Why do police shoot so many bullets?
Regularly the media asks this question, with varying attempts at clarity. The Jacob Blake case in Kenosha once again prompted people to ask ‘are police shooting too many bullets?’ Maybe they should have focused on ‘who is Jacob Blake?’
“Philadelphia police fired 14 times, killing knife-wielding man”, “Boston police fired 31 rounds in 3 seconds, killing man after wild chase from hospital”,“Cleveland police officer who fired 49 shots at two unarmed suspects has been acquitted of manslaughter”. And so on. The journalists from the main-stream-media are convinced we’re gripped by the sheer tonnage of rounds fired, yet we have no interest in the guy being shot at. As an example, here’s my take on the Jacob Blake case in Kenosha.
Why was Jacob Blake shot?
On Sunday 23 August 2020 three Police Officers responded to a station call that Jacob Blake, with a warrant for a domestic violence incident on his girlfriend Laquisha Booker, was at Booker’s house.
Officers who encounter people with active warrants are required to take them into custody. Blake was wanted for charges of third-degree sexual assault, trespassing, disorderly conduct and domestic abuse. This was the sixth time that police had been called to Booker’s house regarding Blake.
Just after five pm officers confronted Blake as he was putting his child into the back seat of an SUV. Blake went ‘hands on’ with the police, and a struggle ensued where Blake ‘forcefully fought’ the officers, grappling one of them in a headlock and resulting in two of them using tasers.
Blake then went to the driver’s door and reached in. Officer Rusten Sheskey, who had a grip on Blake’s shirt, was heard shouting ‘drop the knife’ multiple times. Sheskey then fired seven shots, four of the rounds hitting Blake in the back. Blake later admitted to having a knife which was found on the floor of his SUV.
The media reported this incident along the lines of ‘unarmed black man shot seven times in the back in front of his kids by white police officer’. The media gave reports of Blake being shot in front of three of his six children, his grandfather being at the forefront of the civil rights battles, his mother raising more than $2 million on a GoFundMe (it raised $650,000 on the first day) and his fiancé and children being “showered with love” (his fiance has an arrest record for disorderly conduct, six child support cases against Blake and was the one who called the police in the first place)
Yet we know lots about Rusten Sheskey (the officer who shot him) like his bio here, here , here etc (google ‘Rusten Sheskey bio’), his life as a former campus officer, even his five previous internal investigations (one for an illegal left turn and hitting another car, one for hitting a concrete pillar while backing out, and one for hitting a light pole while pulling away. He was also investigated for two traffic stops but no laws were violated).
The reason why I chose the Blake case is not because it follows the well-worn pattern of sanctify the suspect and demonize the cops. It’s because it mirrors exactly the profile used in a June 2019 study on police shooting accuracy ie it was a single officer/single suspect shooting, involving multiple rounds, all of which have been recovered. I picked out handgun accuracy, police officer skill and how fast the suspect succumbs to their injuries.
How accurate are handguns?
When operated by regular police officers, surprisingly inaccurate — a message that Hollywood seems to ignore on a weekly basis. The biggest influence on weapon accuracy is trigger control, or ‘wobble’. You can read up on bore lines and wobble radius here, but the main problem is being able to pull the trigger and not move the barrel off-target. An accurized 1911 pistol can shoot a one-inch group at 25 yards, but that’s not what police officers are issued with, and they don’t shoot in a stress-free environment at paper targets.
How accurate are police officers?
The data is worryingly sketchy for events with such lethal ramifications. Having said that, a study in June 2019 (mentioned earlier) analyzed 231 real-life officer-involved shootings recorded over a 15-year period by Dallas (TX) police department. Specifically the researchers looked at 149 shooting incidents where a single officer shot at a single suspect.
The results were graded for ‘incident level’ (did the officer hit the intended target at least once irrespective of the number of shots fired) and ‘bullet level’ (hits divided by shots fired).
The findings were not good. Officers hit suspects with at least one round 54% of the time, in other words a fifty-fifty chance of being hit or missed. Worse, of all the bullets fired only 35% hit the suspect. You have a two-in-three chance of rounds missing you.
And remember Sheskey missed Blake three times out of seven shots, from approximately two feet away.
Do you die if shot?
Stopping power is the ability of a weapon to cause a target to be incapacitated. Having said that, shooting someone in the head is a good deal more likely to stop them in their tracks than nicking them in the foot. So what are the best targets to aim for?
Wikipedia reckons the effects of being shot can be looked at from three angles: physical, neurological and psychological. Psychological effects are unreliable both in their magnitude and longevity (how long will disorientation last for?). Neurological effects are good as long as the officer hits the brain or spine, but these are small targets and we’ve seen just how accurate officers under pressure can be.
That leaves physical effects. In general a person can only cause damage if he or she can use their arms or legs, eg to use a gun or knife, strike blows, press detonators etc. In the heat of the moment how accurate do you think you could be at ‘winging’ someone? In both arms?
This should give you some idea of how stupid a ‘shoot-to-wound’ bill would be.
Conclusion
So where does that leave the officer-on-patrol? Back with Graham v. Connor, who set out the lawfulness of officers using deadly force. While in the heat of a situation, officers need to keep in mind:
- “What was the severity of the crime that the officer believed the suspect to have committed or be committing?” Blake had an outstanding warrant against him, with department orders to bring such people in. No exceptions.
- “Did the suspect present an immediate threat to the safety of officers or the public?” Yes, if you believe Blake’s confession and Sheskey’s evidence that Blake had a knife.
- “Was the suspect actively resisting arrest or attempting to escape?” Putting a police officer in a headlock and ignoring police instructions would seem to be actively resisting arrest.
In training, police are told to use force until that person is no longer a menace. Basically officers fire until they’ve terminated a threat. That means keep shooting until you figure the suspect isn’t going to kill you. Or anyone else.
So instead of tut-tutting about the number of bullets used, maybe consider why the person was shot in the first place?
