If you have been in a firearms training class in the past two decades then you have heard the stats about the distances at which officer involved shootings happen. Most gunfights take place within a few yards and the majority of those within a few feet. Hence, a lot of firearms training programs focus on fast and close. There are a few problems, though: the use of flawed or incomplete statistics, de-emphasizing the fundamentals of accurate shooting, and the lack of training for gunfights at longer ranges.
The first problem with the emphasis on close range firearms training is that the data that most trainers use may be flawed. Many of the studies I have seen referenced come from the FBI’s summaries of law enforcement officers who are killed in the line of duty. So for a lot of training development, the data used only shows us where officers are killed, not where all gunfights happen, or even at what distances officers emerge victorious from gunfights. Considering that a lot more officers are involved in shootings than are killed in shootings, it would seem many training programs are developed without considering a lot of very important data.
Some studies I have seen clearly indicate that the greater the distance between the suspect and officer, the greater the likelihood the officer will emerge unscathed. This seems to be a significant piece of data that, if accurate, has to be considered in any training development.
One of the problems with the officers killed data is that officer disarmings are frequently mixed into the distance equations. For example, an officer who is shot by a suspect who disarmed the officer skews the distance stats toward close range, when in reality, the officer’s death had nothing to do with firearms training, and everything to do with hand-to-hand skills and weapon retention training.
A second problem with the “up close and personal” training is the general de-emphasis on the fundamentals of shooting like the use of sights and trigger control. An alarming number of law enforcement firearms instructors are actually telling their students “Don’t worry about the sights…you’ll never need them.”
Perfect sight alignment and an ideal sight picture are impossible to achieve in actual combat. However, in the vast majority of shootings, even at very close ranges, the use of a sight picture using the front sight to cover the target will increase your odds of hitting and stopping the threat much quicker than not using any form of sight picture.
Additionally, trainees are frequently pushed for faster and faster speeds rather than a smooth draw and trigger press. If smoothness is sacrificed on the altar of speed, accuracy will surely suffer. Lack of proper trigger control will ensure bullets missing the intended target. As the old adage goes ‘Speed is fine, but accuracy is final.’
Lastly, the emphasis on close training often means that little to no training time is ever devoted to teaching officers using handguns to hit targets at ranges of 15 yards, 25 yards, or even greater ranges. At these distances, imperfections in the fundamentals become exaggerated and misses become more likely than hits.
For anyone that claims that hitting man-sized targets at 25 yards is too hard, they clearly have not mastered the fundamentals of shooting. At my former department, officers qualified regularly with 2″barreled revolvers and the ‘baby’ Glocks out to 25 yards. Several decades ago, officers qualified with their duty revolvers out to 50 yards. Consistently hitting a man-sized target at 25 yards is readily achievable.
My current agency only requires officers to train to 15 yards, with the vast majority of training at 7 yards and less. No training is done with a handgun at any distance beyond 15 yards. Many officers feel this is adequate. Well, the department has had two officer involved shootings (OIS) this year. The first was at a distance of less than seven yards with a sergeant who is a former SWAT officer. Four of five shots fired found their target and quickly neutralized the suspect.
The second OIS involved two officers and an armed subject at a distance of about 30 yards. In this case, the officers fired more than 30 rounds and only about one in five found their mark. Some of those appeared to be hits from skip shots where the bullets struck the pavement somewhere in front of the target, bounced up, and then struck the suspect.
Both of the OIS involved a single suspect, at night, in outdoor conditions. The major difference was the distance. I do not doubt the difficulty of the shot the officers were forced to make in the second shooting, nor do I doubt their bravery or their ability to do the job. What I do question, however, is the firearms training program that failed to emphasize their use of sights and engaging suspects at ranges much beyond seven yards.
If you are a firearms instructor, I encourage you to take a look at your training program and make sure that you are teaching your officers the skills they need at all distances. If you are an officer, take a honest look at your own skills. If your accuracy beyond seven yards is not where it needs to be, spend some of your off time on the range to bring those skills up to where they need to be.
