TexasCHLforum.com

I tried to find an existing thread on this but didn't see one. NYPD has had yet another cop on cop shooting...This time one plain clothes cop shot another plain clothese officer who was chasing a auto-burglary suspect.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/05/29/ny. ... topstories" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

By Cheryl Robinson
CNN

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A police officer was shot to death by another officer as he was chasing a man he saw breaking into his car in New York's East Harlem neighborhood, authorities said.

New York Police Department Officer Omar Edwards, 25, was shot twice about 10:30 p.m. Thursday just blocks from the precinct where he had finished his shift. He was pronounced dead less than an hour later at Harlem Hospital.

Edwards, in plainclothes, had just left the Housing Bureau Station House on East 124th St., said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. As Edwards approached his car, he saw a man rummaging through it.

"We believe that at this point, Officer Edwards, with his gun drawn, chased the individual north to 125th Street and east toward First Avenue," Kelly said at a news conference in New York early Friday at Harlem Hospital.

Edwards was not wearing a bulletproof vest and did not fire a shot, Kelly said.

Plainclothes officers patrolling the neighborhood in an unmarked vehicle saw the chase and went after Edwards and the suspect.

"One of the officers, after exiting the vehicle, fired six times from a 9 mm Glock," Kelly said.

Edwards was shot in the chest and arm. It was not clear whether any of the officers had identified themselves as law enforcement.

The officer who fired the shots has four-and-a-half years' experience, authorities said. The shooting is under investigation, Kelly said.

A man was later arrested on suspicion of breaking into Edwards' car.

G.C.Montgomery wrote:I tried to find an existing thread on this but didn't see one. NYPD has had yet another cop on cop shooting...This time one plain clothes cop shot another plain clothese officer who was chasing a auto-burglary suspect.

I read this earlier this morning. It's too early to tell, but it sounds "shoot-first, answer questions later" scenario.

WildBill wrote:

G.C.Montgomery wrote:I tried to find an existing thread on this but didn't see one. NYPD has had yet another cop on cop shooting...This time one plain clothes cop shot another plain clothese officer who was chasing a auto-burglary suspect.

I read this earlier this morning. It's too early to tell, but it sounds "shoot-first, answer questions later" scenario.

As many times as this has occured around the country and within NYPD itself, I would hope they had adjusted their training and policies to address the "shoot first, ask questions after" mentality. I'm posting it mainly to spark discussion among us CHL holders who are no more readily identifiable as good guys than this dead officer. I can think of at least a half-dozen similar cases where plain-clothes officers have been shot by members of their own department or another local agency over the last 20 years. There's an underlying pattern that sometimes seems to be tied into the "shoot first, ask questions after" issue that bothers me too. I'd just like to think it's my own personal paranoia on the issue so I'll decline to mention it unless someone else does first.

G.C.Montgomery wrote:

WildBill wrote:

G.C.Montgomery wrote:I tried to find an existing thread on this but didn't see one. NYPD has had yet another cop on cop shooting...This time one plain clothes cop shot another plain clothese officer who was chasing a auto-burglary suspect.

I read this earlier this morning. It's too early to tell, but it sounds "shoot-first, answer questions later" scenario.

As many times as this has occured around the country and within NYPD itself, I would hope they had adjusted their training and policies to address the "shoot first, ask questions after" mentality. I'm posting it mainly to spark discussion among us CHL holders who are no more readily identifiable as good guys than this dead officer. I can think of at least a half-dozen similar cases where plain-clothes officers have been shot by members of their own department or another local agency over the last 20 years. There's an underlying pattern that sometimes seems to be tied into the "shoot first, ask questions after" issue that bothers me too. I'd just like to think it's my own personal paranoia on the issue so I'll decline to mention it unless someone else does first.

This is just one more reason for CHLers not to go chasing BGs down the street as this person did with her .380 Bersa. She could have been shot, the same as the NYPD cop. http://www.texasshooting.com/TexasCHL_F ... =7&t=25231" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The account I read said the off-duty officer was black, and the officer who shot the off-duty officer was white. Is this the underlying issue you find troubling?

I find it troubling too, but I am also aware that police officers generally see a non-uniformed person - of whatever "race" or color - with a pistol in his hand, as a lethal threat. This goes double for a place with virtually no legal concealed carry by ordinary citizens. I do not know the extent to which the slain officer's skin color contributed to the shooter's willingness to fire at him.

Regards,
Andrew

G.C.Montgomery wrote: There's an underlying pattern that sometimes seems to be tied into the "shoot first, ask questions after" issue that bothers me too. I'd just like to think it's my own personal paranoia on the issue so I'll decline to mention it unless someone else does first.

you mean the "He's got a gun, he must be a bad guy" mentallity?
or am I not picking up what you're laying down?

