Real Life LE Scenario

B

Bartholomew Roberts

Moderator
A man is running around his house pointing a rifle at people and screaming at them. These people call police. When police arrive, he claims people are shooting at him, refuses to disarm, and runs inside his house.

As one of the first officers to arrive, you take up a position near the house. Your own agency's SWAT team has been called out and is relieving some of the people you arrived with. Other, larger, better funded, agencies from nearby are headed in to assist.

As your SWAT team starts relieving the first responders, shots ring out. You see glass jet out of the front window of the house, followed by smoke. However, you cannot see an actual person behind the window due to the sunscreen. You are unsure where all your officers are, or whether outside agencies have arrived on the scene. You hear over the radio that one of your officers outside the house has been hit. Do you take the blind shot through the window or wait?
 
Why take a shot when one does not know neither where exactly the shooter is or if there are any other people present.

Only a fool would just blindly open fire.

Deaf
 
Seems pretty simple. never engage unless you are fully able to identify the intended target and determine if it is prudent to make that attempt.
 
There are more tools than a hammer,and not everything is a nail.
Does anyone know if there is a family inside?
Location of other officers unknown.Might some have come in the back way?

I'm a civilian lay person. In some environments,overwelming fire superiority might be the best response,but,IMO,not this time.

You say SWAT has arrived? I would expect that means a Leader has arrived.

There will be a plan and disciplined response.Get your ears on and listen for instructions.
And get behind cover.
A coached,directed team effort is what is required,not undisciplined "sound shots"
I would guess the SWAT team has drilled on recovering a downed officer.
I would guess a negotiating team would try to achieve the best outcome possible
And I would expect the sniper team(s) with optics and perhaps IR,thermal,or? would prepare to handle the worst case.

Now,what is the upside of an individual reacting by firing blind into the building?
 
Last edited:
There are too many unknowns to answer this question appropriately, but when it comes to deadly force, when in doubt, don't shoot.
 
The phrase "blind shot" says it all. Very small chance of a successful outcome, risks unknown and all kinds of ways for things to go wrong.
 
I was on the Bomb Squad. We responded to a lot of SWAT call outs simply because we had tools they didn't. Mainly, for the situation described, we had a RMI.

RMI = Remote Mobile Investigator. Commonly referred to as a Robot. It comes with a variety of tools, remote cameras, speakers, and listening devices. Not to mention weapon systems. Plus X-Ray systems.

In many situations, it can do anything an officer can do without putting the officers in danger.

The OP said an officer was hit, The MRI can get to him, and drag him to safety. It has the capability to breach the door, or wall and search the house.

You have the ability to negotiate with the bandit face to face, again without putting lives at risk. If need be it can find the suspect and disable him/her.

The RMI can deliver food, water, and medical supplies if needed. All while the operator sets in a nice safe, comfortable location.

I wont even address the Blind Shot BS.
 
As it turns out, the shots were the shooter. He opened fire on a SWAT officer relieving one of the responding officers. There were also innocents inside the house, and by oversight, a single officer behind the house. I was impressed at the discipline of the officer who also did not take the shot despite a strong hunch and now regularly second guesses that decision as the officer on his small rural police force who was hit died.

I'm sure the larger department that responded had a robot. Not sure the smaller one did. Tough to negotiate with a guy who believes invisible people are shooting at him even before a bunch of visibly armed people show up and try to get him to drop his weapon (which was another area where the officers showed great restraint).

One thing we don't often take into account in planning is not all the actors we face are acting rationally.
 
It is certainly true that someone involved in such an attack is not acting rationally. It is also true that there is always room for second guessing when everything doesn't go according to plan. I agree with Deaf Smith that only a fool blindly opens fire in this situation.
 
1) Stay in cover
2) Never fire a weapon unless you know what is behind the intended target.
3) Don't do something (stupid) that's going to put you in front of a judge
 
Just about every case of "man with a gun" "Barricaded subject" has some component of mental health in it.

As President Trump has opened the door for Military Vehicles to start being procured for Police Forces to use in this kind of situation, one brought forward would at least allow negotiations to start, and not expose an Officer to gunfire.

Start collecting information via phone calls to close neighbors, very dodgy situation. How to observe, whilst not being seen?
 
Seems to me that the officer who is beating himself over the death of a colleague is suffering from understandable trauma after the event, but ultimately he didn't shoot that other officer but in taking a blind shot he might well have done. Or another. Or a civilian.

Had he taken a look through the window he might have been shot himself.

I've come to the realisation, following recent events in life, that regret is a pointless emotion. That doesn't mean not questioning one's own actions after the event. It just means that you can't change the past. You learn and move on.

Where necessary take responsibility for actions taken or not. But know where the responsibility starts and, equally importantly, where it ends.

I feel for the officer involved, but once someone is shot, everyone involved starts thinking what they could have done differently. To not, is to not care. To not care is to not be an empathic human being.
 
As President Trump has opened the door for Military Vehicles to start being procured for Police Forces to use in this kind of situation, one brought forward would at least allow negotiations to start, and not expose an Officer to gunfire.
Click to expand...

Its not just Military Vehicles. Its Military Equipment.

So I'll go back to RMIs (Robots).

In Iraq as we know, IEDs was a major problem. This problem called for the massive purchace of Bomb Detection Equipment and other Toolings. As the war died down massive amounts of military equipment became surplus.

Most of this equipment is made available to civilian police agencies.

This includes RMIs X-Rays and related equipment.

After my post about RMIs it was mentioned that many small departments can't afford this type of equipment.

Releasing Surplus Military Equipment makes the equipment available to any legit organization at little or no cost.

Since 911, and the creation of Home Land Security, Every state and county has a DHS director and program.

Any department can go to their State or County DHS and request surplus military equipment including RMIs and X-Rays.

Training for this equipment is readily available form the NG units or Civilian EOD (Bomb Squads).

Every time we have the Olympics or similar events, the Fed. Government gets involved in security for the events. Funds are made available to purchase equipment, and training for local departments. After the event, the equipment if made available to the departments.

It doesnt cost a lot of money, whats really required is a grant writer. If you can write grants you can justify and get just about anything.

Having been a Bomb Tech. and instructor in the use of RMIs, and SWAT Instructor, I know that the RMI and even X-Rays are valuable, life saving tools.

Not only in Hostage and Barricaded suspect calls, but rescues also, such as down power lines or hazardous material spills. They can and are being used for rescuing downed officers and other victims, without putting other officer lives in harms way.

To keep this FIREARM RELATES, just about all RMIs can be equipped with firearms and water canons.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top