Ballistic Radio interview
Last Sunday, I was interviewed about Incident Analysis on Ballistic Radio. A podcast of the broadcast is available here. It’s about 45 minutes long.
A broad outline of the discussion was:
- What is it?
- Why do it?
- Gathering information.
- What are the sources? There is a lot of open source information available now that simply wasn’t available just a few years ago.
- Framework for thinking about it.
- Vetting the information.
- Applying the conclusions to one’s own situation.
It was an interesting discussion that I really enjoyed.
Interesting things in the NYPD Annual Firearms Discharge Report
Another shooting incident resource that I have added is the NYPD Annual Firearms Discharge Report. The 2012 Report, which is the latest, provided some interesting information. The thing about any of the big reports is that you have to actually read them to see what’s in them rather than just skimming. Nancy Pelosi research methods don’t work well here. Some nuggets are small and easily missed. Sometimes, you have to do a little number crunching on your own.
Distance
The distances that officers shot it out was interesting. 0-5 yards – 18 (41%), 6-15 yards – 15 (34%), 16-25 yards – 5 (11%), 26+ yards – 6 (14%). page 21
Contrary to popular opinion, over half (59%) of NYPD gunfights took place at six yards or more.
Unintentional Discharge
There were 21 unintentional discharges in 2012. This was a large increase from 2011. The increase was due to unintentional discharges during ‘adversarial conflict.’
Of the 21 firearms that were unintentionally discharged in 2012, 13 (62%) were the officers’ service weapons. Of the 13 service weapons involved, 4 (31%) were Glock 19s, 6 (46%) were Smith & Wesson 5946s, and 3 (23%) were Sig Sauer P226s. p 37 Current NYPD service pistols are all “double action only.” The NYPD uses 124 grain hollow-point bullets. p 49
IOW, there were more NDs with DAO pistols than with Glocks. Unfortunately, I have no way to quantify the percentage of Glocks v. DAO guns owned by NYPD officers. I’m willing to bet the preponderance is toward Glocks, though.
Rounds Fired
Another thing I found interesting was the difference in number of rounds fired in relation to the subject’s injury. p 55-56
The mode (most common) number of rounds fired per Fatality was one. For Injury, it was two. The median (middle point of the dataset) for Fatality was 1.5. For Injury, it was six. And the average rounds per Fatality was three, but for Injury, it was nine. Another counter-intuitive result; death of the subject resulted, generally, from less rounds being fired, rather than more. I wonder if that might have something to do with marksmanship.
Incident summaries
NYPD only gives incident summaries when the ‘Subject’ is killed. Unlike LAPD, NYPD does not appear to discourage enforcement action when an officer is off-duty. There was an interesting incident involving an off-duty officer. It just wasn’t a good day for anyone involved. As John Hall, a former head of the FBI Firearms Training Unit, observed years ago, “There is an element of chance in every encounter.”
On October 24, at 1837 hours, in the 46th Precinct, an off-duty officer was sitting in a parked vehicle with a friend, when he saw two men rob another man at gunpoint on the other side of the street. The officer got out of his car and approached the men. As soon as he identified himself as a police officer, the subject, one of the individuals involved in the robbery, turned and fired one round at the officer, striking him in the chest from about ten feet away. The men then fled on foot, while the officer went back to his vehicle, clutching his chest. The officer’s friend tried to drive away, only to get stuck in traffic behind a white Mustang which was stopped in front of them. The Mustang sped off and crashed up the street. Three individuals, including the subject, fled the Mustang. When the officer saw them, he pursued, still clutching his chest. The officer ordered bystanders to get down for their safety, and while taking cover behind a vehicle, fired eight rounds at the perpetrators, striking the subject once in the head and causing his demise. The other individuals who participated in the robbery were apprehended later. The subject had two prior arrests, for Robbery and Criminal Possession of a Weapon. p 54
The officer did not die as a result of his wound.
It’s hard to make that kind of stuff up, which is yet another reason I prefer to read the real reports rather than dreaming up my own scenarios.
Sources of information about deadly force incidents
I’ve been interested in gunfight analysis since I was a teenager. My Dad had a Guns and Blammo magazine with an article about the shootout between the Hamer posse and Bonnie and Clyde. Once I read it, I was hooked.
Many people like to ‘wargame’ situations that could happen to them and I am no different. However, I rarely dream up scenarios for playing ‘what if’ mental games unless I’m asleep and actually dreaming. There are several forums where people think them up but I prefer to look at real incidents. In many cases, truth is stranger than fiction.
