Shoot to incapacitate

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Just FYI, watching Smerconish on CNN and he had segment on a Georgia's department to have a shoot to incapacitate training program. Interviewed a law prof who went through the program and gave a critique.

Showed the wheelchair shooting as an example of what seems a very bad shoot. I recall once mentioning when I took the TX CHL test (child's play) a guy said I shot too well and should miss some as I would be asked in a self-defense incident why I didn't shoot the opponent in a less lethal spot. He said he knew this because he was a 'sniper'. I thought this was ridiculous until some p-f members said they heard the same thing.

Anyway if you can catch the segment on demand or the web, might be of interest.

Watching the arraignment of the school shooter parents anytime. Flight equates guilt - I've heard. Seems reasonable to me.

[Leroy Suggs]

Shooting to miss or wound is bullshit, horseshit, and nonesense.
I pity the fool that takes that advice.

[lwt16]

https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2021/12/04/non-deadly-force-ga-police-dept-trains-to-shoot-to-incapacitate.cnn


Is this it?

[Gumby]

Canada has a shot to disable policy and it cost the RCMP 4 officers their lives. This happened a decade ago and the bad guy was in a wheelchair. A couple of decades ago a similar thing happened when 2 Riverside City, California detectives went to arrest a wheelchair bound suspect and were killed by him.

[4RNR]

Something something 1986 FBI ....

Sent from my moto z4 using Tapatalk

[feudist]

Just FYI, watching Smerconish on CNN and he had segment on a Georgia's department to have a shoot to incapacitate training program. Interviewed a law prof who went through the program and gave a critique.

Showed the wheelchair shooting as an example of what seems a very bad shoot. I recall once mentioning when I took the TX CHL test (child's play) a guy said I shot too well and should miss some as I would be asked in a self-defense incident why I didn't shoot the opponent in a less lethal spot. He said he knew this because he was a 'sniper'. I thought this was ridiculous until some p-f members said they heard the same thing.

Anyway if you can catch the segment on demand or the web, might be of interest.

Watching the arraignment of the school shooter parents anytime. Flight equates guilt - I've heard. Seems reasonable to me.

Yeah that's a persistent excuse among cops who consistently barely qualify. Heard it for 30 years.

[octagon]

Anyone promoted or suggesting using a handgun or long gun to shoot for incapacitation NOT lethal force is an idiot whether it is an agency here or in another country, CNN etc. A firearm is a lethal force tool. Shooting a person is lethal force. If trained police officer's hit ratio is what it is how can a person or officer be expected to accurately hit a smaller more mobile target without endangering the public AND the person being shot even more than using the largest center mass torso target area that has been the main target area for over 100 years with firearms? It is stupid and I hope it gets shut down hard.

[HCountyGuy]

Yeah this is the pet project of the LaGrange, GA Chief Of Police.

If you ever get the chance to visit LaGrange, GA - pass.

I’m not optimistic about Remington opening their facility there. I wouldn’t trust folks in LaGrange to nail two boards together correctly.

[DDTSGM]

The headlines are typical clickbait headlines. I watched the video and wasn't particularly concerned about what the law professor said.

I think that you would need to either attend the training or see a course syllabus/lesson plan in order to offer valid criticism.

By and large police use-of-force training for firearms focuses on shooting to stop/immediately incapacitate. Unfortunately, as we all know, shots that meet those criteria are very likely to cause death. Death should not be the desired end goal, stopping the action should be.

One thing I noted is that the person interviewed said that the policy restricted the 'shoot to incapacitate' decision to melee weapons such as knives, or clubs, not firearms.

One thing that concerns me about this type of training/policy is whether agencies will spend enough time training officers to make these types of decisions as well as enough time training with the firearm to have the ability actually deliver shots to those less-lethal areas under stress.

Another thing that concerns me is that we should not expect officers to expose themselves to unreasonable risk of serious injury in order to incapacitate. I'm a firm believer in the adage that efforts to bring a lethal force situation to a less-lethal conclusion must not be at the expense of officer safety.

