Spray & Pray - Law Enforcement Tactical Doctrine

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HO lee Crap.  This is your Empire State Building "Mass Shooting" from Friday morning.  It's a surveillance camera shot from in front of the building.  In it you see Jefferey Johnson, walking on the curb behind the planters as two uniformed police approach him from the sidewalk.  He turns and draws down on them and they open fire.  The range is between 2 and five meters.  The cops fire a total of 16 rounds, while the evidence indicates that Johnson did not fire his gun.  Johnson was killed and NINE bystanders were wounded - all by police gunfire.

How much is wrong about this?  In a rational world, the police would be primarily responsible for protecting the innocent, and only secondarily for apprehending the criminal.  They have weapons, communications, body armor and training, and most importantly they VOLUNTEERED for the job.  They needed to accept the risk, close with the killer and, if they fired their weapons, place their shots in center mass, control their triggers and limit the amount of fire they put downrange on a busy big-city sidewalk.  It's hard to do - but if one of the reasons you join the force is for the rush of gunfights and car chases, you better understand the implications of that choice.  It means you just might find yourself five feet from an armed murderer on a rush-hour sidewalk and you need to stand and fight.  You cannot be more concerned about your own safety than that of the citizens around you.  If you are, you need to work in insurance or wait tables.

Sixteen rounds.  9 civilian casualties.  One dead shooter.  This, unfortunately tells us much of what we need to know about today's militarized law enforcement.  At best we're in their way.  "No shoot" targets that bleed when hit.  How far is it from that scene above to us becoming human shields for the cops?  One thing these guys certainly aren't is 'heroes'.  No courage, no discipline, no concern for anything but avoiding being hurt themselves.  Watch as the officer on the right abandons all form and discipline and scrambles backward, firing one-handed without any focus.  His partner does a much better job, moving to partial cover and placing his shots from a combat stance.  But one of them fired nine rounds and the other seven, so neither showed the kind of restraint and discipline we should be able to expect in an event like this.  

It's worth noting, also, that this mass shooting was entirely done by the police.  Jefferey Johnson fired five rounds into one victim, making him just another of America's handgun murderers, sadly very far from being anything special, or particularly newsworthy.  The ten people that went down in a hail of gunfire minutes later were all shot by those sworn to 'serve and protect'.

Thanks?

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