Why shooting to wound doesn’t make sense scientifically, legally, or tactically
Force Science re-states its case in light of recent 'no-kill bill' proposal.
Do police officers really have to kill people when they shoot them? Couldn’t they be more humane and just aim for arms or legs?
As reported in Force Science News, New York state Senator David Paterson [D.-Harlem] pondered those questions in 2006 and concluded that officers were needlessly killing suspects. In response, he introduced legislation that would require officers to try to shoot offenders’ limbs instead of targeting locations that would more likely stop the threat but could also result in death. Paterson proposed that any officer who employed more than the minimum force necessary to stop a life-threatening suspect be charged with felony manslaughter. Law enforcement exploded in protest and Paterson withdrew the bill.
But the battle isn’t over.
So-called 'no-kill' bill surfaces in NY
The New York Post has just reported that Brooklyn Assembly Members Annette Robinson [D.-Bedford Stuyvesant] and Darryl Towns [D.-East New York] have introduced a “minimum force” bill that would require officers to “shoot a suspect in the arm or the leg” and to use firearms “with the intent to stop, rather than kill.”
“When I encounter civilian response to officer-involved shootings, it’s very often ‘Why didn’t they just shoot him in the leg?’” Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the Force Science Institute, told Force Science News in a 2006 interview centered on Paterson’s proposed legislation. “When civilians judge police shooting deaths–on juries, on review boards, in the media, in the community–this same argument is often brought forward. Shooting to wound is naively regarded as a reasonable means of stopping dangerous behavior.
“In reality, this thinking is a result of ‘training by Hollywood,’ in which movie and TV cops are able to do anything to control the outcomes of events that serve the director’s dramatic interests. It reflects a misconception of real-life dynamics and ends up imposing unrealistic expectations of skill on real-life officers.”
Vice President Nebulous Biden agrees. When Michael Paladino, president of New York’s Detectives Endowment Association, showed him the bill he reportedly scoffed and suggested that it be called the “John Wayne Bill” because of the unrealistic, movie-like sharpshooting skills it demands of officers.
In light of this resurfacing of misguided “shoot-to-wound” thinking, Force Science News is reissuing a “position paper,” originally introduced following Paterson’s ’06 proposed legislation, that discusses why shooting to wound versus shooting to stop is neither practical nor desirable as a performance standard. We hope this information proves useful to you in addressing any shoot-to-wound advocacy that may arise in your jurisdiction.
Practical Issues
Robinson and Towns’ bill was drafted in the wake of the controversial shooting of Sean Bell who died after New York officers fired a total of 50 rounds at him and two other men. Sen. Paterson said his proposed legislation in ’06 was motivated by the fatal shooting in New York City of Amadou Diallo, who was struck by 19 bullets when officers mistakenly thought he was reaching for a weapon as they approached him for questioning. Paterson believed that shooting an arm or leg would tend to stop a suspect’s threatening actions, precluding the need to shoot to the head or chest, where death is more probable. By requiring only the least amount of force needed to control a suspect he apparently hoped to reduce the likelihood of “excessive” shots being fired.
Studies by the Force Science Research Center reveal some of the practical problems with these positions. Lewinski explains some of the basics of human dynamics and anatomy and the relative risks of misses and hits:
“Hands and arms can be the fastest-moving body parts. For example, an average suspect can move his hand and forearm across his body to a 90-degree angle in 12/100 of a second. He can move his hand from his hip to shoulder height in 18/100 of a second.
“The average officer pulling the trigger as fast as he can on a Glock, one of the fastest- cycling semi-autos, requires 1/4 second to discharge each round.
“There is no way an officer can react, track, shoot and reliably hit a threatening suspect’s forearm or a weapon in a suspect’s hand in the time spans involved.
“Even if the suspect held his weapon arm steady for half a second or more, an accurate hit would be highly unlikely, and in police shootings the suspect and his weapon are seldom stationary. Plus, the officer himself may be moving as he shoots.
“The upper arms move more slowly than the lower arms and hands. But shooting at the upper arms, there’s a greater chance you’re going to hit the suspect’s brachial artery or center mass, areas with a high probability of fatality. So where does shooting only to wound come in when even areas considered by some to ‘safe’ from fatality risk could in fact carry the same level of risk as targeting center mass?
“Legs tend initially to move slower than arms and to maintain more static positions. However, areas of the lower trunk and upper thigh are rich with vascularity. A suspect who’s hit there can bleed out in seconds if one of the major arteries is severed, so again shooting just to wound may not result in just wounding.
“On the other hand, if an officer manages to take a suspect’s legs out non-fatally, that still leaves the offender’s hands free to shoot. His ability to threaten lives hasn’t necessarily been stopped.”
As to preventing so-called “overkill” from shots that are fired after a threat is neutralized, Lewinski offers these observations:
“Twenty years ago officers were trained to ’shoot then assess.’ They fired 1 or 2 rounds, then stopped to see the effect. This required 1/4 to 1/2 second, during which time the suspect could keep firing, if he hadn’t been incapacitated.
“Now they’re taught to ‘shoot and assess,’ to judge the effect of their shots as they continue to fire, an on-going process. This allows the officer to continually defend himself, but because the brain is trying to do 2 things at once–shoot and assess–a very significant change in the offender’s behavior needs to take place in order for the officer to recognize the change of circumstances.
“A suspect falling to the ground from being shot would be a significant change. But by analyzing the way people fall, we’ve determined that it takes 2/3 of a second to a full second or more for a person to fall to the ground from a standing position. And that is when they’ve been hit in a motor center that produces instant loss of muscle tension.
“While an officer is noticing this change, he is going to continue firing if he is shooting as fast as he can under the stress of trying to save his life. On average, from the time an officer perceives a change in stimulus to the time he is able to process that and actually stop firing, 2 to 3 additional rounds will be expended.
“Shooting beyond the moment a threat is neutralized is not a willful, malicious action in most cases. It’s an involuntary factor of human dynamics.
“Given what science tells us about armed encounters, this most recent proposal is a fantasy, just like Paterson’s legislation before it. They would hold officers to super-human performance and punish them criminally for being unable to achieve it.”
READ THE REST HERE.
http://www.policeone.com/patrol-iss...e-sense-scientifically-legally-or-tactically/
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MOTM
It quite possible, it's one of the fundamental principles of many forms of martial arts (that have been developed over the course of centuries): disable your opponent and restrain him without killing him. The main idea behind being a defender of the law is to protect everyone with as little damage as possible. As little damage to you, to the victim(s) AND to the aggressor. Yes, it takes years of training. No, not everyone can master it. That's why only the elite recruits of the Police Academies should be allowed to handle dangerous situations. But then again, we're talking about America...
