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Originally posted by Fenris:

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Originally posted by P220 Smudge:

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Originally posted by Fenris:
Many people survive gunshots with prompt medical care.

Pretty apparent they weren’t shooting for center of mass, so I’d like to also ask people who know, how often people shot in the head survive with prompt medical care?

As the police weren't aiming for her head that is irrelevant.

IMHO - There was a chance that she would not be shot. There was a chance that she would survive if she were shot. There was zero chance that she would survive if her throat were cut open.

I feel compelled to address this. What I originally quoted sounds like you think she might have survived the shot to the head with prompt medical care. I mentioned that the police seemed to be aiming for his head (the only reasonable shot to take), and that is irrelevant because... why? Her head was not all that far from his head. To the point where her head took a round. It was a high-risk shot that shouldn't have turned into a damn firing squad. The officer(s) that killed her had only the best intentions and absolutely didn't want to shoot an elderly woman in the head, I have no doubt at all.

But, responsibility is a thing. Someone pulled the trigger when they shouldn't have, and that woman is dead as dead gets, as a result. Fault is exactly what that is.

quote:

fault
fôlt/Submit
noun
1.
an unattractive or unsatisfactory feature, especially in a piece of work or in a person's character.
"my worst fault is impatience"
2.
responsibility for an accident or misfortune.

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Originally posted by maladat:

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Originally posted by Fenris:
Question for those who know, do many people survive having their throat cut?

I have no idea what the general statistics are like, but there are two hockey players that are famous for having a carotid artery cut on the ice by another player's skate and surviving.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clint_Malarchuk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Zedn%C3%ADk

No doubt, just like being shot, it depends where and how deep the cut is and how promptly and effectively aid is rendered.

slashing across the throat is not the threat

i have personally seen two people who 'sawed' on their throats attempting suicide without a lot of damage

of course how hard of an effort you make would matter if you saw enough your going to eventually get to the large vessels

to truly quickly take out a person you want to stab INTO the throat with your blade. then its game over quick

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Why are you guys focusing on how deadly throat cutting is?

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So, apparently the knife-wielding BG was LESS dangerous than the cops who couldn't shoot straight.

So both the suspect and hostage was totally static and zero movement was evident.

As far as "shooting straight", I attend competitive event almost weekly. Odd that EVERYONE manages to get shots out of the down zero. Last June Max Michael hit a No Shoot here in NH. Guess he can't shoot straight either. Nor were all his shots in the A zone.

Ok P220 Smudge...not you.

Yeah, I did the math and deleted it. Sorry.

I wonder why these discussions tend to be so binary? One side says the cops can't shoot straight, other side says he was cutting her throat so they did the best they could and anyone can have a miss...

3rd option, as some mentioned, is to let the guy with the best (and obvious) shot take it, then we neither have to worry about poor shooting by the others or the medical treatment of a throat cut.

If PDs had more of a budget, they could spend more in-service training days running high stress decision making scenarios (and after action reviews) with Simmunition.

^^^^^ And there would still be instances of bad shots killing an innocent person--fewer, maybe, but still some.

flashguy

How about a single precision headshot? That was ridiclous. We trained for these types of circumstances at a medium sized police department in the 90’s. This is just unacceptable. How could any officer think a double or triple tap, or more, would be prudent under those circumstances. Hello 1983 deliberate indifference lawsuit, goodbye qualified immunity.

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Originally posted by rscalzo:

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So, apparently the knife-wielding BG was LESS dangerous than the cops who couldn't shoot straight.

So both the suspect and hostage was totally static and zero movement was evident.

As far as "shooting straight", I attend competitive event almost weekly. Odd that EVERYONE manages to get shots out of the down zero. Last June Max Michael hit a No Shoot here in NH. Guess he can't shoot straight either. Nor were all his shots in the A zone.

I don't think that's a reasonable comparison. The rules of the competition mean that you get your best score by shooting as fast as you possibly can while still mostly getting good hits, because the penalties for OK or bad shots are not very high.

With two actual people downrange, the shooter's priorities ought to be a little different.

