A recent report confirms that New York City is, indeed, a dangerous place - in this case, at least, largely due to wild, unaimed police gunfire!
Two Harlem cops yesterday fired a staggering 84 shots at an armed thug after he squeezed off one round at them — but the punk incredibly survived and was charged with slaying his sleeping kid sister and trying to kill their mother, authorities said.
. . .
[Steven] Murray, 28, suffered 14 bullet wounds during the mayhem after refusing police orders to drop his .22-caliber “Saturday Night Special,” officials said.
“He would not go down,” a law-enforcement source said of Murray.
The uniformed cops — a sergeant and police officer — unleashed the barrage of bullets from 70 feet away. They each reloaded their pistols twice.
“[Murray] still had the gun in his hand. He wouldn’t obey orders. He was pointing [the gun] at the cops, and he wouldn’t respond,” the source said. “After he finally went down, he still had the gun in his hand, and he was still moving.”
. . .
The sergeant and officer spotted the gun-toting Murray lurking near the southbound off ramp of the Harlem River Drive at Eighth Avenue, police said.
“Stop! Drop the gun!” the cops repeatedly said over their cruiser’s loudspeaker, Browne said.
Murray turned and allegedly fired a single shot — which struck the patrol car. The two cops exited the car and opened fire.
The police officer fired 45 shots — one round in his gun’s chamber, two 15-round magazines and all but one round in his third magazine. He told investigators he thought he was out of ammo. The sergeant also fired one shot he kept in the chamber, two 15-shot magazines and eight rounds from his third magazine, Browne said.
There's more at the link, including photographs of the crime scene.
84 shots fired, and only 14 hits anywhere on the bad guy - none of them lethal or even fully incapacitating. The other 70 rounds simply flew off into space. It's only by God's mercy that no-one else was hit in the fusillade!
I can only suggest that both officers be taken off patrol duty until they've re-qualified with their firearms . . . and it might not be a bad idea for the NYPD to replace their firearms instructors while they're at it! Clearly, the present lot aren't very effective!
Peter
12 comments:
So NYC police essentially "spray and pray" apparently. I can't see them using that many shots unless they were emptying them as quickly as they could, with only the very minimum point aiming done.
"84 shots fired, and only 14 hits anywhere on the bad guy - none of them lethal or even fully incapacitating. The other 70 rounds simply flew off into space."
What the heck are the NYPD guys armed with?
Marshmallow bazookas?
As a police firearms instructor I can easily see how this could happen but it embarrases me that it did and it will probably happen again. The Diallo case comes to mind.
Google New York trigger. You will see that the brainiacs in charge of that department order their guns with a special trigger package which makes the trigger require approximately 14.5 lbs of pressure to go bang as opposed to the standard 5.5 lbs on a regular Glock. The not so genius rationale behind this thinking is that it will reduce negligent or unintentional discharges in high stress situations. Evidently someone forgot to tell them that the trigger finger off of the trigger until you have decided to fire is the safety. I'm sure I don't have to tell you how hard it would be to have any kind of accuracy with a 14.5 lb trigger. This barn door of a trigger is a recipe for poor marksmanship particularly under stressful situations.
Source link
http://www.boatmanbooks.com/samplelwglocks.htm
Glock developed two solutions for the police market. For Miami Dade, Glock engineered a heavier 8-lb. (nominal) connector which required some three pounds of additional force during final let-off to fire the gun. For New York, Glock developed the very different “New York” trigger, which left the original 5.5-lb. connector in place but replaced the coiled-steel trigger spring with a polymer leaf-style spring of unique design, altering the entire feel of the trigger, providing more resistance during the initial stage, and adding about three pounds to the overall pull weight. A “New York Plus” spring was also developed which adds about six pounds to the pull weight.
I am a police firearm instructor as well. The H&K USP .45s my department carries have a 5 lb trigger. My off duty carry comes in a Kimber 1911 and the trigger on that comes in at 3 lbs. I can't imagine a 10 lb trigger let alone this monstrosity.
