Police Officer shoots student taken hostage in the head...and gets off

speculativeoptimist
reply to post by cosmicexplorer

 

Hey cos, since you were an officer and on a swat team, what is the policy for this situation? My impression, outdated as it may be, was that an officer should not take a shot in this situation with someone holding a hostage at gunpoint. What do they teach you about this scenario? Maybe I am the one that has watched too many movies.

Ok if i responded to a hostage situation...I would in no way shape or form let the bad guy know i was there....we wouldnt even turn on our sirens...we would stealth in and observe....call out swat and negotiators...if we didnt have them wed call out state police.

The only hiccup is...if the guy starts shooting...he becomes an "active shooter"...at that point all bets are off and you rush in because you assume hes shooting at the hostage. The only hiccup of that hiccup is...if you visually see the suspect just firing off random shots lets say in the sky...id probably still observe instead of go rushing in since I can see directly what he is shooting at.

Your ultimate end game scenario there is a sniper initiated assault or potential negotiations... A sniper initiated assault is where the sniper basically gets a clean head shot which severs the central nervous system in theory stopping bad guy from ever even pulling the trigger...problem is...sometimes if their hand is on the trigger there have been stories of them still getting off a shot. Once a sniper shoots...the assault team rushes in at that point just in case the sniper missed or joe bad guy is still alive.

That would be ideally how it would work.

Lets say he asked to speak with a negotiator...sure..get them on a phone talking...and at that point...as long as joe bad guy is talking...i say you talk until you die of old age....id talk for days as long as everyone was in a healthy state...food, water, etc.

I will say this...there is a huge uproar lately of departments getting pissy because someone calls out swat ...swat shows up and the guy gives up right away or the scenario wasnt as dangerous as they thought...well to call out a swat team is like 2-5k in overtime just for the phone call usually...so many departments are trying to avoid using swat and assume that teaching their street cops once a year in an active shooter training is enough to be seal team 6. This blame falls on administrators....they want to generate revenue not spend it...and society suffers for it.

Cops are at fault too....one of the reasons I got out (and its a # # of a complicated story) was that I was becoming bitter to the job. You would handle 10 calls of complete non sense only to get something real....IM telling ya the job is set up for failure...I once posted a thread on here called police scenarios that addressed things just like this..but it wasnt to popular.

That is not enough training for a hostage situation.

reply to post by cosmicexplorer


I totally agree with this assesment. Which is exactly why I've said that he should have backed off and waited for trained professionals to deal with it.

His recklessness got that girl killed. He should have been smart enough to know that he was way out of his league.

Thats why they have SWAT in the first place. Not for serving petty drug offense warrants as they so often do.

So wouldn`t you say that...given what we know...that this officer was negligent and reckless?

ETA. I just want to say that I greatly appreciate you sharing your unique pespective on this shooting. Please know that this isn't an attack on you personally, nor should you feel that you must defend this guy out of some lingering sense of loyalty you might feel for the profession you once had.

In any case...thank you for participating in this thread.

deadcalm

That is not enough training for a hostage situation.

reply to post by cosmicexplorer

 

I totally agree with this assesment. Which is exactly why I've said that he should have backed off and waited for trained professionals to deal with it.

His recklessness got that girl killed. He should have been smart enough to know that he was way out of his league.

Thats why they have SWAT in the first place. Not for serving petty drug offense warrants as they so often do.

So wouldn`t you say that...given what we know...that this officer was negligent and reckless?

Ya check the end of my post above...on how people are getting pissed about calling out swat cause it cost too much money. Most departments have it written in that if you are called out for anything its an instant x amount of hours regardless of how long the call is....most call outs take 4 hrs if planned...with hostages it can be a very very long time. So lets say you activate a team...of 20-30 guys/gals...then all the chiefs in the area wnat in on it..then all the deptuy chiefs and sheriffs....and everyone wants to stick their hand in it....well...thats a crap ton of overtime...we are talking thousands of dollars. My team was getting call outs a few times a month and we were a part time team only...part time swat part tiem patrol...every time we got called out I kid you not someone bitched at us about how much it cost and why couldnt we do it faster...and how are we gonna pay for this or that.

