It’s been confirmed that all of the bystanders shot during the shootout with a suspect who pulled a gun on police were, in fact, shot by police or hit with fragmented bullets.
The New York Times reports:
The police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, confirmed on Saturday that all nine were wounded by police bullets, bullet fragments or shrapnel from ricochets. Mr. Kelly also confirmed that the shooter, Mr. Johnson, never fired another shot after killing a former co-worker, Steven Ercolino, moments earlier.
“We had a witness that said that Johnson fired at the police,” Mr. Kelly said Saturday. “But the final count of the shells, it appears that that is not the case.”
This is not intended to condemn the NYPD officers, but rather to look into what may be the best procedures in cases where a person aims a gun at officers in a crowded area.
More from the NYT:
The patrol guide, the department’s manual, states that officers should not fire their weapons when, “in their professional judgment, doing so will unnecessarily endanger innocent persons.”
In the shooting in Midtown, Mr. Kelly said on Friday that the two officers “had absolutely no choice.” In Mr. Johnson’s bag, officers found a clip loaded with six rounds, the police said.
What do you think of this procedure? Should the NYPD reevaluate their standard response, or is this their only real choice for protecting the city?
Archy. Not exactly a mirror image, but you’ll note that the armed citizen didn’t hit any bystanders.
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/08/26/armed-citizen-stops-violent-attack-on-cop/
Note also comments and conclusions as to coverage.
Nanny Bloomberg shows remarkable sang-froid about the casualties. I imagine his attitude would be different were a legally-armed civilian to have done the shooting.
Fortunately, there were no legally armed citizens in the area, or somebody might have been hurt.
If you look at the video, you can see how quickly this played out. About five seconds in all. Richard is right. These cops needed more time on the range. They just got spooked and missed this guy from nearly point blank range. But its clear they had good reason to believe he was about to shoot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wfGoXXl_Ns&feature=player_embedded
Those cops get close to a point that they should be charged if they’re hitting civilians in their line of fire, that point between ending the gunmen’s threat to civilians and adding their own threat and when civilians get injured, it starts to become time for ANOTHER cop to shoot the bad aiming cops in the leg if they can’t learn to shoot properly. If I started seeing a cop shooting at a gunmen, but continually missing and they were a threat to civilians, I’d be fucking tempted to end the threat of the gunman AND cop who is now… Read more »
Kind of hard to think of what else they should do, considering they’d like to finish their shift with no more holes than when they started. I do think, however, that they should spend more time on the range. Happened to read that Special Forces teams, between deployments, go through a series of exercises expending a clear million rounds. Maybe that’s excessive for cops. Might even be exaggerated. The problem is that in a situation like this, everything gets fuzzy, including muscle control. That’s when muscle memory becomes useful. There are also sim situations calling for instant judgment including hitting… Read more »