And keep in mind that all gunfights happen up close…unless they don’t.
Nick Martinez says
Richard,
Getting right to the point. I’m looking at getting my first CCW and I am caught up in the caliber wars. I was looking for info on the average number of shots fired in police gun fights and other firearm altercations to see if mag capacity should play into my decision (45ACP vs 9mm). That’s when I ran across this article.
What is your opinion on magazine capacity?
From what I have read the average number of shots fired when one officer is involved is less than 4.
To me that number makes the capacity argument completely mute.
Aaron says
Nick,
Richard will have his own thoughts, but I wanted to offer my thoughts as well. First, with the incredible advancements in self-defense ammunition designs in the last decade, the argument of caliber has been greatly narrowed to almost the “personal preference” level.
However, the BSD Crew typically does not recommend any firearm that is smaller than .380 caliber, and we are very particular with those firearms. With 9mm and larger firearms we feel confident that shooter’s preference will not adversely effect the overall ability to win a gunfight, as long as shots are placed in critical stopping areas (upper torso or head).
As far as capacity, however, the argument of “more is better” still has significant weight. Unfortunately, the argument of a CCW firearm often pivots on the shooter’s personal preference on the compact size options, rather than the ability of the firearm to win a sustained gunfight.
You mention officer involved shootings with 4 or less shots fired. Statistically that may be true for the majority of close encounter shootings, however there are plenty of examples of sustained gunfights that involved double-digit rounds being fired (sometimes with a magazine change as well). And those shootouts are often at distances not too much greater than the close ones.
Many of those shooting events involved only one threat. Whether an officer, or a CCW citizen, we are likely not going to be able to choose the gunfights we will be involved in. If there is an accomplice, or the attacker is moving, or has cover nearby, the potential for firing multiple rounds rises exponentially. If your CCW firearm only provides 5-7 rounds you are going to find yourself in a very dire situation.
Ultimately, the decision is yours. However, you can make sound judgements on size, comfort, and capacity. When you look at the likely possibilities that you could confront, and the necessary firepower to be victorious, your window of options should narrow down to a comfortable number of selections.
odie11 says
Not sure I understand the scope of this article. I would certainly like to know the specifics of an LEO shooting at a suspect at 30 yards. That is 90 feet with a handgun. That certainly seems unusual.
And I would like to see any competent shooter hit a moving target silhouette at 90 feet consistently. If you can hit a MOVING silhouette consistently at 90 feet, my hat is off to you. And given the fact that most of these shootings occur in urban areas with civilian residences, I’m not really sure that is wise. Nor would I think that a Police Department would advocate for this kind of a scenario.
While I think the idea of the use of the front sight and consistent trigger control is important, it is not nearly as important as gross motor skills in dealing with combat shooting.
I’d like to see real world testing and qualifications. And, if we are talking about real world shootings, we should emphasize 100% hits. This means that in a perfect world, officers should be qualified for the distances that make 100% hits–no fliers and no “close scores. ”
In other words if you can make FAST and accurate hits at 7 yards, you should be able to be qualified to make fast accurate 100% hits at 7 yards. If you cannot get 100% hits at 7 yards, you should not be qualified to be able to throw lead at 7 yards.
As a Point Shooter, I train at a target the size of a quarter with an outer ring being approximately 5 inches.
At 12 feet, I can hit the quarter size bullseye 50 % of the time at a speed draw of about one second give or take a few 10ths of a second over or under, and within 1 1/2 inches of the bullseye 100% of the time. I consider this average shooting.
At 21 feet, I can hit the quarter about 25% of the time and within 1 1/2 inches 80% of the time in 1 second.
I don’t consider this anything other than average shooting. I should hasten to add without the use of sights.
And while I don’t consider this great shooting, it is certain better than 90% of the shooters out there.