It is very possible this guy was put in a situation that he was trained to do it wrong. I dont know that..just speculating to play devils advocate..hey its ats...debate is fun....but the trend is going to get worse...with less money they are trying to have the patrol officers be "active shooter" experts...you then do get alot of cops thinking they are joe commando...but there are some great cops who could have the above scenario and it get it completely #ed up.

I remember a call of someone having chest pain...as I walked into the garage the guy had a gun to his head lol....talk about a wtf situation. Luckily it all ended well but im telling you...you get the weirdest "facts"...sometimes people are embarrassed to say what is going on and its like a game of telephone...someone calls it in...dispatcher sometimes slants some of the story..then the cops get it..who maybe distort the call in their head. There is alot of room for error.


Edit" sorry i missed one of your questions...ya given what we know...this guy #ed up lol...but like I said ..a few more variables in there and id say he did what he was trained to do..but ya..given what we know...big problem lol

The cop is required to enforce the law, not protect the public. So he has to shoot the kidnapper, but if the hostage gets in the way, tough kitties.

Military HRTs are required to be up to the job of missing the hostage while they shoot the kidnappers. But it takes a LOT of training, and quite a few cops are just good enough to pass their quals, which aren't particularly challenging.

In the guy's defense, he probably wasn't who should have been dispatched to the scene, other than for crowd control. If you wanted someone that could do that, they're going to be the rare guy on the SWAT team, not a street cop.

reply to post by Bedlam

Yep.

I wonder if this guy was playing hero ... and was suddenly in way over his head.

Article seems a little vague and I don't have a great picture in my head.

If the cop was facing the suspect, then the girl ran towards the cop and the suspect looked like he was going to shoot the girl in the back, then yeah I think the cop did the right thing but did it very poorly. If he was being a dumbass rambo and charged in blindly then no.

I'm curious what other people think the charges/punishment should be. Reckless endangerment or something? Genuine question, not trying to be a smart ass.

That's a pretty crappy situation to be in regardless of training, and while I think cops should be held to a high standard etc. sometimes you only have a few seconds to act and no amount of training is going to make you perfect in every situation.

My reading comprehension might be off tonight, but it doesn't sound like he tried to go for a headshot while the girl was being held, it sounds like she was already in motion toward him. At that point I really don't have a clue what procedure you're supposed to follow. You can't turn around and run. It's going to be quicker to shoot the suspect dead than get to the girl and shield her with your own body. Again, I'm not entirely sure of the situation without video or a better description but I can certainly see this playing out tragically with no malice, dumbassery or machismo on the officer's end.

reply to post by deadcalm

Oh Wrabbit...you have no idea how much I'd like to believe that...but I've met way too many cowboy cops with zero remorse for anything that literally itch to go out there and look like a hero dispatching bad guys.

In this case a 21 year old girl, with her entire life ahead of her paid for it with her life.

Well, given that there seems to have been an investigation and finding that it was a tragedy, I tend to go that way personally. We've all certainly read about cowboy cops and I've wrote a few threads myself on cases that did or should have gone to trial over it. Having grown up around law enforcement and in a law enforcement family, there is really little I detest more than a bad cop.

With roughly 800,000 cops in the United States though, the majority aren't that way or we'd live in a place closer to some overseas spots where negative contact with the police for a random individual isn't an outside possibility but as likely as not. At least that's my opinion.

From what I'm reading at least, it looks like a real tragedy and training just sucks. I don't know how else to put it. Most cops don't have the spare money, time or interest to actually shoot the volume to be 'that' good, IMO.

Most qualify on regular intervals with some training occasionally as an ongoing thing. I've been out with local cops here a couple times, when their range or facilities have hosted public opportunities like a medical trauma course. They're competent professionals, but a man is only as good as his training. That's true in a lot of industries, and cops ought to be well above average with firearms. In my opinion, most departments don't make that a priority as it should be.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000

Most cops don't have the spare money, time or interest to actually shoot the volume to be 'that' good, IMO.

My 'professional' observation as well (highlighted for additional emphasis).

