stroo wrote:What continues to amaze me about this story and similar ones, like the FBI shootout, is how much punishment the body can take without shutting down. The perp here took 17 COM shots and 5 others. I believe the LEO was hit 4-5 times although the one com was stopped by a vest and the others were to his arms or legs. Still both men continued to battle well after they had each been shot numerous times.
Lesson I take from this:
- Never give up; Keep fighting
- Keep shooting until the BG is down or runs away.
Hope I never have to test either out.
You have to remember COM=any hit to the torso. Thoracic hits are the true channel changers. these are the hits to the "Golden Triangle" (no not the Beaumont area ) Hits in the high chest area that is rich with important things like heart, lungs, and major blood vessels. Imagine a triangle from nipple to nipple with the Adam's Apple as the apex this is where your shots need to go to do the most good the fastest. BTW this is an area about the size of a bargain priced paper dinner plate.
Determination and a fighting spirit will get you through such an encounter you can never just quit fighting.
"To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
George Mason
Texas and Louisiana CHL Instructor, NRA Pistol, Rifle, Shotgun, Personal Protection and Refuse To Be A Victim Instructor
stroo wrote:What continues to amaze me about this story and similar ones, like the FBI shootout, is how much punishment the body can take without shutting down. The perp here took 17 COM shots and 5 others. I believe the LEO was hit 4-5 times although the one com was stopped by a vest and the others were to his arms or legs. Still both men continued to battle well after they had each been shot numerous times.
Lesson I take from this:
- Never give up; Keep fighting
- Keep shooting until the BG is down or runs away.
Hope I never have to test either out.
You have succeeded in deducing two of the most important combat principles taught by the most elite trainers in the police, military and self defense fields.
You've recognized the fact that people don't react to being shot like they do in the movies works both ways - it also means the good guy can keep on fighting despite multiple wounds.
Just because a situation looks bad doesn't mean it's hopeless. If you're still breathing, you can win if you've got the will to do it.
Congratulations on the clear thinking and nicely summarized conclusions.
Excaliber
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." - Jeff Cooper
I am not a lawyer. Nothing in any of my posts should be construed as legal or professional advice.
M9FAN wrote:Carrying two extra mags with my XD 45 provides me with a total of 40 rds. of .45. Carrying two extra mags with my Glock 22 provides me with a total of 46 rds. of .40. As this story illustrates, it's better to have too much than too little...
If you have too much ammo on you, you just take it home with you. If you have too little, you take the BG's ammo with you to the morgue.
Chas.
I was once told "too much ammo is gonna slow us all down boy!" It wasn't my CHL instructor nor was he talking about handgun ammo though. I think of that when some folks show pictures of their daily carry. What with knives, pepper spray, cell phones Hand gun, BUG 2 spare mags apiece, flashlights and wallet. I don't know how some people can move. That being said I carry at least 1 extra mag on me, but I don't move all that well even when disarmed.
Liberty''s Blog
"Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom." John F. Kennedy
Equal to or less than a 9mm? If that is your claim, it is based on too many variables to be conclusive. I hope I never get to test it.
Don't we all hope for that exemption.
Let's just way there were 17 variables in this suspect that did not put him down. .40 or 9mm probably would not have made one iota of difference. Against somebody psyched like that, you need more than a handgun.
And yes, this guy was out to either win or be killed, no middle ground for him.
M9FAN wrote:Carrying two extra mags with my XD 45 provides me with a total of 40 rds. of .45. Carrying two extra mags with my Glock 22 provides me with a total of 46 rds. of .40. As this story illustrates, it's better to have too much than too little...
If you have too much ammo on you, you just take it home with you. If you have too little, you take the BG's ammo with you to the morgue.
Chas.
We should all do our best to keep this from happening....those poor morgue folks have enough to deal with!
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TSRA Life Member
"No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child."
Well, I feel compelled to answer a few comments and make a few observations of my own. The first, and most important lesson to take from this is the same one I took from the FBI Miami shootout. Mindset is the greatest single factor in walking away from a gunfight. If you think you will survive, you will. Anyone who does what the FBI did and looks first at the weapon not being big enough or deadly enough is making a serious mistake, in my opinion. We do need to consider equipment and tactics, but I think mindset is the biggest single factor.
