Previous Post
Next Post

By Brandon via concealednation.org

Body-cam videos of officer-involved shootings give us a unique first-person perspective into deadly force encounters. There are lots of active self-protection lessons to be learned here. Could you have solved the firearm malfunction that quickly? Details on the incident from local news here. What can officer involved shootings teach non-LEO? . . .

1. All those skills you see in defensive shooting courses and hear about on YouTube from reputable instructors…they’re useful. This officer had to use a lot of them. He had to use cover, issue verbal commands, make a lethal force decision, shoot while moving, move around obstacles, get to cover, and clear a malfunction. That’s a LOT to have happen in a defensive shooting, but remember that you’re preparing for the worst day of your life. Prepare accordingly.

2. The video footage from the body cam allows us a unique first-person view of a deadly force encounter. Put yourself in the officer’s shoes and ask yourself if you had the spiritual fitness to pull the trigger to protect yourself. Ask if you have the emotional fitness to stay in the fight. Do you have the skills to perform the firearms manipulations?

3. Speaking of emotional fitness, there are some more significant lessons on emotional fitness here. First, the cursing and loud yelling are designed to intimidate the officer. Can you emotionally withstand someone being loud and abrasive and derogatory? Second, when your blaster pukes do you have the emotional fitness to stay in the fight, clear the malfunction, and get back to dealing with threats?

4. A firearm is only ever to be used as a tool of last resort. This officer did everything in his power to keep this conflict from ending as it did, and for that I commend him. Use verbal commands whenever possible to end a conflict.

5. The officer had his finger on the trigger during the malfunction clear, and while we can certainly understand that in the moment, we can’t condone or excuse it. Train and practice so much that your finger instinctively moves high on the frame of the gun when you’re not on target so that you don’t have a chance of a negligent discharge.

Attitude. Skills. Plan.

Previous Post
Next Post

52 COMMENTS

  1. Do you have the skills to perform the firearms manipulations?

    I hope I do when seconds count.

    when your blaster pukes do you have the emotional fitness to stay in the fight, clear the malfunction, and get back to dealing with threats?

    I pray I never find out.

  2. Obviously fake. Glocks are perfect and incapable of malfunctions. This is obviously staged propaganda from HK or Smith & Wesson.

    In all seriousness I would have gotten a new gun that day cause I saw no reason for it to stovepipe like that.

    • The pistol was tight to a brick wall on it’s right side, the case could have hit the wall and caused the malfunction, I was taught to cant the pistol away from left side cover.

      • I was taught the same thing, and it is plausible. I stepped through the video the best I could, and I suspect that may not have been the case here. The slide looks like it was nearly all the way to the rear, but not completely. When he pulled it further to the rear, the casing ejected. I am guessing he either he limp wristed, if that is possible with a Glock, the gun needs some oil, or perhaps something else happened to cause the slide not to go all the way back. He needs to spend more time on stoppage drills…or get a Sig or 1911. Just kidding.

        • Possible? Yes. Likely? Still yes.

          I’m a new shooter and I’ve gotten to the point where I can completely eliminate limp-wrist stovepipes on my Glock 19, but only while I’m shooting from a solid stance, and concentrating. Granted, most police officers are probably stronger and better trained than I am, but high stress shooting can probably erode a lot of proper shooting techniques.

      • Yes indeed, it’s happened to me in training. The slide can hit the barricade as the gun recoils causing a failure to eject. Lesson learned for me, keep the pistol well away from any barricade/cover. You can do that by standing back a ways from the cover and looking around it.

      • In officiating at many, many USPSA and IDPA matches, I have indeed seen many a Glock stoppage, most due to bad reloaded ammunition. Beyond that not-relevant-here issue, next is limp-wristing, not likely in this case.
        However, empty cases do definitely bounce in strange ways and wind up in the ejection port stopping the gun, especially in cover situations.
        Watch a match with shooters shooting through a 55-gallon drum: there is a good likelihood of at least one semi stopping with a case in the window. It can and does happen.

