But most of the cops are good. We swear it.

[OnePercenter]

I don't see any statistics to back up your claim

How about the $175K the city paid?

You think that proves something? A woman staring at her phone, walked into a bright orange ladder, and collected $160K. That proves nothing, except our court systems and laws are jacked up. It means we need to change the laws, and stop giving money for stupidity.

Apples and oranges. The city settled for more than twice the typical maximum wrongful termination award.

Cities usually do. That's not a shocking statement. It still proves nothing to me. If that is all that is required for your opinion, that just means your opinion isn't worth much.

You want to convince me, great. Go for it. But this isn't evidence of much in my book. You need better evidence than this.

Cities usually do.

Make your point, but don't get confused PI awards versus wrongful termination awards.

 

[Andylusion]

I don't see any statistics to back up your claim

How about the $175K the city paid?

You think that proves something? A woman staring at her phone, walked into a bright orange ladder, and collected $160K. That proves nothing, except our court systems and laws are jacked up. It means we need to change the laws, and stop giving money for stupidity.

Apples and oranges. The city settled for more than twice the typical maximum wrongful termination award.

Cities usually do. That's not a shocking statement. It still proves nothing to me. If that is all that is required for your opinion, that just means your opinion isn't worth much.

You want to convince me, great. Go for it. But this isn't evidence of much in my book. You need better evidence than this.

Cities usually do.

Make your point, but don't get confused PI awards versus wrongful termination awards.

Could be wrong, but cities usually settle for twice as much as any other regular lawsuit, because it isn't their money. Its the tax payer money. No one at the city government is losing one penny over any settlement. It's always the tax payers that is screwed over, and so the city always is willing to pay out whatever it takes

 

[Andylusion]

We all know the stories of cops who are involved in questionable shootings, or outright bad shootings. We all know that cops tell us that they can’t hesitate, and we can’t understand what they are going through. Yet, what happens when a cop doesn’t shoot someone?

What Happened When A White Cop Decided Not to Shoot a Black Man

The cop is fired, and labeled a coward. Officer Mader of the Weirton police department got the call nobody should want. There was a problem at an address, the woman called and asked for help, and then hung up. She did not answer on the call back. Mader arrived and found the Ex Boyfriend outside, with his hand behind him. Mader told him to show the hands, common, standard even to now. But the man had a gun, and the Ex Girlfriend told the dispatcher that the man had dropped the magazine, and was going to get the cops to shoot him. Suicide by cop. The dispatcher did not report this, but Mader knew what was going on. He could see it, sense it. He got behind cover, and pulled his own pistol, and realized the man was trying to suicide by cop. He knew it.

Then two more officers showed up, and one of them fired four times, missing the distraught man all four. The fifth shot hit, and killed the man. OK, so far, we have a bad situation, but a justifiable shooting. The man was waving the gun around, and the cops didn’t know that he was trying to suicide by cop. Mader felt it, sensed it, and just knew it in his bones.

So what happened? Was the guy who took the shot fired? Nope. Without even talking to Mader, the Captain, and the Chief of Police made the decision to fire Mader for NOT shooting a distraught man who was intending to suicide by cop. Mader was labeled a coward, his reputation destroyed, by people who never even interviewed him. Not once talking to him to get his side. Why?

We keep hearing about the vast majority of cops who are good. Who are doing a tough job the best way they can. Yet in this case, while I can’t fault the second and third officer arriving as they did, and going with what they saw, I can question the decision to fire the first officer on the scene, the one who should have been in control, but wasn’t because the other officers had more time. The Rookie knew it was a suicide by cop, but did not want to oblige the man.

The Chief admitted he had never investigated an officer involved shooting. He had no idea what he was doing, and no idea what the officers were taught to do at the academy concerning de-escalation of the situation. So why was Mader fired? In an effort to head off the lawsuit. The inevitable lawsuit since the officers did not have all the information the Dispatcher had gotten, about the intentions of the man. That which Mader realized when he was talking to the guy.

With that information, a man could have gotten the help he needed. Without it, the police were unarmed as far as understanding the situation. The police could have helped a man, saved a life, and saved themselves a lot of trouble. Instead, they went after the one who didn’t want to shoot, because he wanted to honestly help. The good cop was sacrificed, thrown away to protect the others. One comment from his training officer is interesting. Mader understood to always have the back of a fellow cop. Cops first, all of us a distant second. A very distant second.