My point is that if we are going to discuss reality, we should do so by discussing ALL REALITY. And reality is the ability to draw get on target and fire with SPEED and ACCURACY.
100% PRECISE hit should be the MINIMUM standard. We are a long way from that.
Richard says
There are many instances of police officers having to engage suspects at distances of 30+ yards with a handgun. While that is not the norm, it is a situation that occurs on a frequent enough basis to make training for it a prudent part of the overall firearms program. Since you requested information on an incident of this nature: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/12/06/austin-cop-sure-shot-stopped-crazed-gunman.html There are many more.
Your desire for 100% hits as a minimum standard is laudable but seems unrealistic to say the least.
Feel free to lay out the specifics of a training program that is backed by modern research that would achieve such a thing. The world could benefit from such a program.
odie11 says
Really? Show me. You give the situations in which a cop has to shoot someone are OVER 90 feet with a handgun.
As a matter of fact, note that about a year and a half ago, we had two cops taking on bad guys at the UN Building in NYC in which when they returned fire at rather close range, managed to hit everyone but the bad guys.
I don’t have problems with people shooting at distance, but I have serious issues with people like you blowing smoke up people’s asses.
To begin with, you are firing essentially a ROCKET (a bullet) with no guarantee that it will hit its intended target.
Oddly enough, there was no backlash against the two cops that generated such sorry performances. These shots at the UN building, actually HIT innocent civilians, and it was people like you that gave free passes to the cops.
IMO you should qualify at the distance that you can make 95% hits and no less.
I remember reviewing the Hollywood Shooting in which we had two suspects with body armor and AKs. It is on YouTube, and I was shocked at how badly the tactics were with the cops. None of them grabbed a shotgun, nor did they fan out but clustered like a covey of quails.
I attended the Los Angeles Police Academy, and I am ex USMC neither organizations teach these idiotic responses which those cops who were in my department manifested. .
They finally took the perps down when they went to a gun store and appropriated their supply of Black Rifles.
It is time that police training officers stop carrying water for the fundamental stupidity and incompetence of Police officers.
Police Firearms trainers need to take personal responsibility for the poor performance of the officers they train. These trainers need to be held accountable for their incompetence.
Unless we start doing this, we are going to have people like you continue to make moronic excuses for incompetence and poor performance.
No one in their right mind would allow a surgeon to attempt ANY surgery by “getting close.”
Neither should police departments.
Now I actually practice this. I am a Point shooter. I started at Point Blank Range using the “Pencil Drill.”
I’ve been doing it for four years 7 days a week, twice a day. At the current time, I am competent at 21 feet (without sights ) on a bullseye about the size of a quarter at slightly less than 50% hits, , and with an outer ring of five inches and hitting within a five in circle 95% of the time at a speed draw.
At 12 feet, I can hit a quarter sized bullseye with 80% frequency, and 100% hits in a five in disc at speed draw. Speed draw is drawing, on target and getting off the shot within 1.5 seconds. At that to me is slow. And I don’t consider this good shooting, but I consider it competent shooting.
With these kinds of AVERAGES, the possibility of hitting an innocent bystander or the bullet ricocheting into a building are slim to none.
People like you have it completely ass backwards. You don’t train for distance until you are at 100% close up. An infant has to crawl before they can walk.
It is pretty obvious that Police Trainers are the real reason that police officers manifest such gross incompetent handgunning skills.
Richard says
A few things…
1. Please refrain from using profanity and resorting to personal attacks. This is not a free speech zone, and I don’t care to have that kind of behavior on this site. You’ll not get another warning.
2. You asked for examples but ignore one I provided. If you won’t look at the one I provided, why should I provide any more for you to ignore? If you are really interested, there are multiple examples in addition to the one I already provided…such as the USAF base police officer who had to engage a spree killer with a 9mm sidearm at roughly 75 yards in Washington. Feel free to use Google and research the topic. The Officer Down column in the Police Marksman is also a good source of information on incidents including precise distances of engagements. Some are close, some are far away.