There are several websites that aggregate various news reports, such as GunsSaveLives. I read The Armed Citizen column in the NRA Journals every month. Some people have commented that the NRA ‘cherry picks’ the reports they include in The Armed Citizen but, through independent research, I have found it largely representative of the overall activities of Armed Citizens.
The problem with news reports is that they don’t usually go into much depth about the specifics of the incidents. Frequently, the information has gaping holes in it or is wrong. A much better source is the online records of police deadly force incidents. A number of larger departments put all their Officer Involved Shooting (OIS) on their website. The level of detail varies but almost all of them give more than a news article. When looking for information that’s pertinent to me, I focus on the off-duty OIS because off-duty officer incidents have many situational and equipment parallels to an armed citizen.
The oldest source of information is the annual FBI Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted report. The Bureau has been producing the report for many years. Back issues since 1996 of LEOKA are available online. As I pointed out in an article for Personal Defense Network, when using LEOKA, we have to be careful how we interpret the data. The part I find most useful is the Summaries of Officers Feloniously Killed. Instead of data tables, the Summaries provide a narrative about the circumstances of each officer’s death. It’s difficult reading, emotionally, but as I’ve told every Law Enforcement class I’ve taught, “If you haven’t read the Summaries, you haven’t read the report.”
One of my favorite sources is the Los Angeles Police Department Categorical Use Of Force reports. The LAPD Board Of Police Commissioners’ webpage has a detailed summary of every use of deadly force by LAPD officers since 2005. They are meticulously explained and analyzed with the Board’s findings at the end. There are many off duty incidents included in the database. Often, we hear the saying that “data is not the plural of anecdote.” However, when we have access to all the anecdotes, I think that becomes a source for evidence. The BOPC evaluates LAPD officers on three different areas; tactics, drawing/exhibiting, and use of force.
The Chicago Police Department Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) publishes an online summary of all OIS by Chicago Police Officers. The IPRA reports are also very detailed. It issues a finding only regarding the use of deadly force by the officer(s).
Late in 2013, the Philadelphia Police also began publishing summaries on each OIS. These are not as detailed as those from Los Angeles and Chicago but still contain useful information.
Another source of information is the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Office of Internal Oversight. The online reports provided by LVMPD are very detailed. They contain District Attorney Decisions, Force Investigation Team Reports, and Office of Internal Oversight Reviews.
A colleague of mine, John Hearne, coined the term “Ninjas coming from the ceiling.” When I read or hear of what some people are concerned about, that term usually comes to mind. I think it’s much more interesting and useful to think about what really does happen and then wargame that.
Practice priorities for the Armed Citizen
“Sometimes it’s hard to see the forest for all the trees.”
First of all, let me say that I distinguish between ‘training’ and ‘practice.’ Training is something you do with someone else’s guidance and, hopefully, observation, if it’s a physical skill. ‘Practice’ is something you do on your own.
Training, therefore, is generally structured by the trainer. However, you as the individual decide what training program you choose to undertake. Practice, on the other hand, is generally structured by an individual, although it may include a program set up by a trainer.
In either case, we have to establish our priorities of what our program is going to be. That can be a more involved process than we realize. It’s easy to be sidetracked either by what we enjoy, regardless of its relevance, or by what others tell us is significant, without establishing its importance in our skillset.
The first shooting by an Illinois Concealed Carry License holder provides an example. It’s great that he was able to run off his attackers. It’s not so great that he launched several bullets that missed the criminals and ended up who knows where in a densely populated urban area. We really can’t hope that the “Big Sky, Little Bullet” concept is going to work out for us. How much different is that than ‘celebratory gunfire’ that sometimes has tragic consequences? Not much, in my opinion.
At the end of a recent Handgun Fundamentals course, I was asked “where do we go from here?” For the person who has recently acquired a pistol for defense, a good start is the NRA’s Defensive Pistol I Courses of Fire. It is a well structured and incremental approach to skill practice. It is self paced and can be shot on your own.
For the person new to carrying a weapon, the NRA Defensive Pistol II Course of Fire is an excellent regimen. Most State Weapons Carry Qualification Course don’t require drawing from a holster and many forbid it. The NRA course provides a standard that those who carry weapons should strive to be able to meet. What I like about it most is that it is a 100 percent standard, not 70 or 80 percent like a qualification course. We need to accustom ourselves to the concept that if we shoot at a criminal, ALL the rounds we fire must hit the target. That’s being responsible.