So where are all those good cops, the ones who would insure that truth, and doing the right thing matters? Apparently there weren’t any in charge of the department.

Are you sure that is the reason? I think the reason real reason he was fired is because a intentionally armed and deadly man, could have killed someone while this officer did nothing.

I gotta tell you, if I was in that situation and my life was possibly in danger, and this guy refused to fire based on a hunch.... I would not want this guy working with me anymore.

It's the same reason that boot camp is designed to be stressful and hard. They want the people who are going to crack, to do so at boot camp, instead of in a war zone, because if they crack in the war zone, then everyone around him dies.

You can't have your police backup, when faced with a clearly dangerous situation, just decide "Hey I think his gun is unloaded and he's trying to suicide by cop!". NO. You are going to end up shot, because sparky refused to cover you based on a hunch? No.

I appears that the old shoot to mass is still the rule, and should be. I could be they might have to start with teaching some type of disable shooting, all tho this seem like a crock.

Teaching some type of disable shooting?

I'm not positive, but I think you are advocating trying to teach police officers, to shoot someone in the hand, or shoot the gun out of their hand, or something that you would see in the movies.

The movies are crap. That isn't how life works.

Police officers do not carry rifles, like the military does. Have you ever wondered why the military uses rifles instead of everyone with a pistol? Pistols are lighter, and the soldier could carry more ammo. So why not? Because it is so much harder to hit anything with a pistol, over a rifle.

Hitting a person at 20 yards with a pistol is hard enough.

Now you want to try and shoot the gun out of their hands? Or shoot their legs?

Police officers are trained to aim for a body shot. The reason for this is specifically to kill. The reason for this is because you are less likely to miss, aiming for the body, rather than a head shot, or arm shot.

Why is this important? In a war zone, if you miss a target and hit someone behind the target, they call that collateral damage. If a police officer does that, it's called the termination of a career.

Shooting to disable, is never going to be how the police operate. The weapons they carry are not accurate enough for that, and there is far too much risk of an innocent bystander being hit. That's what a taser is for, but that isn't a viable option when confronted with a lethal weapon.

How you shoot is often as important as where you shoot. During the 1970’s the technique taught was Shoot, Shoot, Assess. That meant you fired two rounds, and waited a moment to asses if the baddie was still a threat. If he was falling down, you held fire to see what was going to happen.

Imagine if that had been used in this situation. The cop fired two rounds, which missed. He takes a moment to assess, and suddenly it clicks in his brain that the Suspect is not firing back, not even trying to, and isn’t seeking cover. Even if the cop pulling the trigger is especially dense, he probably would have figured it out after the second shoot, shoot, assess event, when the other two rounds sailed past the suspect. But that wasn’t what he was taught.

He was taught shoot to stop. Or he should have been shoot to stop. Shoot to stop means you keep pulling the trigger until the baddie is stopped. It doesn’t sound like much of a difference, but the shoot to stop technique is often used to empty the magazine. Whereas the shoot shoot assess technique leaves you with three cycles even if you are using a revolver, leaving additional ammunition for additional bad guys.

Most of these idiotic “I was afeared for my life” shootings finds the cop with an empty pistol and one baddie on the ground with a lot of holes in him. If there was a second baddie, he would have killed all the cops who were busy trying to reload while standing in the middle of the road instead of seeking cover, which was also taught during Shoot, Shoot, Assess.

How you shoot, is often more important than where you shoot. In this case, the cop was either a)Trying to kill the baddie by shooting at the head with all five shots instead of center mass as you indicated was proper training. Or B) A catastrophically bad shot by missing center mass with all five rounds fired.

So which was it? All we know for sure is the first cop had assessed the situation, and the later arriving cops, with less information, and less first hand experience with the situation, opened fire and killed the man.

The new mantra is "spray and pray". Maybe it's time to require cops to carry single-action revolvers.

That will never happen. My father was an officer when they switched over from the .38 to the semi 9mm. Everyone knows that in the 1980s, a bunch of agents were gunned down and slaughtered after two guys with rifles just walked up to them when they ran out of shots after firing 6 times.