    • Rotate your pistol 90 degrees to the left with a round in the chamber, then rack slide. See what happens.

      (Hint: It may eject, but it’s not going to eject properly. You’re not going to see a forceful ejection.)

  3. LEO shootings and civilian shootings have some things in common, but a lot not in common. A LEO has a duty to act. I can leave, which I would have, very quickly.

    If I were a LEO or a civilian who could not safely escape, seven seconds elapsed between the officer stating the perp should drop the gun and the first shot. That is an eternity. Also, did you notice how close the guy got? If a gun is out and moving toward me in a hostile manner, fight’s on, NOW. It would have been over before this officer’s first shot. I have seen other videos where that kind of hesitation got the LEO killed.

    The malfunction is why I carry a revolver.

    • Not saying you shouldn’t carry a revolver, but I’ve had more malfunctions per round fired with revolvers than semi-autos.

      And no, not poorly maintained junk revolvers.

      Anything can malfunction.

      • I probably have put 20,000 rounds of hot .357 through about 5 different revolvers, without a single malfunction. First magazine I put through a Glock I had 2 stovepipes. Nice man says I am not holding it right, I reply you can keep your Glock, thank you very much. No problems with Sigs, Rugers, Kimbers.

    • Let’s assume thats you at your house and the guy in the video is outside your front door. Still going to run away?

      • As I alluded to, there may be situations where I could not leave. My point was just that LEOs (unless they are French) don’t have that option. But to answer your question, if I am outside my house, where the LEO was, and there is no one to defend in the house, yes, I would retreat. If I am in the house with him trying to come in, fight’s on. If I am outside where the LEO was and there is family in the house, fight’s on. But the difference is that I will avoid any fight that is only over property.

  4. Great vid. Well done to the officer.

    With more body cams being worn, I hope we’ll see more of them released. A good way for LEOs and CCWs to get lessons learned, for their own practice, and the incentive for professional cops to continually improve their game, by being lauded for doing a good job under fire.

  5. As an Avid Glock Fanboy (AGF), I blame the aftermarket parts that are obviously prevalent inside the officers gun. Factory parts are infallible, just as the Great Gaston Glock (G3) created them to be.

    /sarc.

    I am what some would call a Glock fanboy, but as any piece of man made machinery can fail, we have evidence as such.

  6. The glock pistol malfunctioned because the ejected empty bounced right back into the chamber. Crowd a wall on the right and hold any autoloader vertical enough it can happen. Go try it.
    Also dont crowd cover. You can be just as protected at an angle a few steps back. Finally never wise to extend your firearm beyond your cover if possible .

    • You could be right, but you sure can’t say that is what happened from the video evidence. It simply doesn’t show that.

    • I figured that was what happened at first but it looked like when he ran the slide, what looked to be an empty case, came out with a bit of force flipping up into the air. I would think that looked more like a round that still had the extractor? holding onto it. Still having anything nearby a spent casing could bounce off of could send it right back into the port.

    • I have a couple barricades that my shooting group loves to use that are awkard as hell, but Ive never seen the awkward position (nor any limp wristing malfs caused by awkard positions) create the issue itself. Murphys law and all that to be accounted for afterward.

    • I did not notice him firing after clearing. What saved his ass is that he connected with the first shot. Probably also prevented the customary 27 followup shots.

  7. What’s the situation here?
    Is it unlawful for the ‘mentally deranged’ guy to be where he is, holding a handgun?
    I think the first two sentences I hear are “drop the gun man” and “get off my effing property”. No real dialog, just two men ignoring each other’s orders.

    Some might say duty requires the cop to not back off, I’d have to know what duty he had there before judging that. Problem is, by the time the video starts, retreating would mean giving up cover.

    Have to give the cop credit for not having already aiming at him at that point, waiting until the armed man advances on him after he orders the armed man to keep his distance.