PS:
If you do the math 84 shots time 14.5 lbs per trigger pull means the officers involved moved 1,218 lbs of weight with their trigger fingers during this shoot out. LOL That's just nuts.
From the Glock site.
http://eu.glock.com/english/options_triggerspring.htm
Re: Anonymous 5:16 AM
So a bureaucrat essentially made all NYPD sidearms wildly inaccurate, because stray bullets on city streets is preferable to negligent discharges, or what? I smell a doofus award.
Unfortunately the national average for police officers is 1 hit in 6 shots, so this shooting is right with the national average. They did what they were taught to do, keep shooting until the target goes down. Luckily no one else was hit. 70 feet is almost 25 yards. How often do we practice at these extended ranges? A lot of ranges only go to 15 yards. Obviously, these two officers could use some more practice, but they preformed within the national average.
That may be the national average, and there are, apparently, some extenuating circumstances - range, and ridiculous trigger pull - but still....that's truly sad.
I just hung a 15-lb weight from a string, and wrapped it around my finger, just to see what kind of weight that felt like... it's a wonder these guys had enough strength in their fingers to fire that many rounds!!!
NYPD blames gun for NDs instead of bad gun handling
WRITTEN BY: BOB - DEC• 12•11
It’s easier to beat up the manufacturer than face the reality you are arming thousands of police officers that aren’t competently trained.
The NYPD has instructed cops to stop carrying an off-duty gun that has a trigger so light it’s been blamed for a series of accidental discharges, the Daily News has learned.
NYPD spokesman Paul Browne says the Kahr K-9 semi-automatic pistol has led to more than a dozen such shootings — none resulting in a fatality. The shootings have occurred over the last few years, a source said.
The NYPD last Monday ordered that the revocation order be read aloud to cops at each precinct for 10 consecutive roll calls.
Kahr Arms has done business with the NYPD since 1997, and more than 5,000 Kahrs have been sold to city cops, said Frank Harris, a spokesman for the gun firm.
Harris denied that the pistol discharges when it is dropped and blamed any accidental shootings on user error.
Kahr spokesman Harris is entirely correct. Any accidental shootings are the result of the NYPD’s poor training and lack of respect for firearms. Most police forces in the United States and civilian gun carriers using semi-automatic pistols have weapons with a trigger pull between 5.5lbs and 8lbs. There are some lower, and some higher, but that is the common range. The NYPD is virtually alone with their “idiot trigger” that requires 12-lbs trigger on their standard issue Glocks, double what every other Glock-carrying citizen or police officer carries in the rest of the same world.
The NYPD is dropping Kahr because the trigger mechanism cannot be corrupted to an even more insane 13-lbs trigger pull that the pencil-pushers in the NYPD brass demanded.
It is very simple. Kahr makes a quality, precision weapon. Negligent discharges with the weapon are to blame on poor training, and officers that don’t have to basic good common sense to keep their weapons clean and their fingers off the trigger.
Ignorance and arrogance are the problem here, not the pistol. It’s time for the NYPD to get a more honest assessment of what the problem is, and that is training, not making a fine weapon into a scapegoat.
" How often do we practice at these extended ranges? A lot of ranges only go to 15 yards."
Standard range where I've shot is 20m(almost 22 yards). I've been on pistol ranges in two countries... and I've never missed paper completely with a twohanded firing grip(though I have a few onehanded). I'm well aware that adrenaline will mess you up for a live situation though.
This is only the latest firearms fiasco for New York's finest. In February of 1999, Amadou Diallo was shot nineteen times including three entrance wounds on the bottom of his feet. The four cops discharged forty-one rounds. The mind boggles as to where the other twenty-two rounds went in the narrow apartment hallway.
A cousin is a high-ranking NYPD officer and we agreed to not discuss incidents like this so as to keep peace in the family.
R
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