A
Incorrect. You stated, "So shooting the legs can be done I guess London's police force is trained differently."
^ I responded by correcting your false assertion in explaining to you that those UK policemen who are armed are trained to 'shoot to stop' by aiming center mass at the trunk of the body as modern police are around the world.
I then introduced information about plastic bullets into the discussion. Now you apparently don't care but someone else may. Life isn't all about raf.
But to put your notion to rest that police officers should be trained to shoot people in the legs rather than the trunk as you've concocted would be a good idea all one needs to do is review the expert analysis on the topic which asserts that it's not reasonable, consistent, nor legal.
As Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the Force Science Institute, explains:
"When civilians judge police shooting deaths-on juries, on review boards, in the media, in the community-this same argument is often brought forward. Shooting to wound is naively regarded as a reasonable means of stopping dangerous behavior. In reality, this thinking is a result of 'training by Hollywood,' in which movie and TV cops are able to do anything to control the outcomes of events that serve the director's dramatic interests. It reflects a misconception of real-life dynamics and ends up imposing unrealistic expectations of skill on real-life officers."
Studies reveal some of the practical problems with your 'Hollywood' concoction. As Dr. Lewinski explains:,
"Hands and arms can be the fastest-moving body parts. For example, an average suspect can move his hand and forearm across his body to a 90-degree angle in 12/100 of a second. He can move his hand from his hip to shoulder height in 18/100 of a second. The average officer pulling the trigger as fast as he can on a Glock, one of the fastest- cycling semi-autos, requires 1/4 second to discharge each round. There is no way an officer can react, track, shoot and reliably hit a threatening suspect's forearm or a weapon in a suspect's hand in the time spans involved.
Even if the suspect held his weapon arm steady for half a second or more, an accurate hit would be highly unlikely, and in police shootings the suspect and his weapon are seldom stationary. Plus, the officer himself may be moving as he shoots. The upper arms move more slowly than the lower arms and hands. But shooting at the upper arms, there's a greater chance you're going to hit the suspect's brachial artery or center mass, areas with a high probability of fatality.
Legs tend initially to move slower than arms and to maintain more static positions. However, areas of the lower trunk and upper thigh are rich with vascularity. A suspect who's hit there can bleed out in seconds if one of the major arteries is severed, so again shooting just to wound may not result in just wounding. And if an officer manages to take a suspect's legs out non-fatally, that still leaves the offender's hands free to shoot. His ability to threaten lives hasn't necessarily been stopped."
As to preventing so-called "overkill" from shots that are fired after a threat is neutralized, Dr. Lewinski offers these observations:
"Twenty years ago officers were trained to 'shoot then assess.' They fired 1 or 2 rounds, then stopped to see the effect. This required 1/4 to 1/2 second, during which time the suspect could keep firing, if he hadn't been incapacitated. This cost officer lives. So now they're taught to 'shoot and assess,' to judge the effect of their shots as they continue to fire, an on-going process. This allows the officer to continually defend himself, but because the brain is trying to do 2 things at once-shoot and assess-a very significant change in the offender's behavior needs to take place in order for the officer to recognize the change of circumstances.
A suspect falling to the ground from being shot would be a significant change. But by analyzing the way people fall, we've determined that it takes 2/3 of a second to a full second or more for a person to fall to the ground from a standing position. And that is when they've been hit in a motor center that produces instant loss of muscle tension.
While an officer is noticing this change, he is going to continue firing if he is shooting as fast as he can under the stress of trying to save his life. On average, from the time an officer perceives a change in stimulus to the time he is able to process that and actually stop firing, 2 to 3 additional rounds will be expended.
Shooting beyond the moment a threat is neutralized is not a willful, malicious action in most cases. It's an involuntary factor of human dynamics."
Given what science tells us about armed encounters, your proposal is fantasy and would hold officers to super-human performance and then punish them criminally for being unable to achieve it.
Aside from the science, of course, are the legal issues. A shoot-to-wound mandate would "not be valid legally" because it sets a standard far beyond that established by Graham v. Connor, the benchmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on police use of force.
