Shootout In Hollywood

Status
Not open for further replies.
"Sadly, while shotguns were present and could have made the shot with slugs, nobody had any slugs. I don't know if they had anything larger than bird shot in the shotguns."

I have no idea if this is true or not but it doesn't make much sense to me. Why would you have a shotgun to defend yourself and the lives of others and put birdshot in it and have no other backup options ammowise? I understand that they have to worry about overpenetration of the rounds but to not have buckshot or slugs at ALL is beyond me. Was this a policy for california police officers or something?

I have 2 questions,
1. How many times were the BGs hit?
2. did the police ever try to flank the BGs and try for a closer headshot?

The .308 they used was an hk91 BTW
 
North Hollywood shootout...

That "documentary" had a LOT of holes in it... The BG's had both full auto and semi-auto weapons. They did not have AP rounds (contrary to published reports). I was working in the LA basin for the Gov't at that time and I watched it on TV that day in LA. I used to shoot with a lot of the LAPD and LASO folks down at a range in Torrence owned by a Torrence PD officer; and was concerned because I knew officers that were in NHD, RHD, and SWAT. FWIW I talked to the officer that made that shot on BG 1 (not a "self-inflicted wound as stated in the documentary)- He stated he was down to his last clip and "thought" he was down to his last round. He braced on a 6-8" tree he was "hiding" behind and took the shot from about 50-60 feet. He admitted he was surprised when the BG dropped. He basically said, "I figured I'd empty the clip then run like H... Most of the officers only had 3 clips of ammo and most shot them out, with no spares available.

The SWAT team was delayed by traffic and in fact, never got to the scene until after everything was over (there were multiple calls to airdeploy them, but all the helo's were tied up). I also talked to a SWAT officer (who I shot with and was a Nam vet and "knew" the sound of an AK of full auto) that made the shot from under the patrol car. He told us that they were told respond to scene , don't wait for the truck, so he responded in cutoff's and a t-shirt. He got there, threw on a vest, grabbed an M-16 and jumped in the front seat of the cruiser. They went in and he returned fire, then told us he couldn't figure out how he was going to get out of the right front seat, so he slid across on his back and flopped out on the driver's side. He realized he could see the BG's legs under the cars, so he took a shot and dropped the guy, then shot again (the second or sebsequent shot appearantly hit the Femoral artery, which caused the BG to bleed out). He also told us there was no way to get medical care to either BG, as they were still concerned there was a 3rd BG and all non-LE were being kept out of the area (which also delayed the EMS response to help the LEO's and civilians).
FYI, the first in car has never been repaired, it is at the LAPD Police Academy and is used as a "training" tool now. It has over 400 holes in it, including quite a few that appear to be 9mm holes.
One other major change was the issuance within a month of AR-15's to all patrol/shift Sgt's and TO's in both LAPD and LASO.

We can armchair quarterback this to death, but we weren't there. I think the men and women of the LAPD did their best that day, considering how badly they were out gunned- They never gave up, overcame departmental interia and triumphed in the end. There were a lot of civilians (Gun shop owner, truck drivers, etc.) that never got ANY credit for their assist, however some of the officers took it on themselves to thank those who helped.
 
"According to the documentary, one was shot 11 times and one was shot 29.
I can't remeber which one surrendered, but he died later"

I've attended 2 briefings on the shootout. One was by the on scene commander and the other briefing was by the 2 detectives who conducted the investigation. I have the briefing notes from the commander. Some of the stats from his briefing notes:
Phillips received 9 wounds, including the self-inflicted wound which entered under his chin and was probably the fatal wound. Matasareanu received 29 wounds.
Over 550 rds were fired by officers and another 90+ rds were fired by SWAT. The subjects fired over 1100 rds.
Officers' weapons were .38 revolvers, 9mm pistols, and Ithaca 12 ga shotguns with 00 Buck (not birdshot). Slugs were not authorized for carry.
The subjects were armed with 3 fully auto AK-47; 1 fully auto .308 H&K; 1 fully auto Bushmaster; 1 Beretta 92F, over 2600 rds of ammo; and 1 IED consisting of 2 one gallon jars of gasoline.
Weapons and ammo were retrieved from a nearby gunshop; however, none of those weapons were used during the shootout and no rounds were fired from those weapons.
 
