply practice with a 12lb trigger.

 

Additionally, at the distances this particular gunfight happened, I seriously doubt it would have made a difference.

 

The simple truth of the matter is that Cops as a whole, are simply a cross section of society. They(we) are not shockingly different then anyone else, and much like any social group where only a small percent are actually actively interested in things like firearms, martial arts, and the like, Police are shockingly no different. Where common sense should dictate (if for no other reason than a certain degree of self preservation) interest should exist, just like a form of continuing education for other professions, it simply does not for many and trying to mandate training fails often due in part to the relatively small percentage of Officers who actually want it or will willingly attend it. The supervisors are simply an extension of the Officers, so many of them(us) also live in the deluded dream that they(we) are sufficiently trained. Here's a good read from a Cops perspective on life inside a PD...take note of the small percentage of the "warrior" ethos...

 

SpecOpsScout excellent post. Thank you!

 

I do believe a lot is on the individual officer to keep up with laws and do training on their own. That is what a good cop does. Unfortunately there are officers that don't.

 

I agree, and this dove-tails well with Specopsscout's post above. There are plenty of cops on "Blue Welfare". Probably about half will actively try to get out of work and dodge calls. Maybe 30% will do work, but not go looking for it. They get a call, they will respond, do what is expected and that is about it. The other 20% they are the warriors/hunters whatever you want to call it. They do the lion's share of the work fighting crime. They dig and investigate. They make life hell for the bad guys, and they put the bag on every shift and go looking to make a good arrest. They seek out ways to do their jobs better and work on their faults while honing their skills. This goes hand in hand with training. Most guys wont go to any training unless forced, a lot of guys believe that if they need to know it, the agency will provide it, a few seek it out on their own and try to pass the knowledge on to like minded co-workers.

 

Look at fellow employess in your own line of work/business etc.. you will probaly see the same cross section of hard workers and do-nothings.

 

ETA: Response to BLF excellent posts

Edited by High Exposure

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Just by introducing moving while shooting and the element of being timed my accuracy and capacity to keep focused and be aware of my surroundings are diminished.

 

So true, that applies to me as well.

 

I like going to matches. It exposes all my weaknesses(and I have A LOT of em!). The matches are fun and they give me an oppurtunity to evaluate those weaknesses and try to correct them before another match. It won't happen overnight but I think if I stick with it I can improve.

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One of my good buddies has been on the job just shy of 25 yrs. He is not a gun guy at all and u guessed it, goes a few days before he has to qualify.

he is a good shot, so he never has an issue, but I find most of his peers just not to care too much about guns.

 

he likes them enough to have gone out and bought an XDM 3.8 cpt .40 after trying mine, but admits, its just a work tool for him.

 

I always tell him that if my life depended on it for work (where I would have a much better chance of having to shoot at someone) I would be practicing every week.

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I do believe a lot is on the individual officer to keep up with laws and do training on their own. That is what a good cop does. Unfortunately there are officers that don't.

 

You're talking about a different breed.

 

In my day, training was for the birds and seen as non-productive use of time.

 

We did not buy that and took it upon ourselves to train and do better work.

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I definitely don't buy into that. Knowledge and tactics keep you safe. If it means I come home every night then it's worth with it to me. Two things my wife got on me about we're spending too much time working out and more recently shooting. Especially since now I have a child. Where I work I spend a lot of time alone and sometimes my safety comes down to be stronger and more durable than another person. After last year where I fought with a guy for over five minutes until backup arrived who had a loaded revolver and was all drugged up my wife changed her opinion. I explained to her that if I got tired or wasn't stronger than him I could have been shot. She saw my point. After all the shootings recently she saw how important it could be. Especially after I explained how qualifying is completely different from real life scenarios. So yes what you do outside is just as important as what you do at work. Mentally keeping up with current laws and search and seizure rules can keep me from getting sued as saying i wasn't aware on the stand doesn't fly.

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