Thing is, this is where they system will step in to 'protect their own.' And it all goes right back to support the advice I freely post, "Never EVER call the cops." There is often an unexpectedly bad outcome.

Sorry for beating that horse.

reply to post by cosmicexplorer

May I ask you something....just to play devils advocate....what would you have done if you arrived on scene..you see a hostage....and the bad guy points the gun at you...what do you? just curious... -

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I seem to remember a time when that was what a SWAT team was for, perhaps now-a-days they are to busy kicking in doors for misdemeanor warrants to be bothered by such a thing.

No one ever wants to be in a situation like this and have to make this kind of decision. No matter how much training or second-guessing is done here, unless he is a total, heartless unfeeling sociopath (and maybe even if he is), this is a demon that will torment him forever, and I feel for him. This officer didn't "get off" in any sense.

reply to post by cosmicexplorer


No. I have no firearm training. I have lived on the street, had to take knives and what turned out to be pellet guns (although I had no way of knowing at midnight, in an alley, exactly what I was dealing with) away from people, and had to do so when other street dwellers were at risk. I have walked up on situations where a weapon was against the head of someone I knew, and had to act to stop them getting hurt.

But this is not about me, this is about responsibility. IF I intended to become an armed officer of the law, or let's say that sense finally prevailed and allowed me the right as a British citizen, to carry a sword in public, for my own defence and the defence of my community, you can bet that I would be in training with that weapon, for at least an hour a day, every day. I prefer blades to bullets because they have a lower collateral damage risk associated with them, but even if I was forced to carry a gun instead, I would train with it constantly, because I understand the responsibility attached to it.

There are two main responsibilities that come to mind. First, is to use that weapon as effectively as possible, to ensure that the outcome of situations which require its use are as good as possible. Second, is to ensure that by use of that weapon, nothing becomes WORSE than it ought to be. Hell, I am learning to drive right now, and until I can stop on a penny piece with less than a seconds warning, I will not be even taking my driving test, let alone consider myself ready to take what is essentially a ton and a half of metal and plastic for a spin without supervision.

If I, with my limited experience of weapon use, can identify improvements that need making in terms of the responsibility shown by officers of the law, employed by the state to perform armed duty, then something has gone seriously awry! I expect, although it is rare to see these days, that every officer of the law (here or in the US) who is armed, should be able to shoot with the same high accuracy at five yards, or fifty, or not be allowed a weapon. I expect minimum standards of aptitude to be enforced, preventing any officer who fails to show total diligence and personal responsibility for his or her maintaining that standard, from being on active duty, until such time as they achieve mastery of their equipment, AND that achieving that standard for the good of their communities, should be their only focus. Not family, not friends, not poker night on Tuesdays, and not a pay check.

In short, this is work which should only be done by people who not only love their communities, but define themselves by the quality of the protection they offer the societies in which they live, by people who have a selfless determination to become whatever they need to be in order to do that work to a minimum standard which would seem like perfection, when held up against performance of the sort demonstrated by the incident we are discussing. Anything less in terms of dedication from the people who do this work, will see them accidentally murder the people they are supposed to protect, and that is not acceptable.

I've got a history here of not thinking very highly of cops but in this case I just don't see the cop as being all that wrong. I think he's maybe 25% to blame if that. What he did for the most part isn't a problem, it's just what he didn't do. In an ideal world the cop would have fallen back, given the hostage taker room, and a police negotiator would have gone in to try and resolve the situation peacefully. If nothing else simply wearing the suspect down over time creates an opening for the police to rush in. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be an approved tactic these days, instead it all comes down to cops playing hero.

In that regard the cop did as he was trained. Shooting the woman was unfortunate but while I think cops are far too trigger happy these days I feel that if the situation escalates to the point where they need to use their gun they need to shoot to kill. That means emptying the clip center mass. Some bullets are going to stray and that's why the gun should be a last resort. The problem here is that the cop had other options but jumped straight to his gun. That's how officers are taught these days though. It's all about threat neutralization through overwhelming force.

I don't like the outcome here but the problem was with the department not the cop and the court not punishing the cop is correct here

reply to post by TrueBrit

Normally I would let a reply like yours go, as some of it borders on the absurd. However, you may very well be on to something here and someday by some stroke of luck ... people will recognize the absolute genius of what you said.