Thanks I never knew that.

ISP2605 noted
Phillips received 9 wounds, including the self-inflicted wound which entered under his chin and was probably the fatal wound.:
Click to expand...

Interesting... I left out there in late '97 and never got to find out what the investigation turned up. Most of my info was based on conversations in the month after the shootout. Based on your comment, I know there is one officer who sleeps a lot better knowing that he didn't in fact take a life.
thanks,
jim
 
Cowled-Wolfe, if they could not hit the bad guys in the head, what makes you think they could hit the AK47s, or you for that matter?
Click to expand...
Now assuming I can play 'what if' scenarios which ignore the fact that I'd have been scared s***less... I'd have started trying to hit their AKs or their heads in order to disable their arms or give them concussions...
Click to expand...
I never said I'd be able to hit either target. I did say I'd try to, though.
Excerpt from definitions of 'try':
5 : to make an attempt at
Click to expand...
I did like the part about giving the bad guys concussions. I didn't know you had that sort of control on your ammo. Yes, that is pretty naive.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the idea of having control over a bullet in flight is pretty naive... But I do have a few questions. I'll even answer them for you!

Would a standard 9mm round penetrate a helmet at that range? No.
Would a standard 9mm round give the guy in the helmet a pretty hard knock? Yes.
Would that knock be enough to give him a concussion? Probably.

I think naive would be thinking a round's going to go right through his helmet and blow his brains out.

I didn't comment on it earlier, but I will here. I also liked the notion of the ineffective weaponry against such a superior force.
Click to expand...
I consider weapons to be ineffective when a BG is hit 10 or more times and is still standing, don't you?
At the height of battle, there were somewhere between 300 and 400 LAPD officers (depending on sources) involved against 2 guys.
Click to expand...
Earlier you mentioned watching all the bullets pinging in news footage. Watch that footage, then tell me how many officers you see actively involved.
LAPD has SWAT units (with full auto as noted on a recent remake documentary, but the full auto are MP5s, I believe, not .5.56), radios, and helicopters.
Click to expand...
And when the SWAT units finally arrived, it didn't take long to end the conflict. The officers there for the bulk of the time didn't have MP5s or ARs.
Plus, the PD had all the advantages of various news organizations providing live feeds. They even had their own armored vehicle and commandeered another.
Click to expand...
Live feeds to whichever call center, perhaps, but I don't think the officers on the scene were able to watch a TV -- at the most, I can see some descriptions of what's on TV via radio, which probably weren't fast enough to stay caught up in the confusion of the fight. The armored vehicles sure didn't help much... In fact, you seemed to make a point earlier that the BGs could have stopped an armored vehicle.
Tell me again, why two guys in body armor with full auto rifles with extremely limited mobility, no intel, no access to backup, and no com systems are superior to hundreds of officers?
Click to expand...
Because the BGs had armor which protected them from the weapos available to the officers they were fighting (untill the end when SWAT arrived), because they had automatic weapons which could penetrate the police body armor as well as some of their cover. Because they were heavily armored enough that moving around wasn't very neccessary (they had the police pinned, and therefore didn't need to move quickly). They didn't have intel, but all else was in their favor for the bulk of the fight. When you're that well armed and armored, and you're fighting police who don't have the arms or armor to protect themselves/hurt you, you don't need much backup, do you? They weren't far enough apart to need a com system, and there were only two of them in the first place. Yelling woulda worked. I already addressed your claims of hundreds of officers.
They were not a superior force.
Click to expand...
Read the above.
They simply did not have the hangups LAPD had. They did not have to worry about collateral damage. They did not have a command structure break down that slowed implementation of weaponry and people.
Click to expand...
The BGs had that in their favor too.
The robbers came prepared for battle. LAPD did not. The robbers wore armor that would stop most rounds used by the LAPD, mixing hard and soft body armor over large areas of their bodies. LAPD had on soft armor only that covered limited areas.
Click to expand...
So why did you argue that the police had MP5s and ARs? Right here, you're acknowledging that they didn't have an advantage in arms or armor. Also, I don't think the police were too worried about collateral damage: You described all the police bullets hitting the building behind the BGs; also, the SWAT officers who approached the BG by the disabled brownish truck shot back through the truck and the car next to it -- without showing much regard for the condition of the vehicles.

