Re: [Peace-discuss] Fw: Re: Adding Insult to Injury: State’s Attorney Releases Medical Records of “Toto” Kaiyewu

[John W.]

On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 3:02 PM, LAURIE SOLOMON <LAURIE at advancenet.net>wrote:

>  Frequently, we confuse impressions and rumors with policy and realities.
> (smile)  My experiences with police and police departments, which is now not
> as current as I would like it to be, suggests that policy departments do not
> have policies that instruct an officer to shoot to kill  whether the target
> be human or other species.  They do have policies that set as a goal that
> the officer hit the target on the target range a certain percentage of the
> time so as to qualify; if they fail this goal, they are put on restricted
> duty until they can accomplish the goal.  After a reason number of tries, if
> they still fail to qualify, they are not allowed to carry a weapon; and this
> means that they cannot work the streets if they have been on the department
> beyond the probationary period and are terminated if they are new hires who
> are still within the probationary period.
>

My understanding is that police, as well as citizens who take "self defense"
firearms classes, are taught to shoot to STOP the assailant in his/her
tracks.  They're taught to aim at the trunk, which is the largest area on
the body and therefore the easiest to hit.  On a human body, the "target" is
the trunk, where the heart and other vital organs are.  And police use
large-caliber handguns with hollow-point bullets which expand and fragment
on impact.  So the likelihood is that the shooter, if s/he hits the trunk
which is the target, will kill the assailant.

John Wason




>  As a practical matter, *most officers and departments are taught to hit
> the target period*.  *Most officers are happy if they can hit the target
> and qua*lify; they do not strive to be sharpshooters, snipers, or expert
> marksmen for the most part (here we are talking about ordinary patrol
> personnel and not specialized members that some departments may have in
> specialized units).  When on the street under concrete street conditions and
> practical circumstances, typically if they do pull their weapons, they are
> concerned with defending themselves at all costs and use their weapon with
> the intent to kill if possible; fancy shooting and shoot to wound are the
> last things on their minds since more often than not they are in reaction
> mode and not deliberation mode and typically know the level of their skills
> at marksmanship so as to be happy if they can hit the suspect and stop them
> from engaging in a successful attack on the cop’s person.  Of course, like
> most human beings, if they feel endangered they will do whatever they think
> necessary to protect themselves and insure their own survival; and killing
> the assailant if possible may be one of the underlying motivations, since
> that will assure that the assailant is not able to continue the attack.  (I
> use assailant here to refer to both human and other species of assailants –
> be they dogs or wild animals).
>
>
>
> Even if police departments were to teach their cops to shoot to disarm or
> wound or disable, there is  a high probability that most of the cops would
> not be capable in practice of learning to do that with any predictability.
> It like any other skill is a teachable skill; but most persons like in most
> skills would only be Average  level “C” students; and the statistics as to
> the number of fatalities versus non-fatal disabling would remain the same.
> Besides if one holds that officers should be taught to shoot to wound or
> disable, then any arguments against the use of Tasers goes by the roadside
> since those that argue against Tasers do so on the grounds that they can
> result in death to a higher than acceptable level even if used by trained
> and qualified personnel with the intent of being non-lethal.  Moreover,
> pistols – especially automatic and semi-automatic pistols  - are not very
> accurate; most of the occasions when accuracy is required and when
> sharpshooters are used in the military or in policing (i.e., SWAT teams,
> Sniper teams, or Emerency Response Units) rifles with telescopic scopes are
> used or laser based scopes are used by specially trained marksmen.  Pistols
> used by ordinary foot soldiers or patrol officers are not employed.
>
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