I Guess I was Naive in Thinking that all Police Officers were Excellent Shots.

[big_bang]

I have a sneaking hunch that not every shot fired by cops is intended to hit anybody...like covering fire. A flurry of bullets may be released not to hit the bad guy, but rather to buy time, reposition, or simply to divert the bad guy's actions. It's more about self preservation than landing COM shots.

Of course, in this extreme-stress case, safety to the target background often goes out the window.

 

[David Armstrong]

Well I don't think I'm being presumptuous to think that cops that can barely hit paper and eschew regular practice with their guns, and just come in for a qualification every 6 months lack seriousness

Nothing presumptious about it, it just isn't an issue. Cops practice with their guns more than most folks, they win most of their gunfights, and it is a rare event. It is a non-issue. Folks tend to focus on the cop as a gunfighter. He isn't. That doesn't mean they aren't serious, it means they are realists. Lots of things they need to do that they will do far more often and are more important in the overall scheme of things.

I can't see such training being prohibitively expensive.

Depends on what you consider basic proficiency. Lots of folks in the business will say that cops are already being trianed to a basic proficiency level. You might say that is not enough, others might say your standard is not enough.

Actually I think that the training given in your typical Police Academy might be sufficient, IF the officers actually continued to practice regularly!

And who is going to pay for that? Let's do a real basic calculation a little different than the one used above and based on shooting one hour a month--At time and half, let's say the officer pay is $75/hour (includes benefits and such). Let's use up $25 worth of ammo. That is $100 per offficer per month. Which is $1200 per year. If you have a small 10-person department that is $12,000 a year. Over a 20-year career that comes to $240,00 for the agency. Plug in your own numbers in whatever time and amount you think appropriate and see how much it adds up too.

And if I got sub-par training, I don't know, I think I might just go get some instruction and practice on my own time, but maybe that's just me.

Assuming sub-par training, yes, that is just you, just like it is some officers. Other officers may choose to get better training in driving, or report writing, or investigative skills, or any of dozens of other areas. Again, shooting just isn't that big a deal to the overall LE business.

 

[David Armstrong]

My opinion is that if you are not good at your work then you should train **on your own time** to become proficient. However, the attitude today is that if you do anything that is work related then you should get paid for it. So most guys probably wouldn't take that extra time on the range to become proficient because the department won't pay.

You make the assumption that if you are not a good shot that you are not good at your job as a police officer, which just isn't true. You can be a great cop and be a horrible shot. Hard to fault officers who choose a training path (and yes, many of them do train on their own time, and pay for it themselves) that gives better returns, such as improving their interview and interrogation skills, or improving their driving skills, or getting better at detecting and catching DUIs, or learning a second language, or studying gangs, or improving your physical fitness, or developing H2H skills, and so on.

Shooting for a police officer is a basic skill just like driving the patrol car.

That is a good point. I don't see many folks saying the police need to be expert drivers, or that they need to be tgrained to a high level of skill, or anything like that. Yet more officers are killed, and generally more people are killed by officers, based on driving than on shooting.

 

[bestbod85]

+1 to david armstrongs post... there are just too many things a leo must be trained to do and keep a level of proficiency with.

Some officers choose to better their skills in other areas and some choose range time or h2h or fitness. some expect the average officer to become an expert with his weapon (which i agree should be the goal), while others feel they should reach an expert level in all facets of his/her job, its just too much to ask a person especially if they have only had a few years on the job. granted all officers should strive to attain and maintain an expert level, it is not always realistic.

Becoming an expert is NOT easy and takes time and money, which is alot to ask someone who is already overworked, underpaid and plenty stressed out as it is.

That being said it is my opinion that being and expert in firearms, hand to hand and being in top physical condition are at the top of my list, and are the first things I have strived to become proficient in, because I believe these to be LIFE SKILLS, so they are my first priority.... some officers do not feel these to be the most important, I do

 

[Brian Pfleuger]

That is a good point. I don't see many folks saying the police need to be expert drivers, or that they need to be tgrained to a high level of skill, or anything like that. Yet more officers are killed, and generally more people are killed by officers, based on driving than on shooting.