If you are confronted by someone with a semi automatic gun, and has multiple mags, you are nothing but a free target while you try and reload a revolver. You tell the police force they are going back to revolvers, and you might as well start stocking up on guns and ammo yourself, because the police will disappear.

It will be Chicago all over again. Police will sit in a parking lot on the other side of town, and just wait for the 9/11 call... finish their doughnuts and collect the bodies.

 

[SavannahMann]

Are you sure that is the reason? I think the reason real reason he was fired is because a intentionally armed and deadly man, could have killed someone while this officer did nothing.

I gotta tell you, if I was in that situation and my life was possibly in danger, and this guy refused to fire based on a hunch.... I would not want this guy working with me anymore.

It's the same reason that boot camp is designed to be stressful and hard. They want the people who are going to crack, to do so at boot camp, instead of in a war zone, because if they crack in the war zone, then everyone around him dies.

You can't have your police backup, when faced with a clearly dangerous situation, just decide "Hey I think his gun is unloaded and he's trying to suicide by cop!". NO. You are going to end up shot, because sparky refused to cover you based on a hunch? No.

I appears that the old shoot to mass is still the rule, and should be. I could be they might have to start with teaching some type of disable shooting, all tho this seem like a crock.

Teaching some type of disable shooting?

I'm not positive, but I think you are advocating trying to teach police officers, to shoot someone in the hand, or shoot the gun out of their hand, or something that you would see in the movies.

The movies are crap. That isn't how life works.

Police officers do not carry rifles, like the military does. Have you ever wondered why the military uses rifles instead of everyone with a pistol? Pistols are lighter, and the soldier could carry more ammo. So why not? Because it is so much harder to hit anything with a pistol, over a rifle.

Hitting a person at 20 yards with a pistol is hard enough.

Now you want to try and shoot the gun out of their hands? Or shoot their legs?

Police officers are trained to aim for a body shot. The reason for this is specifically to kill. The reason for this is because you are less likely to miss, aiming for the body, rather than a head shot, or arm shot.

Why is this important? In a war zone, if you miss a target and hit someone behind the target, they call that collateral damage. If a police officer does that, it's called the termination of a career.

Shooting to disable, is never going to be how the police operate. The weapons they carry are not accurate enough for that, and there is far too much risk of an innocent bystander being hit. That's what a taser is for, but that isn't a viable option when confronted with a lethal weapon.

How you shoot is often as important as where you shoot. During the 1970’s the technique taught was Shoot, Shoot, Assess. That meant you fired two rounds, and waited a moment to asses if the baddie was still a threat. If he was falling down, you held fire to see what was going to happen.

Imagine if that had been used in this situation. The cop fired two rounds, which missed. He takes a moment to assess, and suddenly it clicks in his brain that the Suspect is not firing back, not even trying to, and isn’t seeking cover. Even if the cop pulling the trigger is especially dense, he probably would have figured it out after the second shoot, shoot, assess event, when the other two rounds sailed past the suspect. But that wasn’t what he was taught.

He was taught shoot to stop. Or he should have been shoot to stop. Shoot to stop means you keep pulling the trigger until the baddie is stopped. It doesn’t sound like much of a difference, but the shoot to stop technique is often used to empty the magazine. Whereas the shoot shoot assess technique leaves you with three cycles even if you are using a revolver, leaving additional ammunition for additional bad guys.

Most of these idiotic “I was afeared for my life” shootings finds the cop with an empty pistol and one baddie on the ground with a lot of holes in him. If there was a second baddie, he would have killed all the cops who were busy trying to reload while standing in the middle of the road instead of seeking cover, which was also taught during Shoot, Shoot, Assess.

How you shoot, is often more important than where you shoot. In this case, the cop was either a)Trying to kill the baddie by shooting at the head with all five shots instead of center mass as you indicated was proper training. Or B) A catastrophically bad shot by missing center mass with all five rounds fired.

So which was it? All we know for sure is the first cop had assessed the situation, and the later arriving cops, with less information, and less first hand experience with the situation, opened fire and killed the man.

The new mantra is "spray and pray". Maybe it's time to require cops to carry single-action revolvers.