Of course, this is an over simplification, but I think that this explains, the case of the mistaken ID and many other shootings. I believe that that vast majority [no proof to back up this statement] of NYPD officers believe that only NYPD officers should have guns. So if they see a "citizen" [a person without a NYPD uniform or badge] with a gun, then he is, by definition, a bad guy. And what do officers do when they see a bad guy with a gun?

wow, 3 people, all in a row, posting within moments of each other, all with the same (or similar) thought in their head.


creeeeEEEEEeeeeeepy!

Just goes to show how well the brain-washing has worked. An citizen with no uniform, with a pistol in his hand, of whatever skin color, is seen as illegitimate and a threat to be "taken down" asap.

I still think G.C. was pointing more toward the skin-color business, but it is up to him to verify or refute that.

The idea that a "badge and gun" go together, and that absent the first the second is unauthorized, is what troubles me. Maybe that is one of the motivators behind the "concealed carry badge" phenomenon?

Regards,
Andrew

Based on news reports over many years I think it's typical of NYPD. That's one of the reasons I wouldn't stick around if I had to shoot a criminal in NY.

BobCat wrote:I still think G.C. was pointing more toward the skin-color business, but it is up to him to verify or refute that. Regards, Andrew

I am not going to attempt to read G.C.'s mind. He'll speak up when he's good and ready.

To be honest guys, both thoughts (no badge and wrong race) occured to me and both could easily apply. At the time I posted the article, I didn't know the race of either officer so there was no reason to inject that into the discussion with no factual basis. I do think avoiding incidents like this is the logic behind concealed carry badges. However, I think it is flawed logic based on what I believe to be an incorrect assumption that a cop or fellow CHL holder is going notice the badge in a dynamic incident where guns are already in play.

Recently, I've been making an effort to break my Tuesday night guys away from what I see as a conditioned response of "see gun, shoot gun" that could come back to haunt them. As a test, I held out my ID (typically worn on a chain around my neck in much the same way some LE carry their ID and credentials) and held a “blue gun” pointed toward the ground and away from our “hero” in this exercise. As I expected, the “hero” saw the gun and blasted the guy with the gun without even thinking about it. Granted, I didn't have a shiny "badge" next to my ID but any idiot can buy a badge so they don’t mean much to me. Still, the point of the exercise was just to see if the shooter might ask, "Who runs up holding an ID in one hand and a gun in the other?" before shooting. Paul Howe taught us to scan the whole person twice to identify them as threat first before scanning their hands to determine the nature of the threat. Turns out my shooter never saw the ID. In our after action review, the shooter indicated that he saw the gun first and fired immediately. It might not be a fair question or a fair scenario…Rigged in the same fashion as the ABC News report we saw last month. But, I see similarities between this hypothetical scenario, the NYPD shooting and the 2005 incident here in Houston, when we lost a Precinct 6 deputy (Pickens).

For those who don’t remember, Pickens was working an extra job when suspects crashed through a fence and ran past his location on foot. Pickens gave chase on foot, apparently with a gun in hand. The Harris County SO deputies who were originally chasing the suspects but lost sight of them, arrived seconds later only to see Pickens (in a dark shirt and jeans) running away from them and toward the apartments. One of the HCSO deputies apparently issued verbal commands to which Pickens never responded according to the deputies’ statements. The HCSO deputy that fired indicated he believed Pickens was turning toward him and his partner at which point he opened fire. Seven rounds struck Pickens’ body armor in the back, between his left shoulder and spine. Four more rounds struck the back of Pickens’ skull, again on the left side, behind his ear. The HCSO deputy was cleared and I think has since returned to duty.

Fact is, we don’t know enough to know if this shooting was right or wrong. More than once, we’ve discussed the fact that you can make the “right” call in some situations but still end up with a bad result. That is what we think happened in the Pickens case and it might be the case here. Time will tell. But I posted it hoping it might start some wheels spinning around in our collective heads. It’s a hard line to draw…In a real fight, you have the rest of your life to solve the problem. If you take too long to implement a solution, the problem will resolve itself but the result may not be acceptable. Of course, you could act too quickly and make the wrong call. Or you might do everything right and still find out after the fact that you were wrong. I learned this in my last class with Paul Howe after I put three tightly spaced rounds into the head of a guy who turned out to only have a flashlight in his hand. The lesson has stuck with me ever since and I personally am willing, for now, to err on the side of being forced to catch up.

G.C.Montgomery wrote:To be honest guys, both thoughts (no badge and wrong race) occured to me and both could easily apply. At the time I posted the article, I didn't know the race of either officer so there was no reason to inject that into the discussion with no factual basis. I do think avoiding incidents like this is the logic behind concealed carry badges. However, I think it is flawed logic based on what I believe to be an incorrect assumption that a cop or fellow CHL holder is going notice the badge in a dynamic incident where guns are already in play.