That is true and, just like when there is a shooting tragedy, there is always a brief period of fit throwing and training until everyone forgets and the police can go back to doing what they need to do 99.9999% of the rest of the their careers.

 

[armsmaster270]

Part of gunfighting as well as being accurate is tactics. I cheated, as rangemaster I would lease the city indoor range for the day for training. The qualification's took up the morning then in the afternoon was my turn to play. I would train myself in firing both shotgun and pistol at the concrete floor and use the Bouncing Bullet theory against targets downrange from me just off the floor. I also practiced diving and doing a shoulder roll coming out in a firing position and returning fire at multiple targets. Random timed timer I hold a ticket book & pen writing citation when the beep goes off drop book & pen and return fire. I loved to think up scenarios and worked to win them.

 

[Coyote Hitman]

I Guess I was Naive in Thinking that all Police Officers were Excellent Shots.

In the mid 90's, during the push to "diversify" the police force, my department hired a "less than qualified" female. I shot next to her at quals about 6 months later and we fired a 9 round drill @ 10 or 15 yards. In my peripheral, I saw a little debris fly. When we went down to mark and tape the holes, I discovered that she had no holes in her target and I had 12 in mine, 9 nicely grouped, three scattered about the torso.

I think you were naive, but who cares, we need to diversify at any cost, right?

 

[pgg]

When I went through the academy if people failed a qualification they had one chance to try again. If they failed that they were kicked out. When I qualify my officers and they don't pass, they don't work. its pretty simple that way.

 

[BillCA]

You make the assumption that if you are not a good shot that you are not good at your job as a police officer, which just isn't true. You can be a great cop and be a horrible shot. Hard to fault officers who choose a training path...

Let's turn this around a little bit. The allegation that we don't really need to push for higher qualifications scores is based, in part, on arguments that shooting a gun is a small part of the officer's overall job. It's something that he might never do, or something he'll do rarely.

Fine.

Tell me, then, that you really want to fly on a commercial airliner where the flight crew have both marginally passed the emergency drills late last year, haven't exercised those skills and have, instead, improved their navigation and their ILS (instrument landing system) skills. After all, the average airline pilot rarely encounters an emergency sitation and most pilots will never have to exercise those skills.

Fortunately, the FAA sets the bar rather high for commercial pilots in handling emergency sitations. That's due to the number of lives at stake - both in the air as well as on the ground.

The problem is that when police are "horrible shots" they can affect the lives of innocent bystanders, sometimes in horrible ways. Perhaps we are doing the best we can do today given the budget constraints and other issues involved. But that doesn't mean we should be complacent about shooting scores.

Part of this, I think, is due to several factors. The first is the deliberate suppression of what the left calls "the gun culture". This reduces the number of police candidates who have actually used a firearm to hunt or target shoot. It also means may of these candidates get their only shooting experience from movies or video games. Fewer places to hunt/shoot mean less opportunity for them to easily practice too.

Another part of the problem is agencies not seriously encouraging officers to shoot better. Several agencies here locally had bulk purchase arrangements with commercial reloaders who supplied them with range/qualification ammo. Part of the agreement was that officers could buy their own ammo from the reloaders at department cost. It added bulk to the reloader's business and allowed officers a way to practice fairly cheap. I recently asked a couple of officers if that still happened. Nope. If they want practice ammo, they have to purchase it retail.

Couple that with the advent of the high-capacity sidearm and CLEOs who "grew up" in an urban culture where 20% hit rates are the norm, it is hard to convince them that improvements are both possible and can be cost effective.

I don't see many folks saying the police need to be expert drivers, or that they need to be tgrained to a high level of skill, or anything like that.

Obviously you have not paid attention to the press releases or press stories in the last 25 years. The Brady Campaign almost invariably touts police officers as "highly trained" with weaponry. When someone causes an accident through speeding, the police frequently suggest their officers are "trained in high performance driving". We spent far more time learning to use patrol cars to block traffic, position for traffic stops, do rolling traffic breaks than the mere 2 hours of instruction on high speed pursuits.

 

[Sarge]

LE training has changed; sometimes for good reasons, that yield bad results.