A few of you made comments about the officer getting a different weapon. I do not know how the officer was equipped but not every officer has a shotgun or rifle available to him. Some are not certified and some departments do not allow long guns. Rifles were really very rare in 1997 for urban departments. even today, my agency has almost 300 officers and only bought 30 rifles at first. We got more just now from an Army surplus program but we still will not issue one to every officer. I don't think we have 75 total shotguns either. We do allow officers to buy their own and carry them (I like my Benelli Nova Tactical and now I need to find the money for an AR one day), but not every department does that. At the time of the shooting, I would guess it was a 50-50 shot on his having a shotgun in the car and probably 10 to 1 against his having a rifle.
As for the comments on why he did not handcuff him and put him in the patrol car. At the first contact, the officer started to relax when he saw it was just a beer can knocked over in the front seat. He probably did not think he was going to arrest him after that. So, he got him out and frisked him because of his behavior, but then started to relax. One of the ten deadly errors in police work is relaxing too soon. In addition, there would have been a lot more political pressure to be nicer and more gentle with people who were not hardened criminals at the time. In this case, this led to a tactical error that the officer realized when he re-approached the car. By the time the officer realized how bad a situation he was in, he was back at the side of the suspect's car. The article mentions him considering retreating but not wanting to cross the open ground to get to his car. I will not second guess this decision without having been there at the time.
The most serious tactical error I saw was not calling for a backup officer when he first saw the car pull in and thought it was suspicious. I don't know how busy the night was or what the culture of the agency he was working for was, but this was a serious error. A second of the ten deadly errors is tombstone courage and this was almost one of those cases.
I also wanted to point out that this was a very unusual case. The average police shoot-out consists of less than three rounds from all involved parties at close range. Consider how many one shot fights there must have been to equal this one in the averaging for that result. And that is for police officers. I don't know of any citizen defensive shootings that go anywhere near this number of shots fired. I do recommend a spare magazine for everyone just in case, but it is an individual decision to make. Do you prepare for the most common case, the average case, the 75th percentile case, or the worst case scenario? Obviously we have all decided to not go with the most common or we would not be talking defense (most of us never need it, even as cops). I cannot personally go around prepared for the worst case scenario (look at the arms available or needed for another Miami shootout). I recognize that the averages are just that and if my luck goes bad, it means I should not be betting on just average bad. So I prepare for a worse than average case but not the worst possible case. I always have two spare magazines with me for my 1911. If I had a higher capacity magazine (like a .40 would use) I would probably still use two mags since I have gotten comfortable with that concept. But, I also started carrying a pistol as a .45 government model with just 15 rounds in three mags (as an MP) and then carrying two or three reloads for a revolver on patrol. I know a lot of younger guys who carry two mags for a 40 with them at all times and would feel under armed with less.
I do think it is a good thing for us (citizens and CHLs) to look at the police shootings for both the tactical and the effectiveness of the weaponry. I also think we need to do our own threat analysis to keep the differences in mind. In the specific case under discussion, a CHL would probably have never approached the suspicion person to begin with.
As an aside, the deadly errors I referred to come from a book named "Officer Down, Code Three". It was written by an LAPD detective back in the mid 70's. He examined all of the officers killed in the line of duty for some period. He found that they had all made one or more of these same ten mistakes. If you can find a copy, it is still a great reference for cops and tactical decisions. The errors are a little contrived to get the number at ten though it is obvious why he wanted that number. Another officer wrote an article for the FBI journal asking why we are still making these same mistakes after more than 30 years. That is a great question for us trainers to keep in mind.
"that the .45 has a documented performance advantage over the .40". Sorry, but I don't think that is true. I don't know what the exact distances were, but the training I have received from several sources is that if you don't get the desired result with 2-3 torso shots, you move up to the head. Perhaps a training issue, or the officer just had brain lock on that particular issue.
TEX
There will be no peace until they love their children more than they hate us - Golda Meir
TEX wrote:I don't know what the exact distances were, but the training I have received from several sources is that if you don't get the desired result with 2-3 torso shots, you move up to the head.
That's what I keep seeing; he did the same thing over and over, still expecting different results from the next shot. If you're not "significantly affecting the attackers ability to continue to present a lethal threat" after a few shots, slow down half a beat and place the shots better.
