The NYPD put holes in 9 people who didn’t have holes there before
So, let’s round it up:
Play by play analysis of the shooting.
A recurring theme: Cops can’t shoot. Well, NYC cops anyway. Average citizen shoots a bystander 2% of the time. Cops 11%.
Meanwhile, Jay and Robb aren’t so quick to blame the shitty shooting in NY on shitty shooting. I’m not condemning them but saying the should train more and better. When you fire a gun, you own every round that comes out of it and are responsible for where it goes. If this had been a concealer carrier who negligently shot 9 bystanders, imagine how this story would be played out in the press.
Joe made a course to test how well people would do at a police qualifying course. It’s here.
August 27th, 2012 at 9:16 pm
I don’t get the sugarcoating here or anywhere else. They shot these people! What, they don’t have Rule 4 in NYC? If you can’t be sure of your target, including everything beside and behind it, then you don’t shoot. The world would have been a better place if these two goobers had done nothing instead.
August 27th, 2012 at 9:23 pm
You know who doesn’t give a rat’s ass who’s behind what they’re shooting at? Psychotic killers who just gunned someone down.
If Joe Psycho had opened up with his .45 – because the cops weren’t shooting – $20 says a whole bunch of people would be calling for the cops’s badges for not doing anything.
Yes, it is very unfortunate that innocent bystanders were hit. There had damn well better be a complete and full review of this incident, with a serious focus on increasing training for officers on how to better respond to an active shooter in a city environment.
But to claim they should have done nothing is, quite frankly, ridiculous. The dude was pointed out to them as someone that had just shot someone. They approached him and he pulled a gun out and pointed it at them.
Now what?
Since they didn’t have a 6′ dirt backstop, should they have just let him shoot them? Dive to the ground and shoot up at him – and hope no one in the 50,000 offices surrounding the plaza gets hit?
No, it wasn’t perfect. Yes, things could have gone better.
But to claim that nothing would have been better than what happened – remember, the end result was a dead goblin here – is foolish.
August 27th, 2012 at 9:32 pm
Are you responding to me? You want to trade me hypotheticals of what wasn’t happening with the certainty of what did? All reports are that he didn’t even have his gun out until they cops closed in. I never said they should do absolutely nothing but the fact is that would have left things in a better state. If psycho had just walked off that’s 9 fewer casualties. Is it too much to ask that they make good shots? They fired indiscriminately in a crowd – inexcusable!
tl;dr “Now what?” Pretend you’re trained, keep cool and make good shots.
August 27th, 2012 at 11:05 pm
On the other hand, our President puts in 18 holes ust about every other weekend.
August 28th, 2012 at 12:46 am
Its not in the article linked, but I remember an article at the time saying 3 officers fired, one of those three fired only once, and 2 others split the remainder of the 14/15 shots. And nine separate innocent bystanders were hit. So… kudos to the one officer, but yes, I do dare to question the training, professionalism and even the courage of the officers who chose to pour on the fire. Their apologist badge-sniffers can shove it. I’m not demanding infallibility from the police, just the same minimal level of training many civilians achieve on their own time and expense.
August 28th, 2012 at 12:55 am
” When you fire a gun, you own every round that comes out of it and are responsible for where it goes.”
Unless you are a cop, there is no chance that they will be found to have done anything wrong, they will get a nice paid vacation and then go back to their jobs. If a normal citizen would have done that they would have gone immediately to jail an they be charge with multiple felonies and if they were very lucky manage to plea for time served and never be allowed to touch a gun again.
August 28th, 2012 at 1:02 am
The area immediately surrounding the Empire State Building has one of the highest pedestrian densities in NYC. It’s almost a guarantee that any shot that doesn’t hit the perp would wound SOMEONE.
August 28th, 2012 at 1:11 am
Well to look at it another way a friend of mine put in in perspective this way, “NYPD is 35,000 strong. If you ran 100 of them a day it would take all year to get them to the range. If they fired 100 rounds each, that would be 3.5 million rounds.
Neither of these is adequate.
So yes, I’m sure they’ve done the math and paying out on law suites is cheaper.
And there will be suites. Popow v. Margate is precedence.”
All of that means more money for training and wages. It’s up to the people of New York to decide if they want to make the investment or go scapegoating like most people do.
August 28th, 2012 at 1:19 am
I should proof read better when typing on a laptop with a flaky D key.
If a normal citizen would have done that they would have gone immediately to jail and be charged with multiple felonies
August 28th, 2012 at 3:40 am
Did anyone actually see the video of the shooting? They were really close to the guy and he never even got off a shot. No “gunfight,” and I’m guessing 8ft or so from cop to the bad guy.
August 28th, 2012 at 9:21 am
Now that I’ve seen the Video, I’m with Unc. One Cop did well, the other one needs retrained. As for all the Bystanders, sometimes the scenario turns out to be “Kobayashi Maru.” Notice that the Perp saw the Cops and drew on them. What’s a Guy supposed to do, “Open a Dialogue” or have a Beer in the Rose Garden?
BTW, in regards to Jack’s Comments: I think a 100 a day at the Range can easily be overcome if the Precincts have the Range in the Basement. I’m sure that there are a lot of the older Precinct Houses still have them, so the “Flow Through” should not take as long as one would think.
August 28th, 2012 at 9:38 am
When you train the police to Rely on adrenaline to help them do their jobs then you are asking for trouble.. All police should go through military style bootcamp and have military style rules right down to the rules of engagement.. They have Zero discipline…
August 28th, 2012 at 9:44 am
Buddy of mine was NYPD and a competition shooter (3 gun and national match stuff). From Day 1 his number one complaint about being a cop was the utter lack of firearms training. He was horrified by the lack of gun handling skills shown by his fellow recruits and then fellow cops. He said it was terrible. And once he was on the force if he wanted to do extra training it was on his own.
NYPD trigger didn’t help. Getting that in a G26 BUG destroyed his groups.
August 28th, 2012 at 9:47 am
No, not “military” rules. I want civilian rules for my civilian security force. Because they are civilians, not military, no matter what their past experiences or their claims to “only ones” status.
August 28th, 2012 at 10:30 am
Does anyone else, after watching this video a couple of times, get the Suicide by cop vibe. I mean he produces the firearm then points it almost directly at the officers but never fires a round.
August 28th, 2012 at 1:26 pm
@Todd,
Suicide by cop is probably as good or better hypothesis than my initial thought. I thought maybe he was threatening them in an attempt to let him get away.
Someone who gets their gun “knowledge” from Hollywood probably doesn’t realize people with even the most basic training don’t engage in a discussion about what is going to happen next when someone points a gun at them.
August 28th, 2012 at 3:20 pm
Jack, the U. S. Army has a helluva lot more personnel than NYPD and if the Army can qualify all of their personnel every year, so can NYPD.
No pun intended, (well… maybe) but the excuse that there’s too many cops to run through qualification annually is a cop out.
August 28th, 2012 at 6:49 pm
I’ll bet they violated their department’s use of deadly force rules. One thing they pound into our agency is making sure you take termination of projectile into account. Once that round leaves the chamber you own it, so make sure where you’re shooting at. It’s a miracle they didn’t manage to kill a bystander.
August 30th, 2012 at 10:35 am
@Joe Huffman
“Someone who gets their gun “knowledge” from Hollywood probably doesn’t realize people with even the most basic training don’t engage in a discussion about what is going to happen next when someone points a gun at them.”
I’m all with the Officers trying to give him a 9mm lobotomy the second he pointed the gun in their direction. Just making an observation about his motives and actions.