^ I responded by correcting your false assertion in explaining to you that those UK policemen who are armed are trained to 'shoot to stop' by aiming center mass at the trunk of the body as modern police are around the world.
I then introduced information about plastic bullets into the discussion. Now you apparently don't care but someone else may. Life isn't all about raf.
But to put your notion to rest that police officers should be trained to shoot people in the legs rather than the trunk as you've concocted would be a good idea all one needs to do is review the expert analysis on the topic which asserts that it's not reasonable, consistent, nor legal.
As Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the Force Science Institute, explains:
"When civilians judge police shooting deaths-on juries, on review boards, in the media, in the community-this same argument is often brought forward. Shooting to wound is naively regarded as a reasonable means of stopping dangerous behavior. In reality, this thinking is a result of 'training by Hollywood,' in which movie and TV cops are able to do anything to control the outcomes of events that serve the director's dramatic interests. It reflects a misconception of real-life dynamics and ends up imposing unrealistic expectations of skill on real-life officers."
Studies reveal some of the practical problems with your 'Hollywood' concoction. As Dr. Lewinski explains:,
"Hands and arms can be the fastest-moving body parts. For example, an average suspect can move his hand and forearm across his body to a 90-degree angle in 12/100 of a second. He can move his hand from his hip to shoulder height in 18/100 of a second. The average officer pulling the trigger as fast as he can on a Glock, one of the fastest- cycling semi-autos, requires 1/4 second to discharge each round. There is no way an officer can react, track, shoot and reliably hit a threatening suspect's forearm or a weapon in a suspect's hand in the time spans involved.
Even if the suspect held his weapon arm steady for half a second or more, an accurate hit would be highly unlikely, and in police shootings the suspect and his weapon are seldom stationary. Plus, the officer himself may be moving as he shoots. The upper arms move more slowly than the lower arms and hands. But shooting at the upper arms, there's a greater chance you're going to hit the suspect's brachial artery or center mass, areas with a high probability of fatality.
Legs tend initially to move slower than arms and to maintain more static positions. However, areas of the lower trunk and upper thigh are rich with vascularity. A suspect who's hit there can bleed out in seconds if one of the major arteries is severed, so again shooting just to wound may not result in just wounding. And if an officer manages to take a suspect's legs out non-fatally, that still leaves the offender's hands free to shoot. His ability to threaten lives hasn't necessarily been stopped."
As to preventing so-called "overkill" from shots that are fired after a threat is neutralized, Dr. Lewinski offers these observations:
"Twenty years ago officers were trained to 'shoot then assess.' They fired 1 or 2 rounds, then stopped to see the effect. This required 1/4 to 1/2 second, during which time the suspect could keep firing, if he hadn't been incapacitated. This cost officer lives. So now they're taught to 'shoot and assess,' to judge the effect of their shots as they continue to fire, an on-going process. This allows the officer to continually defend himself, but because the brain is trying to do 2 things at once-shoot and assess-a very significant change in the offender's behavior needs to take place in order for the officer to recognize the change of circumstances.
A suspect falling to the ground from being shot would be a significant change. But by analyzing the way people fall, we've determined that it takes 2/3 of a second to a full second or more for a person to fall to the ground from a standing position. And that is when they've been hit in a motor center that produces instant loss of muscle tension.
While an officer is noticing this change, he is going to continue firing if he is shooting as fast as he can under the stress of trying to save his life. On average, from the time an officer perceives a change in stimulus to the time he is able to process that and actually stop firing, 2 to 3 additional rounds will be expended.
Shooting beyond the moment a threat is neutralized is not a willful, malicious action in most cases. It's an involuntary factor of human dynamics."
Given what science tells us about armed encounters, your proposal is fantasy and would hold officers to super-human performance and then punish them criminally for being unable to achieve it.
Aside from the science, of course, are the legal issues. A shoot-to-wound mandate would "not be valid legally" because it sets a standard far beyond that established by Graham v. Connor, the benchmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on police use of force.