Most people have to limit their livefire practice to indoor ranges where drawing from the holster is not allowed. This presents an issue to those who carry pistol in holsters. There are solutions, though.
Like many of my colleagues, for a long time I said the hard part of the drawstroke is establishing grip. I’ve changed my opinion on that. The hard part of the drawstroke is getting the pistol indexed on the target enough to get a good hit with the first shot. John Shaw, a World Champion shooter, clued me in to this many years ago. Note that I didn’t say a ‘perfect’ hit.
Indexing the pistol to the target (presentation) is easily practiced from a high ready position starting at the pectoral muscle of the body’s dominant side. Starting this way is not generally a problem at an indoor range. And since I recommend practicing one shot per presentation, the ‘no rapid fire’ limitation at many indoor ranges isn’t an issue either.
The initial NRA DP II standard is to hit within the 8 ring of a D-1 target at seven yards with one shot in five seconds. The Pro-Marksman rating requires this to be done 20 times. The 8 ring is 12 inches in diameter. I personally prefer to tighten the standard to the 10 ring, which is 8 inches in diameter. If practicing from the high ready, the time standard needs to be cut down to something like four seconds, which is still very generous. Once shooters meet the initial level (Pro-Marksman) of the Defensive Pistol courses, they can work their way up the succeeding levels of the Program.
Whatever practice priorities you may choose, NRA DP or other, make a conscious decision about them. Just because you read in a gun magazine, on the Errornet, or I say it’s the thing to do, doesn’t mean it’s right for you. Look at what happens to people in your walk of life and think about your lifestyle. Then adapt your practice priorities to your life.
Online information about Weapons and Weapons Carry
I frequently am asked about information that is available online about weapons and weapons carry.
A number of states have good online references, not only about their state laws, but weapons carry, in general. There are also some non-governmental websites that have useful information. So I added a separate page to the blog with those links. The page can be found by clicking on the link at the top of the page entitled Online Weapons Carry Resources.
I will update the page as I find new resources that are useful.
Downrange Practice
“It’s a downrange world, better get used to it.”
LAPD Officer Involved Shooting 022-12
In this instance, several officers utilized lethal force in order to defend themselves, their fellow officers and bystanders in a vehicle stopped on the side of the freeway from the perceived imminent threat posed by the Subject. While engaging the Subject in order to stop his actions, the two bystanders inside the vehicle were in the foreground.
Any time an officer (or officers) utilizes lethal force, and the [Board Of Police Commissioners] learns that bystanders were in the foreground, the BOPC takes into consideration the totality of the circumstances, including their articulation of the threat and the psychological effects which occur during high stress situations. Here, there were several officers who not only knew the bystanders were in the foreground, but articulated firing in defense of them. For instance, one of the reasons that Officer E fired was due to the Subject approaching Witness A’s vehicle and there being two people observed inside.
Most people don’t often consider the possibility that innocent persons, perhaps family members, will be downrange during a criminal confrontation. I call this “The Myth of the Lone Gunman.” However, it is a fairly common occurrence. Why? Simply because your family members are with you much of the time. This month’s Armed Citizen column relates several such incidents.
The angle of attack chosen by a criminal predator is unlikely to have anything to do with where your family members are in relation to you at the time. What if a family member, and not you, is the victim of the assault? In that case, you are almost guaranteed to have a family member downrange.
Any armed confrontation is going to be a difficult situation. Throw in the stress of having a loved one or innocent bystander downrange and it’s going to get a lot worse.
Something that very few people consider is the human dynamics of a violent home invasion. In such an incident, it’s very common for the male of the house to become involved in a physical struggle with the invaders. The lady of the house then becomes the one having to do the shooting. Meghan Brown’s incident is a good example of how this often plays out.
In that kind of situation, having little or no marksmanship ability could become a problem. The ability to make a good decision about shooting will be essential to a positive outcome. When talking about Decisional Shooting, the discussion almost always revolves around the legal factors such as Ability, Opportunity, and Jeopardy. However, other key components, just as important, will be:
- “Do I have the marksmanship ability to pull this off?”
- “Is my weapon capable of doing this?”
- “Am I in a position to make this shot or do I need to re-position?”
- “What will be the effect of having my bullet perforate (go through both sides) of the target?”
- “Do I have the emotional wherewithal to do this with a loved one downrange?”