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Originally posted by flashguy:
^^^^^ And there would still be instances of bad shots killing an innocent person--fewer, maybe, but still some.

flashguy

If only the officer in the first view, on the far left, with a clear shot took it?

Or did you mean in general even if officers get more training. If the latter, more high stress training will have an impact on far more than just accidental civilian shootings (exceedingly rare), it will have a big impact on all use of force problems especially ones falling short of deadly force and ones that end up "justified" yet could have been resolved without deadly force with better training and a calmer response.

To elaborate further...do the members here think this was primarily a "marksmanship" problem?

I contend it was a high-stress decision making, uncertainty, and angles problem.

I'd bet a year's salary that every officer present could make the 3yd shot officer #1 had on the perp 100% of the time on the range.

The others had no business shooting as the hostage masked them...has nothing to do with marksmanship.

If you haven't ever done FoF training, seek it out. What you learn about what you actually do under what is mild stress compared to the real thing, vs. what you think you would do...is quite "instructive."

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Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
I feel compelled to address this. What I originally quoted sounds like you think she might have survived the shot to the head with prompt medical care.

No. What I meant was that there was no certainty that she would get shot at all, nor die if she were shot. Head shots are obviously more lethal, but it wasn't certain she would be shot in the head. The police were not aiming for HER head. Were they aiming for his? Of course. As they should have. He was cutting a woman's throat.

IANAC - So what do I know. But if someone is cutting my throat, take the shot. Take the damn shot. You have my consent.

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Originally posted by RAMIUS:
Why are you guys focusing on how deadly throat cutting is?

Because these threads always turn stupid.

There are cops who could make that shot. It may have been the one whose body cam footage we see but we’ll never know at this point. All the training available would not make a difference to most. The guys I know who can pull this off are guys who train above and beyond what is required by their departments.

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Originally posted by Strambo:
To elaborate further...do the members here think this was primarily a "marksmanship" problem?

I contend it was a high-stress decision making, uncertainty, and angles problem.

I'd bet a year's salary that every officer present could make the 3yd shot officer #1 had on the perp 100% of the time on the range.

The others had no business shooting as the hostage masked them...has nothing to do with marksmanship.

If you haven't ever done FoF training, seek it out. What you learn about what you actually do under what is mild stress compared to the real thing, vs. what you think you would do...is quite "instructive."

This is not a marksmanship problem, it is training and decision making. The officer to the left had a clear shot both at the perp's head, and COM. The officer farthest to the right had a decent COM shot, but not much else. From the video provided, everyone else had shit.

The officer to the left should have taken the kill shot, and the rest should have held fire.

Terrible decision making as you move to the right of the left-most officer.

I could easily make that shot - on paper.

Real life - not sure if I could control my adrenaline and the creeping thought of what would happen if I missed. I consider myself fortunate that I have never been in a situation like that.

Unfortunate situation for all involved. And - another reason why LEO's should not be second guessed for shooting someone armed with a knife early at the onset of an altercation.

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Originally posted by Graniteguy:
Unfortunate situation for all involved. And - another reason why LEO's should not be second guessed for shooting someone armed with a knife early at the onset of an altercation.

Amen.

I keep thinking of the 18 shots. Round that to 6 per officer for ease of math. That's one hell of a lot of shots for that situation! It's a bit hard to imagine pulling the trigger(s) that many times under those circumstances. I'm sure this will be a huge part of the investigation/settlement.

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Originally posted by Fenris:

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Originally posted by Graniteguy:
Unfortunate situation for all involved. And - another reason why LEO's should not be second guessed for shooting someone armed with a knife early at the onset of an altercation.

Amen.

One hopes this is a case study every time progressives ask why non-lethal force can’t be used.

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Originally posted by konata88:

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Originally posted by Fenris:

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Originally posted by Graniteguy:
Unfortunate situation for all involved. And - another reason why LEO's should not be second guessed for shooting someone armed with a knife early at the onset of an altercation.

Amen.

One hopes this is a case study every time progressives ask why non-lethal force can’t be used.

This has nothing to do with politics