That will never happen. My father was an officer when they switched over from the .38 to the semi 9mm. Everyone knows that in the 1980s, a bunch of agents were gunned down and slaughtered after two guys with rifles just walked up to them when they ran out of shots after firing 6 times.

If you are confronted by someone with a semi automatic gun, and has multiple mags, you are nothing but a free target while you try and reload a revolver. You tell the police force they are going back to revolvers, and you might as well start stocking up on guns and ammo yourself, because the police will disappear.

It will be Chicago all over again. Police will sit in a parking lot on the other side of town, and just wait for the 9/11 call... finish their doughnuts and collect the bodies.

The problem with the Miami Dade FBI shootout is covered in this long video.



In short, a failure of marksmanship.

 

[Andylusion]

I appears that the old shoot to mass is still the rule, and should be. I could be they might have to start with teaching some type of disable shooting, all tho this seem like a crock.

Teaching some type of disable shooting?

I'm not positive, but I think you are advocating trying to teach police officers, to shoot someone in the hand, or shoot the gun out of their hand, or something that you would see in the movies.

The movies are crap. That isn't how life works.

Police officers do not carry rifles, like the military does. Have you ever wondered why the military uses rifles instead of everyone with a pistol? Pistols are lighter, and the soldier could carry more ammo. So why not? Because it is so much harder to hit anything with a pistol, over a rifle.

Hitting a person at 20 yards with a pistol is hard enough.

Now you want to try and shoot the gun out of their hands? Or shoot their legs?

Police officers are trained to aim for a body shot. The reason for this is specifically to kill. The reason for this is because you are less likely to miss, aiming for the body, rather than a head shot, or arm shot.

Why is this important? In a war zone, if you miss a target and hit someone behind the target, they call that collateral damage. If a police officer does that, it's called the termination of a career.

Shooting to disable, is never going to be how the police operate. The weapons they carry are not accurate enough for that, and there is far too much risk of an innocent bystander being hit. That's what a taser is for, but that isn't a viable option when confronted with a lethal weapon.

How you shoot is often as important as where you shoot. During the 1970’s the technique taught was Shoot, Shoot, Assess. That meant you fired two rounds, and waited a moment to asses if the baddie was still a threat. If he was falling down, you held fire to see what was going to happen.

Imagine if that had been used in this situation. The cop fired two rounds, which missed. He takes a moment to assess, and suddenly it clicks in his brain that the Suspect is not firing back, not even trying to, and isn’t seeking cover. Even if the cop pulling the trigger is especially dense, he probably would have figured it out after the second shoot, shoot, assess event, when the other two rounds sailed past the suspect. But that wasn’t what he was taught.

He was taught shoot to stop. Or he should have been shoot to stop. Shoot to stop means you keep pulling the trigger until the baddie is stopped. It doesn’t sound like much of a difference, but the shoot to stop technique is often used to empty the magazine. Whereas the shoot shoot assess technique leaves you with three cycles even if you are using a revolver, leaving additional ammunition for additional bad guys.

Most of these idiotic “I was afeared for my life” shootings finds the cop with an empty pistol and one baddie on the ground with a lot of holes in him. If there was a second baddie, he would have killed all the cops who were busy trying to reload while standing in the middle of the road instead of seeking cover, which was also taught during Shoot, Shoot, Assess.

How you shoot, is often more important than where you shoot. In this case, the cop was either a)Trying to kill the baddie by shooting at the head with all five shots instead of center mass as you indicated was proper training. Or B) A catastrophically bad shot by missing center mass with all five rounds fired.

So which was it? All we know for sure is the first cop had assessed the situation, and the later arriving cops, with less information, and less first hand experience with the situation, opened fire and killed the man.

The new mantra is "spray and pray". Maybe it's time to require cops to carry single-action revolvers.

That will never happen. My father was an officer when they switched over from the .38 to the semi 9mm. Everyone knows that in the 1980s, a bunch of agents were gunned down and slaughtered after two guys with rifles just walked up to them when they ran out of shots after firing 6 times.

If you are confronted by someone with a semi automatic gun, and has multiple mags, you are nothing but a free target while you try and reload a revolver. You tell the police force they are going back to revolvers, and you might as well start stocking up on guns and ammo yourself, because the police will disappear.

