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Lubbock PD Chief Closes Range

The Lubbock PD closed the range after a couple of negligent discharges by officers. They're looking closely at revamping the training. Sounds like a good move, but in the mean time, the officers are still carrying. I hope they fix it quickly.

Drop the mag rack the slide---even the police spokesman mentions that in the article. Not difficult to do---I will speculate and say some folks even in blue get complacent and forget. Firearms handling requires extra-ordinary care---mistakes can be fatal. Glad nobody was injured.

I don't know what Lubbock PD requires as far as range qualifications, but most only require a bi-annual qualification. So that means that they are not required to even fire their guns but every six months. When I was LEO, ND was not necessarily a rare occurrence at the range.

See my post in this topic.

http://www.texaschlforum.com/viewtopic. ... 5#p1068027

I did the first 2 Instructor qual and requal in the DPS Austin City range. I remember MANY holes being in the cover
of the structure.

One officer discharged his weapon in his vehicle after leaving the range, while disassembling it for cleaning. The other officer discharged his weapon in a classroom during disassembly if i remember. These incidents happened within two weeks. LPD has suspended firearms training in class and at the range until they determine what they will do.

soon they're going to have cops shooting like New Yorkers.

Lubbock PD had a THIRD ND sometime today.

http://www.kcbd.com/story/33401745/lpd- ... 39016363=1

Wow! Not a great month for Lubbock. Here in Corpus Christi I know of 3 ND's in fairly recent years. Sheriff Deputies were at the range WITHOUT a range master and some rounds went over the berm. This was apparently a common occurrence as a Rancher had complained several times of rounds hitting his roof about a mile or so away in years past. This day his teenage son was in the yard and was hit by one of the deputy's bullets. Range was closed and never reopened! The boy was ok, by the way, but imagine the wrath of a parent! More recently, a Port Authority Police Officer shot his partner with a rifle while on the range, once again, without a range master present. Sadly, he did not survive. Hitting a little closer to home, one evening on a narcotics raid, just 3 seconds out of the jump van a deputy behind me discharged a .45 round into the ground 18" from me, stating he tripped over a tree root. Lotta pants needed changing that day but interestingly enough, every bad guy in the house was already prone on the ground and really, really eager to cooperate when we came through that door. Remedial training occurred in each instance. Just to clarify, the Port Authority shooting was, other than not having an official range master on duty, Not the officers fault. His partner walked into the line of fire. Tragedy can happen from either angle.

Seems as NDs have occurred more often since the PDs have switched from revolvers to SAs. A friend was involved with two NGs by his partners. One when his partner was fooling with his newly issued M59 inside their patrol car. Another when his partner tripped with a loaded shotgun and shot my friend in the back. My friend soon left the force.

WTR wrote:Seems as NDs have occurred more often since the PDs have switched from revolvers to SAs. A friend was involved with two NGs by his partners. One when his partner was fooling with his newly issued M59 inside their patrol car. Another when his partner tripped with a loaded shotgun and shot my friend in the back. My friend soon left the force.

While I have no proof, I suspect the increase was mainly due to the adoption of Glocks or similar striker fired pistols. Even when a lot of departments went to the S&W DA/SA semi-autos in the 80s you did not hear a lot about ND. Our local PD did a pretty intensive training program when they moved from the semi auto Smiths to the Glock.

Smokey613 wrote:

WTR wrote:Seems as NDs have occurred more often since the PDs have switched from revolvers to SAs. A friend was involved with two NGs by his partners. One when his partner was fooling with his newly issued M59 inside their patrol car. Another when his partner tripped with a loaded shotgun and shot my friend in the back. My friend soon left the force.

While I have no proof, I suspect the increase was mainly due to the adoption of Glocks or similar striker fired pistols. Even when a lot of departments went to the S&W DA/SA semi-autos in the 80s you did not hear a lot about ND. Our local PD did a pretty intensive training program when they moved from the semi auto Smiths to the Glock.

I think the Glock 22 might have contributed to the Tulsa shooting.

This ND was different from the two previous ones because it did not happen in a training environment, instead it occurred while officers were attempting to take a suspect they believed was armed into custody. At this time it appears that the damage was limited to a single hole in the suspects fence and a second hole in the ground from the same bullet.

And the thing that they all had in common was a finger on the trigger of a loaded gun (albeit in some of these incidents it seems they thought it wasn't loaded).