    I don’t get the idea anybody is looking to shoot the cop, he just wants the cop off the premises. Cover and the cop’s arm block the view at some of the critical points in time, but I don’t think the guy ever pointed a gun at the cop.

    • OK, police were responding to complaints of a man firing a gun in his backyard. Judging from the looks of the place, that was probably a misdemeanor offense, and I can imagine the LEOs wanting to investigate the alleged crime without the suspect holding a gun during the investigation.

      However, if THIS is what happened, was the shooter SWAT, and if not, WTF was he doing there:
      “Carter said that when officers arrived at the residence, Allen was cursing and threatening to kill them unless they left his property. Officers then left the immediate area near the residence and called for a supervisor, who then summoned a SWAT team.”

  8. The only lesson here is: don’t be a cop, don’t harass crazy people on their own property so you don’t have to murder them, that way the public doesn’t have to hear some garbage from the a-hole police chief about how the guy had to die for “public safety”.

    • According to the article, his neighbors called 911 claiming he was shooting in his backyard. Doesn’t sound like a great reason to kill the guy. That being said, approaching a cop with a gun in hand is probably the most effective method of suicide I can imagine.

      • According to the article, the neighbors called the cops because he was supposedly shooting dirt in his backyard (more likely, he was simply walking around with a gun in his backyard).

        Lesson #2: don’t be a rat fink, don’t call the cops.

        • Dude, if either me or you aggressively approach a cop with a .22 pistol in hand, the result is hardly going to be different. This is a shit situation no doubt, but all points are mute when you have a pistol and charge someone while ignoring a verbal command. Think if someone charged you, a CHL holder while holding a weapon of some sort and ignoring verbal commands, would that be any different?

        • As a CHL holder, I won’t be harassing and ordering people around on their property.

        • Yes, Sexual Whateversaurus
          We get it.
          Cops are hellspawn, emissaries of satan and the chosen of the antichrist looking to defile our mothers, burn our houses and shoot our dogs.
          They are always evil and never do anything good.

          I wonder where that obesession of yours is coming from?

        • @JustYourRandomEuropean I wonder where your deliberate ignorance is coming from?

  9. Another lesson — learn to shoot weak-hand-only so you can stay behind cover. If I can do so with a compact .40, anybody should be able to do so with a service pistol in .40 or 9mm.

    • I think this should be the overall takeaway, shoot in awkward positions around cover as much as possible.

    • What was that distance, 3 ft? If I can’t hit a man center mass from 3 ft, left handed, he can just have his way with me, please be gentle.

  10. My issue, is that the LEOS provide medical care to a completely obvious corpse, by the time the second officer with the AR returns with the medical trauma backpack, the dude is COMPLETELY without movement and appears to have bled out.

    • My issue is them not providing medical care and handcuffing corpses.

      On an unrelated note, time stamp on the video appears to say 1979. I suppose they should fix that on cameras intended to document critical evidence.

    • what else could he have done? He ran back to his car and was moving with haste. I doubt anything short of a full operating room would have helped this dude.

  11. Tap, rack and point in at your target. I certainly agree that clearing stopages has to be clean, quick and automatic; practice…practice…practice. Also, I was taught, and drill today, off cover so my muzzle does not extend past my cover. In this case the brick wall. I can still effectively pie the space beyond the wall using as much cover as possible to engage the threat. This eliminates the possibility of the gun jamming when the shell casing bounces off the wall or fails to eject because I’m too close. lastly, if the threat gets off a shot(s) that hit the wall, I won’t be showered with spall if I’m standing 4 feet off.

    Anyway, good vid; many teachable moments.

  12. The cop did well on the jammed pistol, but he also got lucky that a simple rack of the slide got him back in action. He also got lucky that the fight was essentially over at that point.

    Most of all, it illustrates why I don’t like a semi-auto pistol for personal carry. That was a trained cop with a full-sized pistol and it jammed after 4 shots. I understand a cop needs more rounds and faster reloads than a citizen. But this was pretty close to the proverbial “3 shots in 3 seconds within 3 feet”.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here