The other thing that bugs me is this:
Soulis also heard a woman screaming across the street, leading him to believe he may have hit a bystander. He later learned she'd only been screaming in fear,
Instinctive screaming when under a direct threat has a survival use: it makes pretty much the loudest noise that a person is capable of to draw atttention. When not under a direct threat, the best thing to do is generally not to draw attention to yourself, but I've seen responses like this all too often from women who saw something bad about to happen to someone else, and just started shrieking incoherently. It draws a potential threat's attention, and often more importantly, it distracts others who may be in a position to help. In this case, it distracted the officer briefly, and let the assailant know that there was a witness nearby. Fortunately, the officer kept him distracted long enough that we don't find out if he would have acted on that knowledge.
TEX wrote:"that the .45 has a documented performance advantage over the .40". Sorry, but I don't think that is true. I don't know what the exact distances were, but the training I have received from several sources is that if you don't get the desired result with 2-3 torso shots, you move up to the head. Perhaps a training issue, or the officer just had brain lock on that particular issue.
TEX
I was gonna post something about this until Steve reminded us that this was in 1997. The Mozambique drill hadn't likely been heard of by all training officers, and this incident seems to indicate that the officer was a good shot and capable of hitting where he was aiming. Even today many of us just double taps. Here the master explains the technique:
Jeff Cooper wrote:
As time passes we discover that there are a good many readers who have not been to school and who are puzzled by our reference to "The Mozambique Drill."
I added The Mozambique Drill to the modern doctrine after hearing of an experience of a student of mine up in Mozambique when that country was abandoned. My friend was involved in the fighting that took place around the airport of Laurenco Marquez. At one point, Mike turned a corner was confronted by a terrorist carrying an AK47. The man was advancing toward him at a walk at a range of perhaps 10 paces. Mike, who was a good shot, came up with his P35 and planted two satisfactory hits, one on each side of the wishbone. He expected his adversary to drop, but nothing happened, and the man continued to close the range. At this point, our boy quite sensibly opted to go for the head and tried to do so, but he was a little bit upset by this time and mashed slightly on the trigger, catching the terrorist precisely between the collar bones and severing his spinal cord. This stopped the fight.
Upon analysis, it seemed to me that the pistolero should be accustomed to the idea of placing two shots amidships as fast as he can and then being prepared to change his point of aim if this achieves no results. Two shots amidships can be placed very quickly and very reliably and they will nearly always stop the fight providing a major-caliber pistol is used and the subject is not wearing body armor.
However, simply chanting "two in the body, one in the head" oversimplifies matters, since it takes considerably longer to be absolutely sure of a head shot than it does to be quite sure of two shots in the thorax. The problem for the shooter is to change his pace, going just as fast as he can with his first pair, then, pausing to observe results or lack thereof, he must slow down and shoot precisely. This is not easy to do. The beginner tends to fire all three shots at the same speed, which is either too slow for the body shots or too fast for the head shot. This change of pace calls for concentration and coordination which can only be developed through practice.
Liberty''s Blog
"Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom." John F. Kennedy
I really might just be happy to hit what I aim at...
If I cannot get it done with the 8 I have on hand, the next magazine kinda becomes an escape plan...That's my mindset...
Never in my wildest hallucinations would I ever claim to be the reincarnation of Wild Bill...So my outlook is more realistic and prepared for the horror that I might just miss a few times...Which has its own ramifications...
Does anyone remember the discussion we had a long while back about "pelvic" shots??? I found that to be extremely informative...
Oh wait, now I'm talking about aiming for a specific region of the body...What was I thinking???
"Perseverance and Preparedness triumph over Procrastination and Paranoia every time.” -- Steve
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How can we civillians (that is, non-LEO) take his story and its subsequent analysis as referenced by the OP and apply it to plausible scenarios that might be encountered?
I find it hard to believe this cop was a bad enough shot as to make 17 COM hits but not one stopper. I throw the fault to the well known inherent inaccuracy of the .40 caliber semi auto. Law enforcement needs to trash those things and and go to the seamlessly accurate and reliable 9mm MAGNUM.
) Hits in the high chest area that is rich with important things like heart, lungs, and major blood vessels. Imagine a triangle from nipple to nipple with the Adam's Apple as the apex this is where your shots need to go to do the most good the fastest. BTW this is an area about the size of a bargain priced paper dinner plate.
