? for LEO's: Have you ever fought for your weapon?

LEO ONLY: HAVE YOU FOUGHT FOR YOUR WEAPON?

  • YES: once or twice

    Votes: 8 38.1%

  • YES: Many, many times

    Votes: 2 9.5%

  • NO: Never had to.

    Votes: 11 52.4%
  • Total voters
    21
O

OneInTheChamber

New member
How many LEO's here have had to fight for controlth of eir weapon from a perp's attack?

What was the outcome?

Is it just a routine thing or a couple of times in a career?

What holster were you wearing?

Thanks
 
Once in 13+ years on the road... and I won. You'll never be as scared as you are when someone is trying to disarm you. At the time my holster was a Safariland Level I. Don't remember the model #.
 
Another Troop and I with 2 subjects. Afterwards we found the other Troop's gun and part of the holster had been ripped off his gun belt and was laying in the grass. Found mine was unsnapped which we assume the subject did.
Another time had one grab for mine but he never got a hold of it.
The 3rd time I was transferring custody of an arrestee to a city officer who was going to transport the subject in their van. The subject was handcuffed behind his back. The city officer put his cuffs on the subject and was removing mine when the subject grabbed onto the city officer's Model 10 and was trying to pull it out of the holster. As soon as the city officer yelled "he has my gun" I took him down, hard. The subject sued both me and the city officer and we went to fed court for 1983 action. Jury really wasn't interested in his side of the story when both I and the city officer testified that he had tried to remove the gun from the holster. His defense was he thought he was going to fall forward so he just grabbed on to what he could reach to keep from falling. Jury didn't buy that defense at all.
Our holsters were Safariland Level I.
 
Wow. Scary stuff.

So level I is just tension right? And then level II is tension + thumb break, and level III is tension + thumb break + having to twist the weapon a little or something right?

Thanks guys! Keep those stories coming!
 
Yes, twice. One was during a neighborhood dispute (more like the Hatfields & McCoys) when a goofy woman tried to get my gun, not to shoot me, but to shoot the other side. A 360 spin & take down stopped that.

Second time involved a theft suspect fleeing. I caught him & he tried for my weapon. A knee to the cajones stopped that cold :eek: :D .
 
i was escorting an inmate in the county hospital on a Friday night once and had a snatch attempt. a quick backhand solved it but it was scary. the person who tried for my weapon was a prisoner of a police officer who was cuffed in front and was allowed to sit in the hall way.

i always put my inmates in the back corner of the room facing a wall. this is especially important in a place where you have probably 10 prisoners and 50 other patients all in a hall way.
 
Rention level means how many weapon retention devices a holster has. Level one is just a snap across the back of the gun. Level two could be two snaps or an internal retention device that requires a specific movement to unlock the gun and so on
 
most dont discuss exactly what steps are needed to draw from a security holster. suffice to say a triple retention is almost impossible to snatch from. you are more likely to have a failure of the stitching than get the holster out anyway but the exact steps that the officer performs. they are made so only the wearer can easily perform the needed steps.
 
I totally understand that. It's a good thing for me; as I want to join LE.

How come not all officers use one then? To me that is a pretty easy fix to a huge weak spot.
 
The advantage of a triple rentention holster in that it is easier to retain, is not as important to some as being able to draw the weapon as quickly as possible.

Personally I think with training the lvl III does not slow me down at all vs any other thumb release holster, and I know I am more likely to be killed with my own gun or my partners than any other.
 
USed to work in a much larger community with several ethnic clubs that would get WAY over the fire occupancy limit, and every time we had to go in and do anything in the club you would just feel people tugging at your gun and equipment as you were walking through the clubs. The first time it happened I had a plain level 1 thumbsnap holster, the next day I went out and bought the safariland level 3, still had to keep your hands on your stuff but the comfort feeling was a little bit highter.

then fighting with a nutjob in front of a Circle K in the parking lot, he decided to go after it and I wasn't carrying a back up piece at the time, so we wrestled around for a bit until my backup showed and we got him into custody. Thankfully at that time I already had the level 3, I've carried nothing else for the last 14 years.
 
When I was in the academy, we did weapon retention for about a week, and by about the third day, I had about a 70% sucess rate disarming my partner (Glock 22 in Safariland Level III) and we found him to be particularly susceptible to rear attacks. Thugs know what gear we use, and they practice with it just like we do, NEVER get the mindset that your gear is perfect. I actually had a lot more trouble getting the guns with mounted lights out of the Safariland II's than I did the level III's, because they seem to be stiffer and they cover more of the gun. The hard construction of the level II's make you draw at a somewhat specific angle or else your not gonna get the weapon out, and we found that it was somewhat difficult to get that angle if you were not the one wearing the holster. I personally prefer the light capability to the extra retention strap.
 
Level 3 holster

Hello all, new here.

From Blackwater OPS:

"The advantage of a triple rentention holster in that it is easier to retain, is not as important to some as being able to draw the weapon as quickly as possible.

Personally I think with training the lvl III does not slow me down at all vs any other thumb release holster, and I know I am more likely to be killed with my own gun or my partners than any other."

This is my feeling also, just rolling around with a level I and or some II's and your firearm will fall out of the holster.
 
i carried my King Cobra in a Don Hume Level II. thumb break and tension. it DID require a very specific angle...

i was only in one situation where i could have had to fight for my pistol but it never came to that. i was working security at a basketball (thug ball) game and there was a near riot break out right afterwards. my partner had a guy grab for his gun but he was taken down with a quick jab to the jaw and a responding backup had his entire holster torn off his sam browne. he stepped on it for retention and arm barred the offender...

no other time did i have to worry about it. albeit i was only in the LE job for about 2 years...

david
 
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