My biggest concerns are: 1) that this type of policy will cause officers to hesitate and expose themselves to additional risk - think adding another dimension to the OODA loop; 2) officers will be pressured by this type of policy to try to hit the alternate areas, exposing themselves to additional risk; 3) publicity of such policies will heighten scrutiny of officer-involved shooting in jurisdictions which don't have such policies.

The agency should not have sought to publicize this policy IMHO.

[jd950]

1. Don't watch CNN talking heads.

2. The program in Georgia, from what I have heard about it previously, is political theater. Either that, or they have a training budget, and time, and skills instructors, and employees, that exceed the capabilities of any law enforcement agency I am aware of. Which would be odd, for a city of 30,000 in a metro area of 100,000. But I don't know, maybe they only hire former SEALS or something?

3. Shooting at hands or feet, legs, pelvis, etc., will result in death and serious injury to LE and innocents in return for maybe reducing, but certainly not eliminating, a risk of death to violent criminals. Somebody has their priorities wrong.

4. When one of those officers shoots at some armed felon's arm, misses and kill some nearby child, while the felon keeps hurting/threatening people, let's see how we feel then.

5. I have always been taught, and taught others, to shoot to incapacitate. I have never shot "to kill." Never will. But that does not include crazy BS like shooting at extremities or areas with a low likelihood of rapid incapacitation. If someone needs shooting at, it is because they need to stop their behavior urgently. I did not design human anatomy. Gunshots with the highest likelihood of incapacitation are shots that also have significant risk of death. I can't change that.

6. If you ever hear someone say "Police always have to shoot to kill," then there is no point in listening further. That person is either uninformed, misinformed, lying, or some combination of those.

By the way, in response to the professor's assertions about the benefits of abdominal and pelvic shots:

"Abdominal gunshot trauma is the third leading cause of death and is responsible for more than 90% of deaths among people ages 15 to 24 years old. It can cause multi-system organ damage, shock, and infection." https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tcr.2021.100561

"A gunshot wound to the hip can be life-threatening because there are many important structures in that area of that body that could be injured. "There are a lot of arteries and vital organs that live either in the hip, or in the pelvis [area] itself," said Dr. David Evans, an associate professor of surgery at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.... These include the iliac arteries, which are major arteries that carry blood from the torso to the legs, as well as organs such as the bladder, rectum and reproductive organs, Evans said...." https://www.livescience.com/59526-steve-scalise-gunshot-injuries-hip.html

"Mortality in patients sustaining pelvic fractures has been reported to be 4% to 15%" The American Journal of Surgery, Volume 211, Issue 3, March 2016, Pages 495-500

"penetrating injuries to the buttock poses a similar threat to the patient as penetrating trauma of any other body region" Lunevicius, R., Schulte, KM. Analytical review of 664 cases of penetrating buttock trauma. World J Emerg Surg 6, 33 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1186/1749-7922-6-33

[RevolverJIM]

This proposal sounds like some of "Brandon's" shoot'em in the leg nonsense.

[Yung]

https://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?48071-Shoot-to-Incapacitate

[Jim Watson]

"Mortality in patients sustaining pelvic fractures has been reported to be 4% to 15%" The American Journal of Surgery, Volume 211, Issue 3, March 2016, Pages 495-500

"penetrating injuries to the buttock poses a similar threat to the patient as penetrating trauma of any other body region" Lunevicius, R., Schulte, KM. Analytical review of 664 cases of penetrating buttock trauma. World J Emerg Surg 6, 33 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1186/1749-7922-6-33

I was probably better off not having seen that first one after The Incident. A fractured pelvis and other injury, although not from gunshot.

The lawyer inadvertently shot in the butt by a highway patrolman here was lucky, he recovered well and displayed the nicely expanded Gold Dot to show his guardian angel was at work.

[Hideeho]

I was first introduced to the “shoot to incapacitate” concept when either attending the NYPD firearms instructor course or Glock’s transition instructor course in the early 90’s. I’m sorry for not recalling exactly. The concept was intended to provide officers the ability to explain their intended outcome of use of force. Instead of “shooting to kill” or wound, the purpose of deadly force was to cause “rapid incapacitation” through blood loss. That is accomplished by punching big/many holes that drains blood resulting in low to no blood pressure. When training to that standard, it means keep shooting until your adversary stops doing what they are doing. Sometimes people die. Sometimes people do not. End result—they stop doing what they were doing to get shot.