It will be Chicago all over again. Police will sit in a parking lot on the other side of town, and just wait for the 9/11 call... finish their doughnuts and collect the bodies.

The problem with the Miami Dade FBI shootout is covered in this long video.



In short, a failure of marksmanship.

So, I'm assuming you watched this video since you cited it.... and yet in the video he talks about having speed loaders, more semi-autos, and a machine gun.

You cited a video that contradicted your simplistic "marksmanship" explanation.

I'm always amazed when I see someone posted a citation that contradicts what they claim.

Was marksmanship a factor? You bet. However, unless you send all the agents and police to the range 4 hours every single day, marksmanship will never be perfect. In fact, even if you did, it still wouldn't be perfect.

As a person who comes from a long line of police and military in the family, the idea that you can end up with perfect aim from sitting on a range, is ridiculous. When people shoot at you, this idea that you are going to aim like you do standing at a range, not trying to shield yourself from income fire, behind a car.... is insane.

In fact, it's not even the same as surrounding a store, waiting for a robber to exit the building.

They crashed. You crash into someone in a car, and they start firing a rifle at you, and you are going to causally open the door, stand up straight, stretch a little, crack your back, then calmly pull your .357, and blow the guys head off while dropping a cool tag-line... is the movies, not real life.

Again, I'm sure marksmanship played a part. But again, police and agents spend most of their time doing routine patrols, and filling out paperwork. The idea that when confronted by armed criminals, they are going to suddenly turn into American Sniper, who has been in combat routinely for months, and have great aim, is crazy.

And that is exactly why the video you yourself posted, did not say marksmanship was the only main failure. He also said they should have had better weapons, an rifles, and faster reloads with quick loaders and so on.

REGARDLESS.............

While the video does not support your single failure view of the Miami Dade shootout....

Even if it did, it still doesn't change my point.

Even if 100% of the problem was entirely marksmanship..... The police are not going to give up their 9mm, and go back to .38 specials. Whether you think marksmanship is the only problem or not, the police are simply not going back to revolvers because you think they should, or even if everyone thinks they should.

They will do exactly what I said.... they will ghost you, and do Chicago all over again. They will disappear, and only show up to pick up the bodies.

As a person who knows police officers, this is a non-starter. If anything, I would wager we will see more police armed with rifles.

 

[SavannahMann]

Teaching some type of disable shooting?

I'm not positive, but I think you are advocating trying to teach police officers, to shoot someone in the hand, or shoot the gun out of their hand, or something that you would see in the movies.

The movies are crap. That isn't how life works.

Police officers do not carry rifles, like the military does. Have you ever wondered why the military uses rifles instead of everyone with a pistol? Pistols are lighter, and the soldier could carry more ammo. So why not? Because it is so much harder to hit anything with a pistol, over a rifle.

Hitting a person at 20 yards with a pistol is hard enough.

Now you want to try and shoot the gun out of their hands? Or shoot their legs?

Police officers are trained to aim for a body shot. The reason for this is specifically to kill. The reason for this is because you are less likely to miss, aiming for the body, rather than a head shot, or arm shot.

Why is this important? In a war zone, if you miss a target and hit someone behind the target, they call that collateral damage. If a police officer does that, it's called the termination of a career.

Shooting to disable, is never going to be how the police operate. The weapons they carry are not accurate enough for that, and there is far too much risk of an innocent bystander being hit. That's what a taser is for, but that isn't a viable option when confronted with a lethal weapon.

How you shoot is often as important as where you shoot. During the 1970’s the technique taught was Shoot, Shoot, Assess. That meant you fired two rounds, and waited a moment to asses if the baddie was still a threat. If he was falling down, you held fire to see what was going to happen.

Imagine if that had been used in this situation. The cop fired two rounds, which missed. He takes a moment to assess, and suddenly it clicks in his brain that the Suspect is not firing back, not even trying to, and isn’t seeking cover. Even if the cop pulling the trigger is especially dense, he probably would have figured it out after the second shoot, shoot, assess event, when the other two rounds sailed past the suspect. But that wasn’t what he was taught.