PPC was the norm when I started. It requires precise DA accuracy with a six-shot revolver, to 50 yards. You have to master the fundamentals to score high in this discipline, and the typical course time limits were reduced as we progressed in proficiency. I'd say that anyone in my 1980 KCPD Academy class could have given most of you a workout, trying to keep up with them.

Over the next 15 years we went to high-cap autos and 50 foot maximum distances with rare exercises at 25 yards. Yank & blast became the order of the day and LE Trainers were encouraged to use a pass/fail system instead of scoring points, for 'liability reasons'. (This was total BS because if they can subpoena your range cards they can subpoena every member of your dept., to testify 'from memory' as to how well officer A shoots.) The predictable result was that precision shooting suffered. It was inevitable.

The wiser officers took the best from each training discipline- and kept pushing themselves like their lives (and maybe yours) depended on it. These old buzzards, and the youngsters they have passed this thinking on to, are the ones you don't want to get froggy with. The beauty is that Mr. Thug is stuck with the Forrest Rule- "Life is like a box of chocolates..."

It's a given that you have to be able to shoot with precision, while under fire, to win a gunfight. Beyond that, there are several other factors that decide the outcome.

First is situational awareness. Any threat you don't recognize is a threat that can kill you, on their time and on their terms. Once the festivities open, don't stand around waiting for someone to tell you that it's really going on. Use every advantage at your disposal- cover, movement, etc. Even an elusive 'one shot stop' won't get you home, if somebody's second cousin mows you down with a low-rider while you stand there in the street like Matt Dillon during the opening scenes of Gunsmoke. Shooting the other guy is not a win. Surviving the entire encounter is a win.

Second is the willingness to shoot another human being. Hardened criminals get past this with ease. Cops are trained to avoid it until all options are exhausted. This often puts cops way down on the OODA cycle when a gunfight breaks out. The solution is to train for an irrevocable force decision, based on the actions of the threat, and that once the decision is made you shoot the threat to ribbons until it drops or surrenders. This sometimes results in bad PR due to bad guys getting shot a lot. I much prefer that to pretty women crying in black dresses, while bagpipe music plays in the background.

Finally, there is just plain old luck. A ricochet off the curb can kill you just as dead as a direct hit from a RPG. Always remember that you have to be good- the other guy only has to be lucky.

 

[horatioo]

I find it amazing that some of you think the low pay police officers might receive is any kind of reason to not be skilld with their handgun. Anyone who carries a gun should be a skilled shooter. If he can not afford to practice the public cant afford to have him carry a gun.

Low pay for LE might stink, but its no excuse to not be able to shoot a gun well. The OP talked about a LE who was dangerous.

 

[JohnH1963]

There is one trick to the FBI's selection of the Springfield Armory 1911 that most people miss.

Most of the members of the FBI's SWAT and Hostage Rescue teams shoot competitively. So what they did is get a pistol that everyone generally liked and could use for their competitions.

Some people would cry foul. Using tax-payer's dollars to buy pistols for personal use!!!

However, this is a good trick. The FBI's teams will now practice more with the pistols on their own time. The cost of the pistols is 2-3 grand which is quite expensive. Although there is the initial cost of the pistol, since they are shooting competitively on their own time then they master the pistol thereby saving the government from having to constantly train them on it.

If they just got the FBI's teams a bunch of the standard variety of pistols, then no one would practice with it. It would be put aside somewhere never to be used again.

 

[David Armstrong]

Tell me, then, that you really want to fly on a commercial airliner where the flight crew have both marginally passed the emergency drills late last year, haven't exercised those skills and have, instead, improved their navigation and their ILS (instrument landing system) skills. After all, the average airline pilot rarely encounters an emergency sitation and most pilots will never have to exercise those skills.

Really wouldn't bother me much at all. In fact, if I had to pick between them (as is often the case in training) I'd probably prefer they spent the time on navigation and ILS skills.

But that doesn't mean we should be complacent about shooting scores.

I don't think being realistic is being complacent. And as mentioned before, we find little or no relationship between shooting scores and gunfight success. If cops were losing the fight regualrly, or if civilians were getting hurt very often, then maybe we should address the problem, because then we would have a problem. Right now it just seems that we don't have a problem other than many cops aren't into guns, which I just don't see as being much of a problem. There are lots of other issues that take up training time that are far more important, at least to me.