3. You keep mentioning that you are a “point shooter.” Good for you. Tell me how well that works when compared to sighted fire when dealing with a moving target that is shooting at you. Have you done much force on force training with this technique, or are you working on a static range?
4. You mention you attended the LAPD academy. How’d that work out for you? Did you graduate? Did you make it out of the FTEP? If so, how long were you a cop? This could help me better understand your frame of reference on firearms training in law enforcement.
Feel free to respond if you have a genuine desire for an actual conversation. If you just want to yell at someone, find someplace else to do it.
Richard
Aaron E says
OK Odie, I thought you were going to engage in meaningful discourse, but your apparent grudge against police has become evident. There are plenty of ignorant pundits on other sites. If you want to continue dialogue, bring facts not personal attacks.
You’re wrong about the LAPD North Hollywood shooting on several accounts.
First, Several officers did deploy with shotguns, but the heavy armor used by the robbers made them ineffective. In addition, the officers only had 00 buckshot dramatically reducing their effective range (about 25-30 yards before spread leaves a human body target) and impact on armored targets. A rifled slug (carried by many police departments as an option) may have had a significant impact on this event, though slugs still have a limited range of about 75-100 yards and still may not have fully penetrated the robbers’ armor. However, their greater impact may have knocked the heavily clad robbers down, or changed their psychological mindset enough to cause them to flee rather than sustain a fight.
Second, LAPD officers were deployed all around the bank, blocking access to innocent civilians, AND taking up tactical positions from various angles around the bank. The fact that some Patrol officers were huddled in small areas is because they were under fire by .30 cal. automatic fire. Several were seriously wounded. This is where your static range training fails you. When bullets are cutting through your vehicle like paper, it is very hard to return effective fire – especially when you’re wounded. Especially when your pistols and shotguns lack firepower.
Third – I repeat Richard’s questions. You say you were in the LAPD Academy. Did you graduate? Did you complete Field Training? If so, where were you assigned? How about an employee number? You make big claims, but from what you’ve written so far I’d say you have little if any real police experience. Going to an Academy does not qualify you to comment on police matters from a police officer’s perspective. Only real road experience will do that.
Next, you say that officers should only “qualify” from the ranges they can hit 90% of the time, and then mention very close distances. I would argue that training and qualification should require significant success at close ranges, but still require training and requirements at distances out to say 25 yards (even 50 if you want to be bold).
Finally, NYPD (and other police departments under similar circumstances) paid significant payouts to the innocent bystanders who were impacted by ricochets or debris during the shooting you mentioned. There was plenty of media coverage, including hard questions about the number of missed shots. I would refer you back to my comment about the Glock NY1 and NY2 triggers with 11-12 pound trigger pulls. New York made a decision they thought would reduce liability – a dead/injured cop is less expensive than a dead/injured innocent citizen from an errant (light trigger) shot. However, the exact opposite has happened. Harder trigger pulls have contributed to errant shots, which has increased innocent injury and liability.
Aaron E says
Odie you make some excellent points, but it would appear from comments your not in law enforcement. I only say that because there are some real-world considerations for a law enforcement shooting scenario that must be considered to weigh the evaluation correctly. The point Richard is making here (the scope of the article) is the error in not training officers pistol shooting skills beyond 15 yards. The title of the article points out that not all police-involved shootings occur at close ranges, and if an officer has never tried to engage a target at greater ranges with their pistol they are going to be woefully unprepared for the realities of stress, movement, bullets coming their way, etc. This is manifested in the second scenario Richard put forth.