He was taught shoot to stop. Or he should have been shoot to stop. Shoot to stop means you keep pulling the trigger until the baddie is stopped. It doesn’t sound like much of a difference, but the shoot to stop technique is often used to empty the magazine. Whereas the shoot shoot assess technique leaves you with three cycles even if you are using a revolver, leaving additional ammunition for additional bad guys.

Most of these idiotic “I was afeared for my life” shootings finds the cop with an empty pistol and one baddie on the ground with a lot of holes in him. If there was a second baddie, he would have killed all the cops who were busy trying to reload while standing in the middle of the road instead of seeking cover, which was also taught during Shoot, Shoot, Assess.

How you shoot, is often more important than where you shoot. In this case, the cop was either a)Trying to kill the baddie by shooting at the head with all five shots instead of center mass as you indicated was proper training. Or B) A catastrophically bad shot by missing center mass with all five rounds fired.

So which was it? All we know for sure is the first cop had assessed the situation, and the later arriving cops, with less information, and less first hand experience with the situation, opened fire and killed the man.

The new mantra is "spray and pray". Maybe it's time to require cops to carry single-action revolvers.

That will never happen. My father was an officer when they switched over from the .38 to the semi 9mm. Everyone knows that in the 1980s, a bunch of agents were gunned down and slaughtered after two guys with rifles just walked up to them when they ran out of shots after firing 6 times.

If you are confronted by someone with a semi automatic gun, and has multiple mags, you are nothing but a free target while you try and reload a revolver. You tell the police force they are going back to revolvers, and you might as well start stocking up on guns and ammo yourself, because the police will disappear.

It will be Chicago all over again. Police will sit in a parking lot on the other side of town, and just wait for the 9/11 call... finish their doughnuts and collect the bodies.

The problem with the Miami Dade FBI shootout is covered in this long video.



In short, a failure of marksmanship.

So, I'm assuming you watched this video since you cited it.... and yet in the video he talks about having speed loaders, more semi-autos, and a machine gun.

You cited a video that contradicted your simplistic "marksmanship" explanation.

I'm always amazed when I see someone posted a citation that contradicts what they claim.

Was marksmanship a factor? You bet. However, unless you send all the agents and police to the range 4 hours every single day, marksmanship will never be perfect. In fact, even if you did, it still wouldn't be perfect.

As a person who comes from a long line of police and military in the family, the idea that you can end up with perfect aim from sitting on a range, is ridiculous. When people shoot at you, this idea that you are going to aim like you do standing at a range, not trying to shield yourself from income fire, behind a car.... is insane.

In fact, it's not even the same as surrounding a store, waiting for a robber to exit the building.

They crashed. You crash into someone in a car, and they start firing a rifle at you, and you are going to causally open the door, stand up straight, stretch a little, crack your back, then calmly pull your .357, and blow the guys head off while dropping a cool tag-line... is the movies, not real life.

Again, I'm sure marksmanship played a part. But again, police and agents spend most of their time doing routine patrols, and filling out paperwork. The idea that when confronted by armed criminals, they are going to suddenly turn into American Sniper, who has been in combat routinely for months, and have great aim, is crazy.

And that is exactly why the video you yourself posted, did not say marksmanship was the only main failure. He also said they should have had better weapons, an rifles, and faster reloads with quick loaders and so on.

REGARDLESS.............

While the video does not support your single failure view of the Miami Dade shootout....

Even if it did, it still doesn't change my point.

Even if 100% of the problem was entirely marksmanship..... The police are not going to give up their 9mm, and go back to .38 specials. Whether you think marksmanship is the only problem or not, the police are simply not going back to revolvers because you think they should, or even if everyone thinks they should.

They will do exactly what I said.... they will ghost you, and do Chicago all over again. They will disappear, and only show up to pick up the bodies.

As a person who knows police officers, this is a non-starter. If anything, I would wager we will see more police armed with rifles.

He says clearly in the video, that the biggest problem was a failure of marksmanship. Two of the agents had 9MM pistols, and between them with more than four magazines fired, they got one hit between them. So with box of ammunition thrown downrange, they had one through and through wound on a limb between them, with no way to know which of them had the hit.