I expect, although it is rare to see these days, that every officer of the law (here or in the US) who is armed, should be able to shoot with the same high accuracy at five yards, or fifty, or not be allowed a weapon.

I shoot this well. I don't horse around on the range, but I have a tendency to draw a crowd. I wonder who will understand my point.

I can tell you that shooting on a range, in your own bubble, is one thing ... shooting in competition increases pressure ... an audience in close proximity makes it worse. Become threatened and the bubble bursts completely. There is no method I know of to train to such standard. Most people can't hit paper at 50 yards, let alone the target, on their best day.

Perhaps this is not an unreasonable standard to set for an LEO to carry a firearm. Everyone at ATS (I'm sure) knows DHS has enough rounds to share for training.

TrueBrit
reply to post by cosmicexplorer

 

No. I have no firearm training. I have lived on the street, had to take knives and what turned out to be pellet guns (although I had no way of knowing at midnight, in an alley, exactly what I was dealing with) away from people, and had to do so when other street dwellers were at risk. I have walked up on situations where a weapon was against the head of someone I knew, and had to act to stop them getting hurt.

But this is not about me, this is about responsibility. IF I intended to become an armed officer of the law, or let's say that sense finally prevailed and allowed me the right as a British citizen, to carry a sword in public, for my own defence and the defence of my community, you can bet that I would be in training with that weapon, for at least an hour a day, every day. I prefer blades to bullets because they have a lower collateral damage risk associated with them, but even if I was forced to carry a gun instead, I would train with it constantly, because I understand the responsibility attached to it.

There are two main responsibilities that come to mind. First, is to use that weapon as effectively as possible, to ensure that the outcome of situations which require its use are as good as possible. Second, is to ensure that by use of that weapon, nothing becomes WORSE than it ought to be. Hell, I am learning to drive right now, and until I can stop on a penny piece with less than a seconds warning, I will not be even taking my driving test, let alone consider myself ready to take what is essentially a ton and a half of metal and plastic for a spin without supervision.

If I, with my limited experience of weapon use, can identify improvements that need making in terms of the responsibility shown by officers of the law, employed by the state to perform armed duty, then something has gone seriously awry! I expect, although it is rare to see these days, that every officer of the law (here or in the US) who is armed, should be able to shoot with the same high accuracy at five yards, or fifty, or not be allowed a weapon. I expect minimum standards of aptitude to be enforced, preventing any officer who fails to show total diligence and personal responsibility for his or her maintaining that standard, from being on active duty, until such time as they achieve mastery of their equipment, AND that achieving that standard for the good of their communities, should be their only focus. Not family, not friends, not poker night on Tuesdays, and not a pay check.

In short, this is work which should only be done by people who not only love their communities, but define themselves by the quality of the protection they offer the societies in which they live, by people who have a selfless determination to become whatever they need to be in order to do that work to a minimum standard which would seem like perfection, when held up against performance of the sort demonstrated by the incident we are discussing. Anything less in terms of dedication from the people who do this work, will see them accidentally murder the people they are supposed to protect, and that is not acceptable.

You have written a good post TrueBrit and I thank you for sharing your story. I think..and this goes for almost every human being....at one point on any given topic we are idealists....I was definitely and Idealist before I became a cop...I thought I could pull out a cigarette and had it to the suspect and we could talk things out...solve the problem. Same with shooting....just put the bullet where you want. I was a sniper for a few years and this is kind of a funny and sad story....

When we trained as snipers to save...(this is no joke) ...on money we would print fewer targets and then all just shoot the same target...we all knew where our shots went. Wed just each pick a different spot..call it and all shoot at it. Well one target had a hostage that was just barely peeking out...so for fun all 6 snipers took a shot on what we call "command fire". That is you all fire at the same time...just like the seals did in captain phillips. Its a very normal practice. Well we all fired and one out of the 6 of us hit the hostage. I can tell you these guys, myself including, were some of the better shots on the planet. We were the guys that bought all our own gear...bought and even made our own ammo...we were the nerds of shooting.