Simply put, the police only gained the upper hand at the end of the fight (hence it being the end), but they were vastly incapable of overcoming the BGs' force for almost all of the conflict.
 
I still find it amazing that not one of the L.A. P.D. who responded could get anything close to a headshot any of the time while the perps (read "felons" for all the newspeak folks) were standing out front shooting random s**t, shooting at helicopters, shooting at stores across the street, ect.

Somebody's gonna post, "we'll see how good you shoot while somebody is shooting back at you", bulls**t if anybody there was worth a s**t the arseholes never would have made it any farther and never would have had more chances to blow away any bank employees or customers.
 
Isn't 'newspeak' a "1984" reference?

I ask this because the last time I read that was in 6th grade, I was bored as hell, and I only survived reading through half of it. :o
 
This is from memory, and may be incorrect, but the actual shootout involved less than 100 people I believe, I think, after the 2 guys were dead, they still had a massive search underway, for other people, being covered head to toe, and probably indistinguishable in the excitement, people probably didn't believe only 2 people could do this alone, I believe they were on prescription painkillers, I guess when #'s of wounds are mentioned, I have to ask is a bruise under armor, caused by a bullet a wound. These types of injuries usually require hospitalization. The fact that they sustained X wounds doesn't tell the story, if they posibly sustained 98% of them in the last 30 seconds in thier life.

These officers are supposed to be trained for these situations, The media protrays LA, as a haven of gang members using fully-auto ak-47's everyday. Gee maybe the media is wrong, and most gang shootings are mainly from .38 revolvers, sawed off, single, or 2 barrel shotguns, with semi-auto 9mm starting to be seen more often in the late 90's, to now. The lack of sustained SG fire, or lack of ammo is appaling, it probably is a result of the officers don't like to shoot slugs, or heavy 00 loads. I am not sure, but if you brought in extra ammo, buck, and slug loads for your SG, it may be against policy, but dying and a write-up, or even losing your job is a personal decision.

The lack of training of LE nation-wide is horrendous, a paid amount of monthly range time should be instituted. I do not kow the amount of gun ranges , or quality in LA, but you can go on your day off, and shoot at longer ranges to see the hold on your gun, after all it is your life, Keep the receipt, and if you are lucky enough to itemize your deductions, deduct it. The decision to go to .45 caliber handguns alludes me, I did not think they penetrated a bullet proof vest more than a 9mm. It seems the 9 has some pretty hot LE loads out there, that would cause more blunt force than a .45 the lapd went with, I though the slower a projectile, the more time for the fibers, to disperse the force over a larger area. I may be wrong. I thought that some of the respondents were off-duty, so that maybe swat team members were at the actual shootout, but not an "official swat team". I am not sure what went on in the bank, but from some picks of the hardware shown in a thread asking about ccw weapons, I have to ask, could a couple of guys from this board, have snuck up behind the BG's while exiting, or firing at the front of the bank on officers, standing on either side of the doorway, put 2 rounds in the back of their heads?, or in their extremeities, after getting people to cover of course. This may not contain 1 fact, it is purely speculation.
 
"Somebody's gonna post, "we'll see how good you shoot while somebody is shooting back at you", bulls**t if anybody there was worth a s**t the arseholes never would have made it any farther and never would have had more chances to blow away any bank employees or customers."

It's nice to see we have an experienced gun fighter on the list. One who has obviously, from his post, been involved in multiple shootouts, has the first hand experience to know what a gun fight is like and all the dynamics involved, and who has interviewed, first hand, numerous participants in shootouts. :rolleyes:

It's easy to shoot accurately when no one is shooting back. It's even easier to shoot accurately sitting behind a computer.
Some people need to stick with their computer games.
 