The Brady Campaign almost invariably touts police officers as "highly trained" with weaponry. When someone causes an accident through speeding, the police frequently suggest their officers are "trained in high performance driving".

OK. Not too sure what that has to do with "I don't see many folks saying the police need to be expert drivers, or that they need to be trained to a high level of skill, or anything like that" however.

 

[10-96]

The OP talked about a LE who was dangerous.

But again, it was never said that the LEO was using his duty firearm, BUG, or his neighbors HD firearm, or any other scenario immaginable. Maybe somebody else couldn't shoot well with it either and asked him to evaluate it. And, maybe he really was just there on his own time and dollar trying to improve his skills and waiting for someone to come along and criticize him for his efforts.

There's an awful lot of posts here pointing out 'problems', but I didn't see many offering solutions. We've been tinkering with the idea of hauling a BBQ grill, hotdogs, etc out to the range in an effort to get more of our non-recreational shooters out to the range. Will it work? Who knows, but we'll find out when it starts warming up around here again.

 

[James K]

Well, if we accept that firing his weapon is so seldom necessary that an officer doesn't really need to know how, then the next logical step is to say that officers don't need guns.* As in England, specially trained officers could be issued weapons as needed, and the average cop could use a billy club or gentle persuasion.

The same is true if officers use "a flurry of bullets" and don't care about where they go. If police can't be trained in the use of a "tool of the trade", then they shouldn't be in that trade or they should not have access to that tool.

How's that for a "solution"?

*In "The Saturday Night Special", often called the "bible of gun control", Robert Sherrill uses exactly that argument in urging that police be disarmed first as they are more dangerous than criminals.

Jim

 

[horatioo]

There's an awful lot of posts here pointing out 'problems', but I didn't see many offering solutions.

Because the solution is pretty obvious. Police who cant shoot very well should practice more. If it is part of their job to carry a gun they have a personal responsibility to know how to do so well. It is not like they are ditch diggers and might accidently dig the wrong hole. They carry a deadly weapon. If we give someone extraordinary power then we should expect something from them, proficiency with their weapon at the very least.

You are right we do not know the exact circumstance of the LE in the original post, but we do know that many here think low police pay is a legitimate excuse for not being able to shoot well. I think that is crazy.

 

[10-96]

Sooo....
When we see an Officer on the range who doesn't shoot as well as ya'll thinks he should, we should either disarm him, ridicule the guy, or tell him to find another line of work?

I don't know, I thought finding ways to encourage the guys to show up at the range a little more often with camaraderie, suppport, and a gut rocket was a decent place to start. Guess not.

 

[bds32]

There will always be a small minority of police officers who take weapons skills very seriously and will work hard to master the handgun especially. These individuals accept the fact that it is not a matter of if but when. The overwelming majority will continue to show up when and where they're told to complete the mandatory requirement, nothing more. I've seen it for the past 14 years. It's just the way it is and will always be as long as violence towards police in this country remains relatively stable. Why? because so many believe it will never happen to them. Seventy to Eighty officers will continue to lose deadly confrontations every year yet so many will continue to be unaffected by this fact. However, a relative few will be affected in a positive way and will make changes that could save their life. So, it comes down to the fact that living is a personal choice. In the end, gunfighting skills and other survival skills are the responsibility of the individual officer. If he or she can't get training from the agency, it's time to make some personal choices: find a new agency or job, or start training yourself.

 

[Wagonman]

What is the purpose of a "tactical roll"?

 

[jaym_100]

At our agency we qualify 4 times a year in the day and once a year at night. We have a much more real world qualification then the load 5 rounds, shoot 5 rounds at ten yards, then back up or whatever. So far everyone has passed it, but just because your a LEO doesn't mean your a gun nut. Personally I like to shoot, but I know several guys who only shoot when they qualify. Plus ammo is expensive now if your shooting a 40 s&w or a .45 and if you live in the city with no range, it makes it hard to practice. We don't have access to our range we qualify at. Also, someone wrote that some LEO's despise carrying a sidearm. Who in there right mind would be in this line of work without one.