In December, 2014 a suspect armed with an AK-47 and other firearms began shooting up downtown buildings in Austin, Texas. An Austin PD horse patrol Sgt. (while holding the reins of 2 horses) fired one shot with his S&W M&P .40 cal. pistol at 104 yards striking and killing the suspect. I think that is Richard’s point – some police shootings occur at distance. The pistol was the Sergeant’s only firearm, so he used it to end a threat – in a major urban setting, and at 104 yards. The threat was real and immediate, and engaging the shooter at distance was appropriate and necessary. In fact, I would argue it would be tactically unsound to close distance with a rifle-armed suspect when only armed with a pistol. In that circumstance, the best action is to try to engage at distance. And to be successful, an officer has to at least had some training at shooting at distance. That includes sight alignment, proper grip, proper trigger pull and control, breathing, etc.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/12/06/austin-cop-sure-shot-stopped-crazed-gunman.html
Shootings at distance do happen, and are required at times. Law enforcement trainers have been properly training officers to create distance for decades. Greater distance can provide more time to evaluate the situation, giving the officer a greater view of the threat, cover opportunities, tactical considerations, while also making it harder for the suspect to hit the officer.
I agree officers should be able to make 100% hits out to 7 yards. However … we have to face reality. The picture you portray is the perfect world, and I would love to see it play out that way. Unfortunately, shooting skills is one of dozens of skills a police officer must learn to perform their duties. Though the importance and liability of shooting are tremendously high, the rate of occurrence (even in major urban areas) is rather low. On the other hand, the liability of an officer making a false arrest, failing to intervene/act as required by law, causing a motor vehicle crash, getting injured during a custody situation, or other daily activities is also high, but their occurrence is very high as well. A risk manager would properly realize the high liability/high occurrence events need the most attention.
I want my officers trained to proficiency in defensive tactics, driving, AND shooting, but each discipline (and many more) fight for time. Then you have individual officer enthusiasm and participation. Unfortunately, many officers are comfortable with answering calls, taking reports, and trying not to get on the Sergeant’s bad side. They are perfectly O.K. with just getting by on DT, shooting, driving, etc. Police department’s spend a lot of money trying to recruit good candidates, and succeed many times, but they can only select out of the group that applies. Sometimes, the “just-get-by” candidate gets in because technically they’re capable of doing the routine jobs that an officer performs most often.
Here’s an example. New York City. Most populous city in America. Nearly 40,000 police officers between NYPD, Transit, Schools, and State. If you divide that number by 365 days the department would be training 109 officers each day. I’m confident they are not training on the weekends, so the training days are reduced, and the numbers to train are increased. That is an incredible logistic nightmare, and ultimately officers get … “basic” firearms training. Add the fact that New York is extremely firearm restrictive, it makes it harder for even the cops to train on their own time.
Here’s another sad fact. When NYPD accepted Glock as a duty firearm option they made Glock change the trigger spring that controls trigger pull weight. That change is actually called the NY1 and NY2. That change increased the trigger pull weight from around 5.5 lbs. to 11.0 lbs. In essence, some risk manager calculated the numbers and realized it was cheaper to have an officer die in the line of duty than for the officer to have an AD/ND and have to pay out a lawsuit. Unfortunately, it seems to have backfired considering one shooting involving a robbery suspect, where 84 shots were fired and only one hit the suspect! That 11.0 pound trigger is a beast, and I’m sure jerking the pistol occurred.
http://eu.glock.com/english/options_triggerspring.htm
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/cops-wound-brooklyn-shooting-suspect-wild-gun-battle-article-1.2348489
Oh, by the way, you’re shooting example with quarters and 1 second draws is much more than “average”, even in competitive shooting circles. I practice draws nearly every day, and shoot 2-3 times per month, and the best I can do (on target) is about 1.2 seconds – and not on a quarter, more like into the 5″ circle.
Aaron E says
It would seem that others have come to the same conclusion – gunfights happen up close … unless they don’t. Police 1 has an article also emphasizing training officers for handgun fights at greater distances as well as close up.
https://www.police1.com/police-trainers/articles/intermediate-distance-shooting-a-cops-tactical-advantage-5qyQsDOEaCyIUu2o/