"This is from memory, and may be incorrect, but the actual shootout involved less than 100 people I believe,"

According to the on scene commander and the 2 detectives who conducted the investigation 32 LAPD offiicers fired their weapons.
9 LAPD were wounded by gun fire.
3 citizens were wounded.
1 officer was injured in a traffic collision responding to the scene.
1 officer was injured from non-gun fire causes.
12 squad cars were damaged beyond repair.
1 squad car received 57 separate rds.
Across the street was a kiosk which several officers used for cover. It received over 150 rds.

For the LEOs on the list if you get the chance to hear either the on scene commander or the detectives speak then take the time to go. Particularly the on scene commander. They were making the rounds to the usual LEO only type meetings.
 
PsychoSword,

I still find it amazing that not one of the L.A. P.D. who responded could get anything close to a headshot any of the time while the perps (read "felons" for all the newspeak folks) were standing out front shooting random s**t, shooting at helicopters, shooting at stores across the street, ect.
Click to expand...

I have a little money-making proposition for you. You favor the iron-sighted Beretta, right? Let's go set up an IPSC target on a bobber at, what would you say was a good average for that dustup? 35 yards? We should also set the bobber up to allow a certain amount of random lateral movement. We'll let you load up ten 15 round magazines, and then set it in motion. Then you can open up. For every hit you make in the A-zone of the target's noggin, you'd get a ten dollar bill. For every miss, you'd give me a dollar. Who do you think would come out ahead?
 
Now Tamara...

We'll let you load up ten 15 round magazines, and then set it in motion. Then you can open up. For every hit you make in the A-zone of the target's noggin, you'd get a ten dollar bill. For every miss, you'd give me a dollar. Who do you think would come out ahead?
Click to expand...

Lets be fair- Give him the same capacity the officers had at the scene- 3 mags total, a random paint ball gun firing from down range back at the line, and I'll pitch in $10 per hit/get $1 miss too! Why you could even let him shoot from behind a barricade :rolleyes:
 
Wow, so little known that the robbers didn't even know they were military trained! The late Mr. Matasareanu, 30, was born in Romania and grew up partly in Altadena. He turned to computers because he was teased for being chubby. After graduating from DeVry Institute of Technology in Los Angeles, he operated his own business, working as a computer technician and software designer, his mother, Valerie Nicolescu, told reporters. - http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Square/1211/index2.html Chiram, I think you are confused with the bandits who shot it out with the FBI in 1986. Platt being the one who used military tactics on the unsuspecting FBI agents and advanced on their position when he basically was in a losing position in the fight. This completely took the agents by surprise.
Click to expand...

I stand corrected. Like I said, I wasn't sure. :)
 
Tamara wrote;
I have a little money-making proposition for you. You favor the iron-sighted Beretta, right? Let's go set up an IPSC target on a bobber at, what would you say was a good average for that dustup? 35 yards? We should also set the bobber up to allow a certain amount of random lateral movement. We'll let you load up ten 15 round magazines, and then set it in motion. Then you can open up. For every hit you make in the A-zone of the target's noggin, you'd get a ten dollar bill. For every miss, you'd give me a dollar. Who do you think would come out ahead?"
Click to expand...

And don't forget to have a volley of full auto 30 cal indiscriminately sprayed in his direction every so often while he tries to fire at the bobbing head bad guy target. if I were a betting man I would have to side with Tamara's odds on winning the bet. As far as second guessing and monday morning quarterbacking the LAPD and SO, I won't even try to talk the talk til I've walked the walk. Honestly I don't see my cowardly butt being very impressive when the full auto starts zipping overhead.
 
Engine Material

I would like to point out to those speculating about an engines steel content. 99% of Caterpillar,Detroit,Cummins,Chevrolet,Pontiac,Cadillac an every other american made engine are cast iron not steel. That being said, cast iron at operating temperature (190 to 220 degrees average) will crack quite easily. Hell I know for a FACT a .357 delivered to the thin part of the webbing in the main bearing area of a small block chevy will crack the webbing. That being said an engine can run for a long time with a cracked block provided they dont run the hell out of it an its not cracked in a critical area such as the cam boss or the front water jacket. Just food for thought. If you dont beleive cast iron will crack, get a cast iron pan an put it on the stove an cook biscuits in it then promptly drop it on a tile floor an watch it shatter like glass.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top