Recently, I've been making an effort to break my Tuesday night guys away from what I see as a conditioned response of "see gun, shoot gun" that could come back to haunt them. As a test, I held out my ID (typically worn on a chain around my neck in much the same way some LE carry their ID and credentials) and held a “blue gun” pointed toward the ground and away from our “hero” in this exercise. As I expected, the “hero” saw the gun and blasted the guy with the gun without even thinking about it. Granted, I didn't have a shiny "badge" next to my ID but any idiot can buy a badge so they don’t mean much to me. Still, the point of the exercise was just to see if the shooter might ask, "Who runs up holding an ID in one hand and a gun in the other?" before shooting. Paul Howe taught us to scan the whole person twice to identify them as threat first before scanning their hands to determine the nature of the threat. Turns out my shooter never saw the ID. In our after action review, the shooter indicated that he saw the gun first and fired immediately. It might not be a fair question or a fair scenario…Rigged in the same fashion as the ABC News report we saw last month. But, I see similarities between this hypothetical scenario, the NYPD shooting and the 2005 incident here in Houston, when we lost a Precinct 6 deputy (Pickens).

For those who don’t remember, Pickens was working an extra job when suspects crashed through a fence and ran past his location on foot. Pickens gave chase on foot, apparently with a gun in hand. The Harris County SO deputies who were originally chasing the suspects but lost sight of them, arrived seconds later only to see Pickens (in a dark shirt and jeans) running away from them and toward the apartments. One of the HCSO deputies apparently issued verbal commands to which Pickens never responded according to the deputies’ statements. The HCSO deputy that fired indicated he believed Pickens was turning toward him and his partner at which point he opened fire. Seven rounds struck Pickens’ body armor in the back, between his left shoulder and spine. Four more rounds struck the back of Pickens’ skull, again on the left side, behind his ear. The HCSO deputy was cleared and I think has since returned to duty.

Fact is, we don’t know enough to know if this shooting was right or wrong. More than once, we’ve discussed the fact that you can make the “right” call in some situations but still end up with a bad result. That is what we think happened in the Pickens case and it might be the case here. Time will tell. But I posted it hoping it might start some wheels spinning around in our collective heads. It’s a hard line to draw…In a real fight, you have the rest of your life to solve the problem. If you take too long to implement a solution, the problem will resolve itself but the result may not be acceptable. Of course, you could act too quickly and make the wrong call. Or you might do everything right and still find out after the fact that you were wrong. I learned this in my last class with Paul Howe after I put three tightly spaced rounds into the head of a guy who turned out to only have a flashlight in his hand. The lesson has stuck with me ever since and I personally am willing, for now, to err on the side of being forced to catch up.

In the NY county where I worked as an LEO, we had at least 44 law enforcement agencies with officers or agents in the field, and we had incidents where officers from other agencies were involved in shootings in our city with no prior notice they were present. We were very conscious of the fact that "man with a gun" doesn't necessarily mean "bad guy," and emphasized cover, distance, and challenge tactics to allow us to sort things out as safely as possible for all involved. Thankfully, during my 20 years, none of our 200 officers made a bad call that resulted in the shooting of another officer.

Training officers to shoot any unidentified person in civilian clothes who is holding a gun would be, in my opinion, negligent in the extreme. I don't know any competent trainer who would do so, but individual officers might adopt this approach on their own.

There is another factor at work here as well. In a potentially life threatening situation, a person's visual focus may lock onto the threat while peripheral vision diminishes sharply. This can account for phoenomena like the one G.C. described where a student saw only the gun and not the prominently displayed ID. The posture of the person in that case as described met the ability test for deadly force, but not the intent or jeopardy requirements, and would have been a "bad shoot" if carried out in real life.

A lot of tragedies can be averted if the would be good guy asks himself "is shooting this person the only reasonable way to protect innocent life" instead of "can I shoot him?"

Excaliber wrote:A lot of tragedies can be averted if the would be good guy asks himself "is shooting this person the only reasonable way to protect innocent life" instead of "can I shoot him?"

Excaliber wrote:Training officers to shoot any unidentified person in civilian clothes who is holding a gun would be, in my opinion, negligent in the extreme. I don't know any competent trainer who would do so, but individual officers might adopt this approach on their own.

Nobody is suggesting that LEOs are being trained to shoot "unidentified person[s] who is [are] holding a gun". My point is that if there continues to be a prevailing attitude among LEOs that "civilians" should not possess guns, then this type of "mistaken identity" will continue to happen and innocent citizens will suffer. I believe that it is a matter of people's core beliefs and attitudes rather than policy or training. The Sullivan Act in New York City dates back to 1911 so these anti-gun sentiments date back more than 100 years. It's the tribal culture of "Us" versus "Them."