To this day no one will admit who shot that hostage and it was honestly the only time ive ever seen a sniper in my few years ever hit a hostage in training...but it happened and im glad it did because. Snipers keep a log book...and ive seen snipers try to keep their misses out of their books. I used to scold them all the time!!! Because when the day comes and some bad shot happens and they check your log book...and its "perfect"...they will never understand how you missed. But the fact is...misses just sometimes happen.

Insert any other career for a moment...lets say baseball...i love baseball...Ryne Sandberg was my favorite player as a kid...guy was known as one of the best defensive 2nd basemen ever...he had I dont remember how many errorless games in a row...it was impressive...he then makes 2 errors in a row. How? This guy was perfect!!! # happens...and thats when the Idealist view should turn into a realist view. Both views are needed....we need your view to strive to be better and we need my view to keep us in check.

Just tragic stuff. Amazing the people here who bless us with 'what I would do'

The man was there to collect a $900 drug debt from the young woman and her boyfriend.

They all lawyered up and refused to talk to detectives. Evidence collected at the scene will, more that likely, go before a Grand Jury.

reply to post by cosmicexplorer


Indeed, finding the compromise between the two points of view is the method by which a great many things are achieved. I think the issue that I have with the way this worked out, is that unlike a one in one hundred sniper error, in the example you gave, this was a situation where the policeman unloaded an awful lot of bullets, at a target which was very close to a hostage, and there is no way that I would have expected any other result from that, than the unfortunate one which came about.

I have never fired a weapon, but I know that when one fires a round, the recoil effect can cause the muzzle of the weapon to lift, or in some other way travel off point for a split second. This means that consecutive shots are taken only after the weapon has been forced back to centre by careful control on the part of the shooter. I would imagine that mastering that aspect of shooting pistols is probably the hardest part to account for. Given that understanding, I find it hard to understand why so many rounds were discharged in this instance.

I appreciate that in all aspects of life, one will come across failures in procedures that one has undertaken on hundreds of previous occasions without error. I encounter that myself in my work, although in a very different way of course. However, those errors are made despite best efforts, and the most stringent attempts at precision. I am a locksmith, so precision is paramount to the work I do. I understand that some times, things just do not go perfectly. However, there is a difference between failing to attain a perfect result despite taking care to avoid failure, and failing to even give yourself a chance to succeed, and that is how this situation looks from my perspective.

That said, perhaps my perspective lacks something. As you rightly pointed out, a middle ground between the ideal and the practical is often beneficial to solving a problem or understanding a given event. Perhaps the middle ground here is my lack of experience, rather than anything else. That said, in the interests of understanding this scenario specifically, I would love to hear a sound reason for unloading seven rounds at a target who is in close proximity to a hostage. I need to understand this better.

Even though I have been in similar situations that luckily worked out positively for everyone, I will not judge this officers actions without all the facts.

For those who think they would of or could of handled the situation better, feel free to put on a badge and show us. I know my agency is hiring at least two people at the moment.

TrueBrit
reply to post by cosmicexplorer

 

Indeed, finding the compromise between the two points of view is the method by which a great many things are achieved. I think the issue that I have with the way this worked out, is that unlike a one in one hundred sniper error, in the example you gave, this was a situation where the policeman unloaded an awful lot of bullets, at a target which was very close to a hostage, and there is no way that I would have expected any other result from that, than the unfortunate one which came about.

I have never fired a weapon, but I know that when one fires a round, the recoil effect can cause the muzzle of the weapon to lift, or in some other way travel off point for a split second. This means that consecutive shots are taken only after the weapon has been forced back to centre by careful control on the part of the shooter. I would imagine that mastering that aspect of shooting pistols is probably the hardest part to account for. Given that understanding, I find it hard to understand why so many rounds were discharged in this instance.

I appreciate that in all aspects of life, one will come across failures in procedures that one has undertaken on hundreds of previous occasions without error. I encounter that myself in my work, although in a very different way of course. However, those errors are made despite best efforts, and the most stringent attempts at precision. I am a locksmith, so precision is paramount to the work I do. I understand that some times, things just do not go perfectly. However, there is a difference between failing to attain a perfect result despite taking care to avoid failure, and failing to even give yourself a chance to succeed, and that is how this situation looks from my perspective.

