Warning: Do not approach police while carrying hairbrush

doobie

doobie

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http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/13/ny.shooting/index.html

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Officers shot and killed an 18-year-old man who they believed to be armed, New York police said, but witnesses said Tuesday he was only holding a hairbrush.
art.nyc.shtg.02.jpg

Officers in New York early Tuesday guard the scene of a police shooting that left a teen dead.

The Monday night shooting followed a 911 call from the man's mother. Police described the situation as "a family dispute with a gun."

After officers arrived, the teen refused to halt as he approached police, prompting them to open fire, The Associated Press reported.

Police told The New York Times they believed the teen, Khiel Coppin, had a gun, but after five officers fired 20 shots they realized he was holding only a hairbrush.

"The boy didn't have no gun, he had a brush on him," said Andre Wildman, a neighbor who told CNN that he saw the shooting. Video Watch witnesses describe the shooting »

Another neighbor, Wayne Holder, said police should be required to see a weapon before opening fire on a suspect. "At least see a gun before you start to discharge it," Holder said. Police "don't even have to see it, [if] they think you got one, you're going to get shot."

The AP reported that the teen had a history of mental illness and his mother had tried to have him hospitalized earlier in the day.

A bystander who said he saw the shooting told CNN affiliate WABC-TV that the man was unarmed. "He dropped the brush," said the bystander, Dyshawn Gibson. "He put his hands up. Police just started firing."

As the teen approached officers, police ordered him to stop, police spokesman Paul Browne told AP. The teen refused and continued to approach, Browne said, prompting police to open fire.

An initial police statement given to reporters Monday night said the man was seen earlier pacing around the apartment.

"He began screaming from the window at his mother and the police," the police statement said. "At some point, the male climbed out of the window and began crossing the sidewalk toward the police."

That's when police began firing, a police spokesman said.
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The police spokesman said officers were called to the apartment building in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood at about 7 p.m. by Coppin's mother who said she was having a dispute with her son.

According to a statement, police said Coppin's mother reported that her son was armed. But The New York Times quoted police who said Coppin himself was overheard on the mother's 911 call threatening to kill her and claiming "I have a gun."
Click to expand...

Now, if the police shot each shot twice...maybe ok, but 20 shots? Either they have really bad aim or I think that was excessive force.
 
doobie said:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/13/ny.shooting/index.html



Now, if the police shot each shot twice...maybe ok, but 20 shots? Either they have really bad aim or I think that was excessive force.
Click to expand...

Too tough to make a decision based on the article. However they don't shoot to wound when they believe a suspect is coming at them with a gun, they shoot to stop the suspect. If he was still moving and he had a gun, they were still in danger.
 
How many cops are trained in (and practice regularly) active shooting? If you only ever shoot twice a year and for a couple of weeks way back in the academy, when that adrenaline dump hits you, you're probably going to keep pulling the trigger until you run dry.
 
pdm said:
How many cops are trained in (and practice regularly) active shooting? If you only ever shoot twice a year and for a couple of weeks way back in the academy, when that adrenaline dump hits you, you're probably going to keep pulling the trigger until you run dry.
Click to expand...

Shooting in the dark only makes it more difficult to hit as well.
 
hard to say,

they got a call saying
"a family dispute with a gun."
Click to expand...
and
overheard on the mother's 911 call threatening to kill her and claiming "I have a gun."
Click to expand...

they arrive to the scene and from 20 - 30 feet away at 7 PM (dark out), a black hair brush being held the right way "could" look like a gun.

and witness statements are hardly ever 100% accurate... an are even worse in a area that already hates the PD.

Although it is hard to side with the PD when the fired 20 shots... be then again, most police shootings end with an empty mag.

sad, but really, PD tells you to stop with guns drawn, you freaking freeze and do only what they tell you.
 
derek said:
Shooting in the dark only makes it more difficult to hit as well.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I forgot about that. In my mind, it isn't a question of "can the department afford the training" but "can they afford not to have the training?" It might be somewhat at odds with my discomfort with the increasing militarization of the police, but if we're going to give cops the benefit of the doubt when it comes to a shooting, I want to make sure they aren't going to spray and pray.
 
pdm said:
Yeah, I forgot about that. In my mind, it isn't a question of "can the department afford the training" but "can they afford not to have the training?" It might be somewhat at odds with my discomfort with the increasing militarization of the police, but if we're going to give cops the benefit of the doubt when it comes to a shooting, I want to make sure they aren't going to spray and pray.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind even the military infrantry guys have issues putting rounds on target. Even when you train on a range A LOT you will still have a lot of factors that will make it difficult to hit a target under stressful and adverse conditions. The only way to achive better results is to practice A LOT. Which is hard for LEO's and .mil guys to do because of Money and Time.
 
the problem is that more and more LEOs are under the belief that only the LEOs sould be allowed to carry, yet MOST of them never take the time to really become good at using their firearm and the departments dont force them too.

a member of a swat team would have put the guy down in 2/3 shots.

your typical street officer, would unload his mag and be lucky to hit the perp.
 