The agents were firing at close range, and missed. That is the truth about shooting. I don’t care what you’re carrying. It could be a Glock with a 33 round magazine. if you don’t hit the target, you’re not going to stop the baddie. Marksmanship is all. You could have a Desert Eagle in .50AE, an extremely powerful handgun cartridge which would deliver nearly a ton of kinetic energy to the target. If the bullet sails by without touching the baddie, all that power, all that energy, is wasted.

The problem is that people like you learn the wrong lessons from situations like the Miami Shootout. Two of the agents had 9MM pistols, and didn’t get hits with those pistols either. So instead of learning that marksmanship is vital, we decide that having more ammunition is the key. A .357 Magnum, which some of the agents had, is an extremely effective cartridge. Yet, again, if you miss the target, it doesn’t matter how powerful the cartridge is.

Watch the whole video, he shows how the agents shot, and he shows that you can get hits with the same type of weapons at that and even greater range, between five and eight times as far, by aiming the weapon.

Otherwise the technique as properly identified earlier in the thread, is spray and pray. The idea if you put enough rounds downrange something is going to hit him eventually. That isn’t marksmanship, it isn’t responsible, and it isn’t courageous. It is what I would expect from a child with a gun, not a trained adult.

 

[OnePercenter]

How about the $175K the city paid?

You think that proves something? A woman staring at her phone, walked into a bright orange ladder, and collected $160K. That proves nothing, except our court systems and laws are jacked up. It means we need to change the laws, and stop giving money for stupidity.

Apples and oranges. The city settled for more than twice the typical maximum wrongful termination award.

Cities usually do. That's not a shocking statement. It still proves nothing to me. If that is all that is required for your opinion, that just means your opinion isn't worth much.

You want to convince me, great. Go for it. But this isn't evidence of much in my book. You need better evidence than this.

Cities usually do.

Make your point, but don't get confused PI awards versus wrongful termination awards.

Could be wrong, but cities usually settle for twice as much as any other regular lawsuit, because it isn't their money. Its the tax payer money. No one at the city government is losing one penny over any settlement. It's always the tax payers that is screwed over, and so the city always is willing to pay out whatever it takes

In this case the city settled at a much higher amount because going to court would have seen a much higher payout.

 

[Andylusion]

How you shoot is often as important as where you shoot. During the 1970’s the technique taught was Shoot, Shoot, Assess. That meant you fired two rounds, and waited a moment to asses if the baddie was still a threat. If he was falling down, you held fire to see what was going to happen.

Imagine if that had been used in this situation. The cop fired two rounds, which missed. He takes a moment to assess, and suddenly it clicks in his brain that the Suspect is not firing back, not even trying to, and isn’t seeking cover. Even if the cop pulling the trigger is especially dense, he probably would have figured it out after the second shoot, shoot, assess event, when the other two rounds sailed past the suspect. But that wasn’t what he was taught.

He was taught shoot to stop. Or he should have been shoot to stop. Shoot to stop means you keep pulling the trigger until the baddie is stopped. It doesn’t sound like much of a difference, but the shoot to stop technique is often used to empty the magazine. Whereas the shoot shoot assess technique leaves you with three cycles even if you are using a revolver, leaving additional ammunition for additional bad guys.

Most of these idiotic “I was afeared for my life” shootings finds the cop with an empty pistol and one baddie on the ground with a lot of holes in him. If there was a second baddie, he would have killed all the cops who were busy trying to reload while standing in the middle of the road instead of seeking cover, which was also taught during Shoot, Shoot, Assess.

How you shoot, is often more important than where you shoot. In this case, the cop was either a)Trying to kill the baddie by shooting at the head with all five shots instead of center mass as you indicated was proper training. Or B) A catastrophically bad shot by missing center mass with all five rounds fired.

So which was it? All we know for sure is the first cop had assessed the situation, and the later arriving cops, with less information, and less first hand experience with the situation, opened fire and killed the man.

The new mantra is "spray and pray". Maybe it's time to require cops to carry single-action revolvers.

That will never happen. My father was an officer when they switched over from the .38 to the semi 9mm. Everyone knows that in the 1980s, a bunch of agents were gunned down and slaughtered after two guys with rifles just walked up to them when they ran out of shots after firing 6 times.

