[aphdmansoc]

I came across an interesting study

Study reveals important truths hidden in the details of officer-involved shootings

A tidbit:

For example, it has long been believed that officers overall have a dismal 15-25 percent hit probability in street encounters, suggesting truly poor performance under the stress of a real shooting situation. Actually, this figure, while essentially true in the aggregate, is markedly skewed by certain shooting variables, Aveni found.

 

[TXEric]

What?! Surely not!!
I've been assured by several lamestream media outlets that, for instance, the NYPD expend an average of 75 rounds per perpetrator!

 

[Mrlucky353]

Good article, thanks for posting.

 

[gyro_cfi]

That was an eye opening study. Makes me appreciate what a typical LEO deals with and reinforces my disgust with ACLU.

 

[john_bud]

The study does support that more cops will result in more rounds fired PER COP. AND, hit rate drops to the toilet.

Also 25-33% of shootings are MOF mistake of fact as in "oops! Thought your cell phone was a gun"

 

[whichfinger]

Well, the obvious takeaway here is that cell phones are hazardous to your health.

 

[john_bud]

Well, the obvious takeaway here is that cell phones are hazardous to your health.

Yeah, everyone knows that.

But did you know that Attila hated his knick name "the hun" and that's why he conquered all the people that teased him?

 

[Scalpel]

Interesting !

 

[mark38090]

Good read, makes you think.

 

[Mknight]

Hmmmmm

 

[JR]

I wonder if, after all of the "lacks" in information gathering, this actually tells us anything. The author admits that many departments don't have a system that actually provides much of the information he wanted, and that many others simply refuse to release what they do have, just how representative his figures and statistics actually are?

The use of percentages here reveals huge swings, but the actual numbers reveal small differences. A 50% difference is remarkable, until one sees that there was a sample of 8.

In this rural city and County, both the City Police and the Sheriffs all use flashlights even in low-light caused by dusk, or shadowed areas in a building. However, without information from those departments, they aren't incorporated into the statistics. Large cities like New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Austin, Dallas, Baltimore, and the likes can also skew numbers unless they are all included. He mentions Baltimore City, but then talks about Baltimore County. Two separate entities entirely. Baltimore City has no affiliation with Baltimore County. The City is a completely separate entity.

The ACLU statistics are also specious, as they obviously contain literally ancient data. Changes in law have overtaken even their basic premise there.

The report is interesting, but, in view of the author's own admissions, lacks the sample size to make a valid point. Based on this admitted sample size, the addition of a large city, or urban county, could easily reverse his statistics.

 

[leftcoastrebel]

I lost it at about this point,

"In a recent Texas study, 25 percent of suspects shot by officers in one metropolitan county were found to be unarmed, 33 percent if shots fired at moving vehicles are included"

Please tell the Sergeant I knew who stopped a driver trying to run him over with a 3/ ton pickup that they guy was "unarmed".

The information itself points out that, information gathered has too many variables, definitions and consistency, to count on gathered information to provide any tangible conclusions.

Rather like saying,

"Gathered statistics cannot provide a clear picture one can draw conclusions from and I have the statistics to prove it"

 

[aphdmansoc]

I'm getting too old and crotchety to make a detailed response so I'll just hit a few important contributions this report makes:

1. Identification of varying light conditions significantly impacts hitting target
2. Mistakes of Fact (MOF) impacts shootings and this impacts trust/confidence in police
3. Too many police officers responding to situation - hit rate goes down. Implications for field commanders to limit the number of officers authorized to shoot if necessary. Would reduce stray bullets and possible innocents from being hurt. NYC shooting about a year ago comes to mind (function of poor marksmanship/training and keeping one's cool while under fire/pressure.
4. Police reluctance to make data available, like any bureaucracy don't want to embarrass themselves. However, keeping this stuff closeted makes it difficult to improve training and decision making.

One should not be surprised nor expect definitive studies. Not the nature of the game. His research is valuable in that it points to several directions that he and other researchers can take to chip away at what we don't know and perhaps challenge some of the assumptions that we make and think we do know.

And that's all I have to say about that.

 

[kruizer]

I hate statistics.

 

[aphdmansoc]

I hate statistics.

When I was in grad school I found a way to learn statistics. I went with my gf to meet her parents, over a holiday. They had a home on the ocean. Her mom was so boring I spent around 8 hours a day reading my stat books while the ocean breeze kept me company while my gf worked in her dad's store.

Lesson learned: find something worse than what you don't like and it will start to look good to you...it worked for me.

 

[Choctaw96]

My job (now) is by and large working with stastics.

 

[JR]

Part of the problem is that statistics generated by reams and reams of data requires some one, or something to generate all of this data. Police reports today are much more detailed than ever, but, apparently, that isn't enough. Besides which, the old computer adage of GIGO is readily applied here.

Instead of spending man-hours detailing everything, the common sense approach would be "hey, they shot at the guy twenty times, and hit him once, and others ten times. Maybe we need to get a little more firearms training in place." It might even apply to other facets of policing.

 

[leftcoastrebel]

My job (now) is by and large working with stastics.

Wow, what were the odds of that ?

 

[AblativMeatshld]

Please tell the Sergeant I knew who stopped a driver trying to run him over with a 3/ ton pickup that they guy was "unarmed".

As a matter of law, such a driver would not be counted as "unarmed" on reports, as trying to run over a policeman with a car is considered "assault with a deadly weapon" at a minimum.

I believe what they are talking about are the people driving way from the cops or, as in the case here in Illinois a number of years ago, a mildly retarded man got chased by the cops (after not paying for gas, something he'd done before and the gas station knew him and he always paid within a day or two) and after being corner panicked and hit the empty cop car in front of him. The cops unloaded their guns into his car.

Hitting him, IIRC, 3 times.

But my "favorite" case of 'Don't they teach these guys to aim' has to by the NY Times Square incident where a mental disturbed man was "lurching around traffic", two cops opened fire ("He's going for a gun!!!" and only managed to hit a pair of bystanders.

And then charged the insane due with assault on the two bystanders.

 

[AblativMeatshld]

Part of the problem is that statistics generated by reams and reams of data requires some one, or something to generate all of this data. Police reports today are much more detailed than ever, but, apparently, that isn't enough. Besides which, the old computer adage of GIGO is readily applied here.

The problem is, we don't even get past GI in this case because, as has been said, most departments don't release that information.