That said, perhaps my perspective lacks something. As you rightly pointed out, a middle ground between the ideal and the practical is often beneficial to solving a problem or understanding a given event. Perhaps the middle ground here is my lack of experience, rather than anything else. That said, in the interests of understanding this scenario specifically, I would love to hear a sound reason for unloading seven rounds at a target who is in close proximity to a hostage. I need to understand this better.

edit on 4-4-2014 by TrueBrit because: Grammatical error correction.

There is no reason I can think of shooting that many rounds but I will add this...the success rate for surviving a gun shot wound is over 90%....of course meaning that there is only a 10% you will die after being shot...alot of that is not getting treatment..complications later...etc...so it is almost guaranteed that and officer has to fire more than once.

Also...I dont remember the percentages but hitting your target from 7 meters away (idk the distance apart they were) is something under 50% in a life fire scenario....That is due to poor training...elevated heart etc. Its easy to put rounds in a paper target that doesnt fire back....try doing it when your heart rate is above 140, 150...etc. You actually lose some of your motor skills. This isnt just with shooting...its with anything when your heart rate goes higher..and on top of that you may be close to dying which can add stress for some people...many...most people.

It is very possible too that he was shooting the suspect and not able to tell if his bullets were even hitting him....and another thing some officers are trained on and I believe in this..is if you are committed to shooting..you shoot until your target is down or surrenders...but you can put quite a few bullets out in a matter of seconds. The reason for this is, as I mentioned above, you dont see where your bullets are going....you aim..hope they hit their mark...but if joe bad guy is still standing and firing back you have to assume either you didnt shoot him or maybe they have body armor...or maybe they are doped up on some drug and just fighting through the pain.

With a hostage you are looking for that one kill shot from a sniper...but as I mentioned before there may have been more facts that forced this guy to have to rush in...like an "active shooter" ...although the article mentions nothing of an active shooter.

When people play with guns, regardless of their training, people die. I sold all mine myself...but I do keep other weapons around.

And lets also add this....the bastard that took this girl hostage in the end is the one at fault. Sure the officer may have and most likely was negligent. Whenever there is a shooting there is a pretty detailed review...I know it said he was cleared of wrong doing but that could mean the departments training or operating procedure called for him to respond in a certain way. If that is the case its possible the department could be sued id wager. My gut tells me there was an "active shooter" scenario at play and we just arent getting that detail yet. But that is pure speculation.

cosmicexplorer

And lets also add this....the bastard that took this girl hostage in the end is the one at fault. Sure the officer may have and most likely was negligent. Whenever there is a shooting there is a pretty detailed review...I know it said he was cleared of wrong doing but that could mean the departments training or operating procedure called for him to respond in a certain way. If that is the case its possible the department could be sued id wager. My gut tells me there was an "active shooter" scenario at play and we just arent getting that detail yet. But that is pure speculation.

edit on 4-4-2014 by cosmicexplorer because: (no reason given)

With regard to the hostage taker being the one primarily at fault, I could not agree more. His motivations were purely criminal, and as such, he was responsible for the situation being as it was.

originally posted by: Mamatus
I will not debate this incident with anyone. The point the OP made is that the trend for death by cop is WAY on the increase. Please don't lose yourselves in the particulars of this one incident. Getting lost in the particulars of a single incident is nothing more than a distraction from the OP's point. Here let me help.

THE COPS ARE KILLING WAY TO OFTEN AND FOR WAY TOO LITTLE. I never used to get scared during a traffic stop, not being a criminal and having insurance, registration and whatnot I should not be afraid. Sadly I am very afraid. One wrong move and the cops shoot first ask later.

This is not the America I dreamed of living in. I am mad as hell but without one clue as to how to change it. So instead of going to a cops home that has abused his power and killing the SOB myself..... I whine on ATS.

I am embarrassed to be such a wimp.

Some one should start a site with every single case of this sort listed on one page. To show the people how often this really happens. Its getting scary out there and for all the wrong reasons