Using a shotgun, either long gun or pistol, can greatly complicate that question of weapon capability. There are ways of mitigating the risk with a shoulder fired shotgun but not eliminating it. Except for a contact shot, handheld shotguns, such as ‘The Judge,’ become almost useless when a non-threat is downrange.
The perforation issue has to be considered. In at least one case in Texas, a woman killed her husband, while trying to save him, because of perforation and poor marksmanship. That’s not the outcome she was looking for, I’m sure.
Having the emotional wherewithal is not something that can be taken for granted. I know of students who demonstrated they were perfectly capable of performing the task at the range. When a picture of a friendly face was put on the hostage, they refused to shoot. That’s an issue.
I have watched over 100 iterations of a Force on Force scenario where the defender was deliberately presented with a clear shot on a hostage taker at a range of 10 feet. The hostage was adjacent, at arm’s length, not in front of the attacker. The number of students who chose to take the shot without closing to contact distance could be counted on the fingers of one hand. As Ken Hackathorn says: “You are unlikely to do anything under stress that you are not subconsciously sure you can do well.”
It would probably be wise to practice the obstructed downrange shot regularly. I devised a drill specifically for this.
Even at an indoor range, there are usually hostage targets available. The way to use them is to practice taking one shot at a time, though. Do it for a full magazine, starting each single shot from a ready position. Keep the range short, less than 4 yards, that’s the decision point in terms of proxemics.
Don’t wait to take your practice until the real thing happens. On the Job Training isn’t a ‘best practice’ for this scenario.
Practicing Awareness – Part II
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
A few of the things I noticed yesterday morning on my walk:
1999, which has only had a For Sale sign up for about two weeks, no longer has the sign up and their vehicles are gone. There are several bags of trash out a day early, along with packing material, so they most likely have already sold it. One of the packing items left out with the trash was four unused mirror boxes. These will make good target backers for my next outdoor class, so I policed them up on my way home. That bit of information had a practical use.
They had trimmed back some of the foliage around the house and I noticed that there is a backyard pool. I had never seen that before. Checking backyards is good practice for rapid recognition because unlike the front area of the house, I only get a short glimpse and have to process the visual information quickly.
1977 had both of the SUVs gone, which is unusual. There was a young man walking out to the Mercedes, which is the third car usually parked there. He was slim, dark hair, wearing dark pants, a white shirt, and a skinny black tie. I’ve never seen him before, so that was interesting. On my way back, the Mercedes was gone and a gray Maza had just parked. Another young man got out and walked into the house. He was stockier than the other, dark hair, and wearing a gray sweatshirt.
There are a few houses in the neighborhood that I think of as ‘unusual.’ Nothing wrong with them but their patterns are out of the ordinary. One of them had a different car in the driveway today. All the vehicles that are usually parked there are brightly colored but this one was gray.
Atlanta Gas Light is building a gas transfer station at the end of the street. I like to keep track of what they’re doing. They don’t work on it every day. Whenever there aren’t workers, there is one vehicle sitting somewhere in the work area. I assume it’s an off duty police officer hired as site security. There are several different places they park, so I like to notice where they are and what kind of car they’re driving. When it’s dark, that can be a challenging exercise because they’re away from the street lights.
One of the houses has acquired a dog. It’s big and barked at me from the backyard on my first leg. It wasn’t barking on the way back so I assumed they had brought it in. However, I spied it along the back fence, interested in something on the other side of the property. Catching sight of it was one of those glimpses that I had to be prepared to see.
A man I hadn’t seen before was walking his dog. I always look to see if a dog is on a leash, which it was. He was about my height, curly hair, wearing slides, and when he spoke to the dog, did not sound like a native speaker of English.
I’ve been bitten by dogs before and don’t care to have that happen again. Whenever a dog on the street or in a front yard is acting aggressively, I get my pepper spray in hand. If an unsecured dog charges me, it’s going to get sprayed, unless it’s a rat dog. So awareness is not only an observational exercise, it is also tied to my DEFCON.
There are several houses near the other end of the loop that have numerous children’s toys and playsets in the front yard. One of the houses has a plastic ‘children playing’ figure intended for putting in the street to slow traffic down. I always look to see where they’ve stashed it because they put it in various places. The kids have some kind of foam dart launcher, so I look in the street for the darts that they sometimes miss.
