The danger of handgun-mounted flashlights?
The undercover officer approached a suspected drug dealer in the darkness, wary that his target might be armed and prepared to strike.
So the Plano cop drew his gun from his holster. He pointed it at the shadowy figure. He tried to activate his gun-mounted flashlight.
A shot rang out. The suspect fell to the ground. The officer had made the worst possible error.
The Oct. 13 accidental fatal shooting of unarmed Michael Anthony Alcala, 25, in a Far North Dallas parking lot highlights what some experts say is the potential danger of affixing flashlights to guns – something many departments around the nation now routinely do. In this case, a light switch was directly below the gun’s trigger guard.
Sounds like an excuse for bad gun-handling to me.
January 12th, 2011 at 12:41 pm
Forgive my ignorance, but what type of weapon flashlight has a trigger-like switch mounted below the gun’s actual trigger?
January 12th, 2011 at 12:57 pm
Never mind; I hadn’t RTFA yet. So the officer mistook a squeeze pressure switch for a (presumably) Glock trigger?
And this is an officer who was under investigation for manslaughter last year?
January 12th, 2011 at 1:15 pm
Sounded to me like the manslaughter investigation was to decide on charging him for the shooting mentioned, not a separate incident.
January 12th, 2011 at 1:27 pm
No, there IS an equipment issue here: a pistol mounted light violates the K.I.S.S. Principle. The KISS Principle, of course, proofs you from the effects of Murphy’s Law.
In reality, this is probably just “buck fever” at work.
January 12th, 2011 at 1:42 pm
If only there was some sort of advanced technology that would allow police to shine a light on someone WITHOUT pointing a gun at them, like some sort of self-contained light that they could flash at them as needed…
January 12th, 2011 at 1:43 pm
OK, how $%(*&#$ incompetent do you REALLY have to be to mistake the switch for the flashlight for the trigger. I guarantee the flashlight switch is NOT inside the $%9*&#$ trigger guard.
January 12th, 2011 at 1:44 pm
It’s just a case of stupid, and most stupid can be rectified by proper and plentiful training. IF training can’t fix this particular stupid (and I have strong doubts as to that being the real case here anyway,) then perhaps a different light should be looked at, rather than throwing the concept of mounted lighting out all together. There’s a reason the majority of police carry their tazer in a cross-draw type holster on the opposite side of their body from their pistol.
January 12th, 2011 at 1:50 pm
It is bad gun handling.
But ergonomics that compound bad gun handling into negligent discharges are a bad idea. You really don’t want to overload the trigger finger with non-critical functionality.
January 12th, 2011 at 1:55 pm
That’s why I use my support hand thumb to turn on my light on my handgun.
It sounds to me like he had one of the switch extension things for the Surefire lights that puts a pressure switch directly below the trigger guard on the grip frame. Those require you to use your middle finger to turn on the light, using your trigger finger is still stupid gun handling. (I don’t like those switches due to the probability of a white light ND personally.)
January 12th, 2011 at 2:13 pm
What ever happened to a FLASHLIGHT, as Phelps mentioned? Or is a flashlight not as tacticool as a gun mounted light?
January 12th, 2011 at 2:24 pm
Sounds like murder by dumbass to me…
January 12th, 2011 at 2:32 pm
Tacticool, mall-ninja, after action report: a concealed and prepared fugitive will presume that a light source is the searcher’s gun, and shoot at the light.
Old security people I knew developed the habit of holding their great big billy-club flashlight in the other hand, far out from the body, when investigating things that go bump in the dark. Does not look racy, but used to come under the heading of “careful police work”: Don’t give them an easy target.
January 12th, 2011 at 2:33 pm
So he admits to criminally negligent gun handling that lead to manslaughter.
Wanna bet he gets zero days jail time and keeps his job?
January 12th, 2011 at 3:15 pm
I cant help but think this was a shoot first ask questions later kinda thing. When it turned out to be a nobody, it turned into an accident.
January 12th, 2011 at 3:27 pm
This is a human-factors engineering problem. There’s a reason the trigger guard is there, and there’s a reason the firearm designer didn’t put any other kind of switch in the vicinity of the trigger/trigger guard. Violation of the above is asking for something bad to happen.
Every senior engineer has at least one true (but usually non-lethal) story about this kind of thing. One from my workplace involves a computer server floor’s emergency-power-off switch that was foolishly installed next to the entrance door where light switches usually are.
January 12th, 2011 at 3:56 pm
When the gun is gripped as it should be, the trigger finger will be alongside the slide, and the middle finger will be on the light switch.
No special training should have been required for this weapon light, other than ‘squeeze your middle finger’. Normal training should have taught this officer his trigger finger should be indexed alongside the slide. The addition of a light switch to the grip does not mean you start putting your trigger finger inside the guard before you have identified your target and made a decision to shoot.
The only way an ND could have occurred is if the doofus put his trigger finger inside the trigger guard. Not an engineering problem, just an idiot.
January 12th, 2011 at 4:27 pm
Just like many Crimson Trace laser grips, the pressure pad is BELOW the trigger guard on an X300 with the pressure switch end cap.
It is not a trigger. It is not in the trigger guard.
January 12th, 2011 at 4:28 pm
here is a picture of the pressure switch in question
Sorry, it’s not rocket science here.
January 12th, 2011 at 5:26 pm
If the police department in question doesn’t issue standalone flashlights, that’s stupid of them.
If Officer Friendly was just too lazy to pull his out, that’s his own pure incompetence (at a higher level than “squeezed the wrong thing under stress”).
January 12th, 2011 at 5:56 pm
“What ever happened to a FLASHLIGHT, as Phelps mentioned?”
Some departments actually do not allow run of the mill officers to have dedicated weapon lights. The problem is that there’s a lot of situations where you want your gun our, a white light out and ready, and be able to open a door, cuff a suspect, reload, etc, and until an officer can grow a third hand, a weapon mounted light is going to help out in a few of the situations.
Any problems people run into with them is purely a training issue.
January 12th, 2011 at 6:28 pm
Well, hell, I’m not a carefully-trained ossifer, but the switch for my CT grips is in the same place, below the trigger guard, and somehow I’ve never pulled the trigger while squeezing the grip; am I super-special, or was this guy a dumbass?
January 12th, 2011 at 9:37 pm
I think this guy is a liar, and Bobby @ 14 has it nailed.
January 12th, 2011 at 11:21 pm
“Just like many Crimson Trace laser grips, the pressure pad is BELOW the trigger guard on an X300 with the pressure switch end cap.”
He could have his finger on the trigger and when he tried to squeeze the light on his trigger finger also squeezed.
January 13th, 2011 at 2:05 am
I see several issues with what happened:
1. If the officer was not sure of his target (having to activate the light is an indicator of this), why was his booger picker on the bang switch?
2. If the officer was conducting a search, he should have been using a hand held light. A weapon mounted light by design dictates that whatever you point the light at, you also point the weapon at. As we can see, not always an optimal situation.
3. Sympathetic hand movement is by now a well known phenomena. Don’t put oneself in the position of being bitten by this by practicing gun handling skills that make it impossible for this to happen. Like, say, indexing your trigger finger along the frame until you consciously decide it is time to shoot.
This was a Rule 2 violation, pure and simple. I’m sure this cop did it routinely without incident in the course of his shift for many days before this, but this time someone paid for his lack of proper gun handling skills with their life.