Khiel? pronounce that for me if you will?

It was Dark, They were confused, It was New Yoork, they should have used smaller bulletts and gradually increased the size if the suspect continued to persue.[wink]

411px-
 
How many shots were fired in that doorway in NY when the guy pulled his wallet? 47 seems to ring a bell. The article I read by Mas Ayoob showed why it was all justified. (He did have some harsh words on the cops getting into that situation, but once there, the response was justified)
 
It was Amado Diallo (sp?) and the cops fired a total of 41 rounds. He was reaching for his wallet.

(And no, there was no Google involved in my response...)
 
pdm said:
How many cops are trained in (and practice regularly) active shooting? If you only ever shoot twice a year and for a couple of weeks way back in the academy, when that adrenaline dump hits you, you're probably going to keep pulling the trigger until you run dry.
Click to expand...



you gotta love new your witnesses, there so fun to watch.


the cops should of emptied the mag
 
Shooting

the problem is that more and more LEOs are under the belief that only the LEOs should be allowed to carry, yet MOST of them never take the time to really become good at using their firearm and the departments dont force them too.

a member of a swat team would have put the guy down in 2/3 shots.

your typical street officer, would unload his mag and be lucky to hit the perp.
Click to expand...

Taken one by one, the first is immaterial. Have you even been in that situation. When you are, let us know how you make out.

Second, should they wait the 45 minutes down on the street waiting for the ESU team? Man with a gun calls are an everyday occurrence in the city.

Third, the hit rate for most in that situation would be similar. A normal call like that would have several officer on scene. So maybe you have four or five rounds per officer.

Years back I had the opportunity to talk to a NYPD officer who went one to run Calibre Press's Street Survival seminars. He didn't run training sessions based on what he thought would work but from actual encounters that he faced. His first time involved in a deadly force situation he emptied the magazine and pulled the trigger on his empty SA not even knowing it was dry. Training is great and worthwhile. But it isn't the real world. Not by a longshot.
 
How many shots were fired in that doorway in NY when the guy pulled his wallet? 47 seems to ring a bell.
Click to expand...

41 was the actual count. Springsteen wrote a song about it. The entire incident happened when one guy tripped and let a round go.
 
Can anyone top the 120 round record held by LASD when they
were chasing the unarmed guy in the SUV around in
circles? That one was pretty classic. I think they even
managed to wing one of their own guys, too, and only hit the
BG with one bullet.

I realize its hard to hit something thats moving while under stress,
but jesus H.....


-Mike
 
My favorite overshooting incident was when Florida police cornered a cop killer, fired 110 rounds, and hit him at least 68 times. The quote from the sheriff was "That's all the bullets we had or we would have shot him more."

As for this incident, four rounds per officer hardly seems excessive.
 
BDDonovan said:
you gotta love new your witnesses, there so fun to watch.

the cops should have emptied the mag
Click to expand...
Can you put that first line in English? I have no idea what you're trying to say. OK, I get the "They're so fun to watch" part, but what are "new your witnesses"?

"Know your witnesses"? No, that doesn't make sense.
 
Any one of us could come up with a dozen different things they could have done instead of shooting.

After it happened.

In the safety of daylight and a quiet scene.

After knowing all the facts.

After watching "Walker, Texas Ranger" or any other TV/movie cop do their thing.

After.....

After.....

There's a reason it's called "20-20 hindsight".
 
If I were in that situation, I would have probably shot as many rounds as I could in the time it took the guy to fall down. I hardly see how that is 'excessive force'. You're shooting the guy to KILL him, not to wound him. It doesn't matter how MANY times you shoot him, there is only one level of dead.

I think too many people see movies and television shows where cops and perps exchange gunfire back and forth for 10 minutes and get kind of a false idea of what it is really like. They seem to think that you can put a single bullet in someone and he will immediately flip over backwards and smash into some crates. Once he is wounded, he is no longer capable of firing his weapon, he can only lay there and groan.

They fail to realize that in reality, someone could walk through a hail of gunfire and take multiple hits and still be capable of firing his weapon at you. I think they also fail to realize that it's not easy to hit a target, let alone a moving target. It's not like TV, sheeple.
 
KMaurer said:
So you see a significant difference between each officer firing 2 rounds (for a total of 10) versus each firing 4 rounds (for a total of 20)???

Ken
Click to expand...

I missed that there were 5 police when I commented originally.
 
So you see a significant difference between each officer firing 2 rounds (for a total of 10) versus each firing 4 rounds (for a total of 20)???

Ken
Click to expand...

Ken,
Would you see a significant difference between each officer firing 2 rounds (for a total of 10) versus each firing 4 rounds (for a total of 20), if they were shooting at you? :)


Respectfully,

jkelly
 
Well, technically you're shooting to neutralize, not to kill. The kill part of this incident just happens to be a result of neutralizing the perceived threat.
 

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