"I shot to rapidly incapacitate the suspect”.

[jnc36rcpd]

I was my former agency's lead less lethal instructor for some time. (Of course, if I just concentrated and watched the front sight, I could have been a more lethal instructor. Thanks very much. I'll be here all week. That said...)

The circumstances described by the CNN "expert" seem like a great argument for agencies to increase acquisition and training in a variety of less lethal options. If officers have several less lethal options, there is a greater chance that the suspect will surrender or be incapacitated. If a suicidal suspect is stationary and armed with a "melee type weapon", better to attempt apprehension with one or hopefully several less lethals than to hope the officer who, according to the "expert" has time and positioning to set up for the leg/abdominal/pelvic girdle shot. If the suspect suddenly rushes the police, I doubt anyone is going to take the time to try to wing him.
If the time and distance allows that great shot, it would offer time and distance to pop him with Pepperball and beanbags. Depending on circumstances, it may then be time to close and, if needed, deploy Tasers and/or pepper spray. That seems a whole lot less risky to the suspect, officers, and anyone down range than going for a gut, groin, or leg hit and hoping you don't miss, don't kill him, or get eviscerated yourself.

In the end, despite what the media thinks, being an armed and resistant subject remains and should remain a dangerous occupation.

[Hambo]

1. Don't watch ANY talking heads.


Following my edit of this post may not eliminate most of life's problems, but it will stop you from wasting precious moments of your life.

[Lon]

Sadly, there’s a nearby agency I can see totally adopting this.

[pm07]

Of course , it has to be Lagrange. Lets just say LPDs Police Chief is very progressive in his thinking, and mostly not in good way. They had a officer shoot someone in the arm after he had committed murder in front of the officer in 2020.

[1slow]

2 to aortic arch and one to the brainbox will incapacitate, no ?

[DDTSGM]

They had a officer shoot someone in the arm after he had committed murder in front of the officer in 2020.

Can you link to a news story for more details? Sometimes officers don't hit what they are aiming at, could it be the officer was trying to hit center mass and doesn't deserve to be under the bus for anything but bad marksmanship under more stress than competition?

I'm sure some of the agency's officers aren't happy with the policy - it's kind of a made for second guessing policy regardless of what the officer does.

[pm07]

Can you link to a news story for more details? Sometimes officers don't hit what they are aiming at, could it be the officer was trying to hit center mass and doesn't deserve to be under the bus for anything but bad marksmanship under more stress than competition?

I'm sure some of the agency's officers aren't happy with the policy - it's kind of a made for second guessing policy regardless of what the officer does.

I won't comment on the details but here is the release.

https://gbi.georgia.gov/press-releases/2020-01-20/gbi-investigates-officer-involved-shooting-and-homicide-lagrange

[DDTSGM]

Thanks for taking the time to do that!

[Coyotesfan97]

I was first introduced to the “shoot to incapacitate” concept when either attending the NYPD firearms instructor course or Glock’s transition instructor course in the early 90’s. I’m sorry for not recalling exactly. The concept was intended to provide officers the ability to explain their intended outcome of use of force. Instead of “shooting to kill” or wound, the purpose of deadly force was to cause “rapid incapacitation” through blood loss. That is accomplished by punching big/many holes that drains blood resulting in low to no blood pressure. When training to that standard, it means keep shooting until your adversary stops doing what they are doing. Sometimes people die. Sometimes people do not. End result—they stop doing what they were doing to get shot.

"I shot to rapidly incapacitate the suspect”.

“I ballistically deescalated the situation.”

[DocGKR]

Start on p.12: https://view.flipdocs.com/?ID=10004296_160731

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Awesome. Way to go, great pub!

[DocGKR]

It is all information that has been well known since the late 1980's, yet much seems to have been forgotten--for example in LaGrange, Georgia......