If you are confronted by someone with a semi automatic gun, and has multiple mags, you are nothing but a free target while you try and reload a revolver. You tell the police force they are going back to revolvers, and you might as well start stocking up on guns and ammo yourself, because the police will disappear.

It will be Chicago all over again. Police will sit in a parking lot on the other side of town, and just wait for the 9/11 call... finish their doughnuts and collect the bodies.

The problem with the Miami Dade FBI shootout is covered in this long video.



In short, a failure of marksmanship.

So, I'm assuming you watched this video since you cited it.... and yet in the video he talks about having speed loaders, more semi-autos, and a machine gun.

You cited a video that contradicted your simplistic "marksmanship" explanation.

I'm always amazed when I see someone posted a citation that contradicts what they claim.

Was marksmanship a factor? You bet. However, unless you send all the agents and police to the range 4 hours every single day, marksmanship will never be perfect. In fact, even if you did, it still wouldn't be perfect.

As a person who comes from a long line of police and military in the family, the idea that you can end up with perfect aim from sitting on a range, is ridiculous. When people shoot at you, this idea that you are going to aim like you do standing at a range, not trying to shield yourself from income fire, behind a car.... is insane.

In fact, it's not even the same as surrounding a store, waiting for a robber to exit the building.

They crashed. You crash into someone in a car, and they start firing a rifle at you, and you are going to causally open the door, stand up straight, stretch a little, crack your back, then calmly pull your .357, and blow the guys head off while dropping a cool tag-line... is the movies, not real life.

Again, I'm sure marksmanship played a part. But again, police and agents spend most of their time doing routine patrols, and filling out paperwork. The idea that when confronted by armed criminals, they are going to suddenly turn into American Sniper, who has been in combat routinely for months, and have great aim, is crazy.

And that is exactly why the video you yourself posted, did not say marksmanship was the only main failure. He also said they should have had better weapons, an rifles, and faster reloads with quick loaders and so on.

REGARDLESS.............

While the video does not support your single failure view of the Miami Dade shootout....

Even if it did, it still doesn't change my point.

Even if 100% of the problem was entirely marksmanship..... The police are not going to give up their 9mm, and go back to .38 specials. Whether you think marksmanship is the only problem or not, the police are simply not going back to revolvers because you think they should, or even if everyone thinks they should.

They will do exactly what I said.... they will ghost you, and do Chicago all over again. They will disappear, and only show up to pick up the bodies.

As a person who knows police officers, this is a non-starter. If anything, I would wager we will see more police armed with rifles.

He says clearly in the video, that the biggest problem was a failure of marksmanship. Two of the agents had 9MM pistols, and between them with more than four magazines fired, they got one hit between them. So with box of ammunition thrown downrange, they had one through and through wound on a limb between them, with no way to know which of them had the hit.

The agents were firing at close range, and missed. That is the truth about shooting. I don’t care what you’re carrying. It could be a Glock with a 33 round magazine. if you don’t hit the target, you’re not going to stop the baddie. Marksmanship is all. You could have a Desert Eagle in .50AE, an extremely powerful handgun cartridge which would deliver nearly a ton of kinetic energy to the target. If the bullet sails by without touching the baddie, all that power, all that energy, is wasted.

The problem is that people like you learn the wrong lessons from situations like the Miami Shootout. Two of the agents had 9MM pistols, and didn’t get hits with those pistols either. So instead of learning that marksmanship is vital, we decide that having more ammunition is the key. A .357 Magnum, which some of the agents had, is an extremely effective cartridge. Yet, again, if you miss the target, it doesn’t matter how powerful the cartridge is.

Watch the whole video, he shows how the agents shot, and he shows that you can get hits with the same type of weapons at that and even greater range, between five and eight times as far, by aiming the weapon.

Otherwise the technique as properly identified earlier in the thread, is spray and pray. The idea if you put enough rounds downrange something is going to hit him eventually. That isn’t marksmanship, it isn’t responsible, and it isn’t courageous. It is what I would expect from a child with a gun, not a trained adult.

So you are now trying to contradict your own cited video in several ways. I would repost your video as my own citation to contradict what you have written here.

But that would be redundant, and since you are now trying to deny your own cited evidence, this is no longer an argument I'm willing to waste my time with.

Have a good one.