Something I really like about my neighborhood is the flowering of the trees and bushes that starts in the Spring. Several species have already come and gone but others are just starting. I’m sure it’s Hell for the allergy sufferers but I really enjoy the view and look for which plants are flowering this time of year. In a week or two, it will be a riot of color for a couple of weeks. That will be really nice.
There were many more things I noticed, but I think you get the idea. This is a fun exercise for me and helps keep me in the habit of keeping my eyes moving and being in the moment.
Practicing Awareness
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
Awareness – noun – Dictionary.com
“The state or condition of being aware; having knowledge; consciousness.”
One of the topics often stressed in the self-defense community is having ‘situational awareness.’ As my friend Craig Douglas says: “You can’t DO a noun.” Therein lies the core of the problem; we don’t teach people how to do it, so talking about it is mostly lip service.
When you want to learn to do something, you have to practice it. Once again, the dictionary defines practice as something done repeatedly or habitually. So if we want to learn to be aware, we need to work at it repeatedly. There are a number of ways that I practice my awareness and I do them every day, sometimes repeatedly.
In terms of awareness, one of my friends describes it as “what is wrong in my right world?” That’s one way of looking at it. A variant of that is “what is different or out of place?” That can be from the perspective of either what was before or what should be.
When I wake up, one of the first things I do is look out my front window. Is there anything different outside my home? Are there different cars there? Does the neighbor across the street have the porch light on, as it usually is? Is there anything different in my driveway or front yard? If not, then on with the day. If so, does it bear further investigation or do I just file that bit of information away? The essence of what I’m doing is checking for surveillance or an ambush. Having dealt with stalkers and possible attackers, both for clients and personally, I consider that very important in my daily routine.
I take a brisk walk around the neighborhood on a four day on, one day off schedule. The route I follow is the same so I can track my time to various checkpoints I’ve established. I don’t wear headphones, although occasionally I will have my phone playing John 00 Fleming Global Trance Grooves at a low level.
As I’m walking, I check out the houses, cars, and yards. I know them fairly well because I’ve been doing this regimen for almost two years. Which houses have been put up for sale and which have been taken off the market are obvious things that I look for. And there a lot of other things that I try to notice, such as cars, people, animals, etc.
Next post, I will list some of the things I observed and cataloged on today’s walk.
Stupid Caliber and Weapon Choices
I was helping teach a firearms familiarization class for spouses at my gun club around the year 2000. The class was oriented toward spouses who had little familiarity with firearms at all. Unsurprisingly, I was doing the handgun portion. The course of fire we had laid out was very basic, just a familiarization fire, nothing demanding at all, given the projected audience.
One of the attendees was a petite lady who brought along the gun her husband had given her for home defense and concealed carry; it was a .45 Colt Commander. She could hardly get her hand around the gun. The pistol was not particularly reliable as she shot it and I had to clear several malfunctions for her. He had never gone over the manual of arms for the pistol in any depth with her. Being the inquisitive type, I asked her if I could shoot it, which she readily agreed to. It didn’t run for me either. It was loaded with the ammunition he had given her, which appeared to be a handloaded H&G #68 lead SWC. I commented to her that perhaps a different pistol would be in order for her. She asked if I would tell her husband that because he was at the club that day and I told her I would be happy to.
At the clubhouse, I spoke to him and commented that the pistol didn’t run very reliably. He admitted he had handloaded some ammunition ‘a little lighter’ for her. I also told him that a different pistol all together might be in order for her. He said: “I was thinking that myself; I’m going to get her an H&K USP Compact in .40.”
Although most likely it fell on deaf ears, my reply was: “Well, I was thinking something more like a Beretta in .380.” I don’t know what the end result was.
For me, that was the beginning of the end of recommending full size service pistols for novice shooters and non-dedicated personnel. The gun has to fit the person and their lifestyle or it’s simply not useful as a tool. While not malicious in intent, the end result of that gentleman’s ‘choice’ for her was not really far removed from those idiots that we see on YouTube who give a 12 gauge shotgun loaded with magnum buckshot to a first time woman shooter.
Different kinds of experience
There’s a saying among police officers that “Some police have 20 years of experience and some have one year of experience 20 times.” What that means is that some people do the same things over and over again in the same way. They don’t learn from their experiences and they don’t try to expand their experience base or skillset.
That’s not the way my personal approach to life works. In this blog, I am going to relate the things that have broadened my experience and skills. That’s a never ending process for me. Hopefully, you will find something of value in it.
tacticalprofessor 
You must be logged in to post a comment.