SavannahMann
Platinum Member
- Nov 16, 2016
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I've mentioned before that one of my rules is that you never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity. The examples I've used before are cops who get DUI's. I never post stories about them, because it is obvious that the cop driving drunk is just as stupid, no more IMO, than the citizen who drives drunk.
The Police in an effort to give people a taste of the life of the cop had what they called Citizen Academy's. These were designed as an outreach to the public. One of the things the police did was create shoot don't shoot scenarios. Real guns loaded with blank plus ammunition was used. I say blank plus because the rounds were not loaded with lead or other metal projectiles, but detergent. In other words, dye rounds.
A live round was loaded into one of the firearms, and 72 year old Mary Knowlton was killed by Police Officer Lee Coel.
PGPD chief, officer charged in police academy shooting
When I was in the Army, we used live weapons loaded with blanks and fitted with MILES gear. MILES was essentially laser tag for the Army. When you fired the blank, using an blank adapter, the weapon functioned the same as it would when you fired live ammunition. The MILES box fitted to the barrel would send out a laser beam, and if it struck the harness worn by the opposing troops, they would be "dead".
I remember one exercise, a live round somehow got into the magazines of blank ammunition. The soldier who fired the round had no idea it was in the magazine, a detail had loaded all the mags. Two soldiers were wounded. The one who fired it was struck by metal fragments when the bullet destroyed the blank adapter causing it and the flash suppressor to virtually destroyed. The troop he was firing at was hit with the bullet.
Training stopped immediately, and everyone was ordered to unload the ammunition they had, and confirm the presence of blanks. No more live rounds were found. Just the one had gotten in.
There was malice involved with the one who had loaded the live round. There was no malice involved in those who were injured. The NCO's overseeing the detail to load the ammunition were not doing their jobs, they should have checked to make sure that there were no live rounds. Instead of a detail, every soldier should have loaded their own magazines. My unit did just that, we were issued blanks and we loaded our own mags.
That is the foundation of my thoughts on this particular incident. First, these citizen outreach things are nonsense. You might as well take some damned fool off the street and take him into the Operating Room to get a taste of the kinds of things that Doctor's deal with. One day does not give you any real experience, or any reasonable idea. The shoot don't shoot training in the army was ongoing when I was wearing BDU's. Did the baddie have a weapon? Shoot him. If he was unarmed, don't shoot him. Teaching the soldiers that was tricky, because they had to learn to think. That takes time, and experience.
It would be easy to overwhelm an untrained individual. In fact, the hard part would be in not overwhelming them. That is why the cop for a day training is of no use in my opinion.
Second, pointing a weapon at another person is not something you do with untrained individuals. As I said, we did it in the Army, but we did it under supervision. We had long safety briefings about it. We made sure that everyone had blanks, and not live rounds in the magazines.
Obviously Coel was negligent. He loaded live rounds in a training scenario. The principle of training goes back to the Romans. Training should be bloodless battles, and battles should be bloody training.
Now, Coel has been charged with Manslaughter. He faces up to thirty years in prison. He won't get that maximum sentence. Coel was the professional, he absolutely should have known better, and he absolutely should be charged with a crime. I don't know if Flordia has a Negligent Homicide, or if Manslaughter is the catch all law for that.
But in the end, Coel was participating in a stupid program. The idea is flawed, you can't give someone a taste of any skilled endeavor in a few hours. Putting someone behind the wheel of a big tractor trailer and showing them how hard it is to back one of those trailers doesn't make them a truck driver, or even really give them a taste of the truck driving experience. Skills take years to really put into practice. Expecting someone to understand being a Soldier because you had them wear green and low crawl through an obstacle course is just nonsense.
Coel made a mistake, and a woman paid for it with her life. It was a tragic, and avoidable incident. He should have been charged with a crime, and it is unusual that he was. It was the one situation where the usual I was a feared for my life could not be used to justify the use of force.
The Police in an effort to give people a taste of the life of the cop had what they called Citizen Academy's. These were designed as an outreach to the public. One of the things the police did was create shoot don't shoot scenarios. Real guns loaded with blank plus ammunition was used. I say blank plus because the rounds were not loaded with lead or other metal projectiles, but detergent. In other words, dye rounds.
A live round was loaded into one of the firearms, and 72 year old Mary Knowlton was killed by Police Officer Lee Coel.
PGPD chief, officer charged in police academy shooting
When I was in the Army, we used live weapons loaded with blanks and fitted with MILES gear. MILES was essentially laser tag for the Army. When you fired the blank, using an blank adapter, the weapon functioned the same as it would when you fired live ammunition. The MILES box fitted to the barrel would send out a laser beam, and if it struck the harness worn by the opposing troops, they would be "dead".
I remember one exercise, a live round somehow got into the magazines of blank ammunition. The soldier who fired the round had no idea it was in the magazine, a detail had loaded all the mags. Two soldiers were wounded. The one who fired it was struck by metal fragments when the bullet destroyed the blank adapter causing it and the flash suppressor to virtually destroyed. The troop he was firing at was hit with the bullet.
Training stopped immediately, and everyone was ordered to unload the ammunition they had, and confirm the presence of blanks. No more live rounds were found. Just the one had gotten in.
There was malice involved with the one who had loaded the live round. There was no malice involved in those who were injured. The NCO's overseeing the detail to load the ammunition were not doing their jobs, they should have checked to make sure that there were no live rounds. Instead of a detail, every soldier should have loaded their own magazines. My unit did just that, we were issued blanks and we loaded our own mags.
That is the foundation of my thoughts on this particular incident. First, these citizen outreach things are nonsense. You might as well take some damned fool off the street and take him into the Operating Room to get a taste of the kinds of things that Doctor's deal with. One day does not give you any real experience, or any reasonable idea. The shoot don't shoot training in the army was ongoing when I was wearing BDU's. Did the baddie have a weapon? Shoot him. If he was unarmed, don't shoot him. Teaching the soldiers that was tricky, because they had to learn to think. That takes time, and experience.
It would be easy to overwhelm an untrained individual. In fact, the hard part would be in not overwhelming them. That is why the cop for a day training is of no use in my opinion.
Second, pointing a weapon at another person is not something you do with untrained individuals. As I said, we did it in the Army, but we did it under supervision. We had long safety briefings about it. We made sure that everyone had blanks, and not live rounds in the magazines.
Obviously Coel was negligent. He loaded live rounds in a training scenario. The principle of training goes back to the Romans. Training should be bloodless battles, and battles should be bloody training.
Now, Coel has been charged with Manslaughter. He faces up to thirty years in prison. He won't get that maximum sentence. Coel was the professional, he absolutely should have known better, and he absolutely should be charged with a crime. I don't know if Flordia has a Negligent Homicide, or if Manslaughter is the catch all law for that.
But in the end, Coel was participating in a stupid program. The idea is flawed, you can't give someone a taste of any skilled endeavor in a few hours. Putting someone behind the wheel of a big tractor trailer and showing them how hard it is to back one of those trailers doesn't make them a truck driver, or even really give them a taste of the truck driving experience. Skills take years to really put into practice. Expecting someone to understand being a Soldier because you had them wear green and low crawl through an obstacle course is just nonsense.
Coel made a mistake, and a woman paid for it with her life. It was a tragic, and avoidable incident. He should have been charged with a crime, and it is unusual that he was. It was the one situation where the usual I was a feared for my life could not be used to justify the use of force.
