North Hollywood shootouts rewind

[Sato Ord]

Everyone in this thread who has been in a gunfight raise your hand!

Been in a couple of those myself!

I've been shot at, and I've returned fire. You can do it and do it well.

I never said that the LAPD didn't hit the BGs, I said they didn't hit them effectively.

Body armor is made with the thought in mind that most people aim at center mass. That is the thinking that caused the biggest problem for LAPD that day. One well trained cop could have ended it with a couple of well places shots.

You can wear the best body armor in the world and 9mm in your sinus cavity will still ruin your day!

Although it sucks, it also makes sense that no dept can or will equip an entire depts for what happens 0.00001% of the time (yes, I am totally inventing those figures for sake of making the point, if anyone has cites to actual numbers, please correct me) so my thoughts were a way to add additional firepower that would not be costly or "scarry" to said anti gun public, which like it or not, does have direct effects on decision making on such matters.

The only real additional cost in firepower would be range time, including more combat shooting, on the part of the officers. Perhaps it's time that some departments put some of that exceptional training that the antis are always talking about into effect. Such training should also not cause anyone to get their panties in a bunch about scary equipment being issued to cops.

As far as the cars, that's more expensive, but it should still be done. Officers are at risk every time they hit the street. Not only do the officers deserve the best equipment they can get, we, as the taxpayers, deserve to have our officers well equipped, so that they can do their jobs more effectively.

 

[willbrink]

"hit two head sized, moving targets at 100 yards," anyone who thinks that can be done with any SSP with anything but shear luck, is living in fantasy land. I doubt a handful of top combat shooters on the planet using an M4 could do it under those conditions, much less some SSP.

 

[glockman19]

Police didn't need to be heavily armed that day IMHO.

Yes, Nice analysis Lonegunman.

All one needed was a Remington, Browing, Savage, Whertheby, Winchester or any other bolt action rifle in any caliber from .223 to .308. All would have made an easy head shot at the distances they were at.

I could have ended it with 2 shots from my Remington 700 CDL in .30-06. One shot to the head for each and it would have been all over.

I'll go so far as to say Most 90% of THR members could have made the shot. I've seen your targets many can put their rounds in the size of a dime @ 100 yards, a quarter @ 200 yards and some like Zak can do it @ 1,000 yards.

What I find more disconcerting is the way local LEA's have begin literally militarizing their departments. Why? The last person I want to handle an AR is anyone that can't hit a 6" target @ 100 yards with Iron sights. I'd say most LEO fall into this catagory. LEO that shoot for sport or hunt are obviously more proficient.

 

[Jeff White]

Sato Ord said;

However, cops are trained to shoot center mass, not go for head shots. Their training breaks down when the BGs are heavily armored.

Hmmm that flies directly in the face of my experience. We were training in the failure drill way back in 1985 when I took by basic course.

Here's the thing. Head shots are easy to make at common handgun ranges on the square range. Get the target moving unpredictably, get the shooter moving, add the stress of the target putting out suppressive fire with an automatic rifle and suddenly that easy head shot isn't so easy. Inflate a balloon with helium. Tie it so it floats about 6 feet up. Tie the other end of the string to an RC car and have your buddy randomly move it. Have another buddy stand next to you on the range with an AR or an AK. Have that buddy dump the magazine as fast as he can pull the trigger, showering you with hot brass, noise and blast. Come back and tell us how easy it was to shoot that balloon.

Jeff

 

[nplant]

This is what, 15 years ago, and we're wondering what lessons have been learned now? Honestly, folks, law enforcement does have to react most of the time, but I think they have figured out, by and large, what the shortcomings were that day.

I recently did a ride-along with my local PD, and the officer who hosted me was rifle-qualified. Once during the shift, we had what may have ended up being an armed stand-off, and he went to the rifle right away. He was clearly comfortable and trained well enough with it to get the job done. I was glad to see that. I don't believe (at least for my city) that officers are undertrained with their guns or other less-lethal devices. I'm in fact impressed with the training they undergo, having seen it first hand at their range, and in talking to their rangemaster.

So all this is somewhat interesting, and I feel for those men and women who responded that day, having the situation they had, but truth be told, there's not a single thing we can do now. That includes statements about what would have ended things sooner, which politicians were suffering from cranio-rectal inversions, or what shotgun rounds would have been better for duty. It's just not going to change a thing.

 

[The Annoyed Man]

I used to do business at that BofA branch as recently as a couple of years ago. The walls of buildings and back yards around there are still pockmarked with bullet holes. So are parts of the bank building and the walls around the parking lot. I used to park my car right next to where the one dude shot himself in the head so that I could walk into the Subway sandwich shop across Archwood Street from the bank.

Laurel Canyon Blvd is 5 lanes wide at that intersection, which is one short block south of Vanowen - also a 5 lane wide boulevard. The is a wide open area without much cover for someone not trained in looking for it. Parked vehicles and a few low cinderblock walls would have been about it.

Here is a wiki page with a pretty good timeline.

Here is a Google map of the intersection.

Emil Matasareanu grew up about a block and half down and around the corner from where I lived at the time in Altadena. His mother was like Jabba the Hut. It's not a huge surprise that he turned out the way he did.

 

[buck00]

My understanding was that it was more like 30 minutes and that the bad guy was not denied medical help but that they could not get ambulances into the area until the area was secured.

They did this guy a favor. All he had to look forward to was life in prison.




* I also think this was a watershed moment for many PDs. Today, many PDs in America (even small town PDs) now have AR-15s available to LEOs. They have come a long way since the days of 6 shot revolvers.

 

[Jeff White]

Willbrink said;

And did they? How were the deployed? I have not heard of depts adding slugs to the guns in patrol cars, so that's interesting info.

We had both slugs and buckshot for our shotguns when I started back in 85. It was up to the individual officer what he wanted to carry. Most loaded buckshot with slugs kept on the gun. We trained on the select slug drill. No side saddles in those days we had elastic butt cuffs and some of them had to be kept tight with strong rubber bands or duct tape, crude but they served the purpose. In the 90s some agencies switched to all slugs, the reasons I heard went from there was "only one round to account for with a slug" to "we can't afford rifles now, but the slug will extend our maximum effective range out to 100 yards."

Jeff

 

[willbrink]

Good info. I don't think many if any major depts went that route, but I have not looked into it. Will ask around 'cause now I am curious. At least having some slugs on hand adds tools to the tool box for LEO and is low cost and low liability/low public fear factor, which seems what dept care about most

 

[Indifferent]

"Cops have different rules of engagement that the rest of us. Knowing you are going to get investigated, have to account for every round, get psych eval'd and possibly sued for collatorial damage makes it a little tougher to lay down fire than you might think."

In California us Civilians would go through the same thing a cop goes through, but we would be charged for murder and they would get a medal of honor.

As for the actual shooting, I take my personal safety very serious, those two woulda been hit with buck shot right quick, or run over.

 

[rainbowbob]

I could have ended it with 2 shots from my Remington 700 CDL in .30-06. One shot to the head for each and it would have been all over.

After reading this thread, it strikes me what a pity it is that a full contingent of our armchair heros weren't on hand that day. Two rounds is all it would have taken! Unless you were ducking behind cover and soiling yourself.

 

[glockman19]

rainbowbob,

From 100-200 yards away under cover any proficient rifleman could have made the shot. I'll stand by my statement that many THR members could have made the shot from 100-200 yards.

After reading this thread, it strikes me what a pity it is that a full contingent of our armchair heros weren't on hand that day.

Not Armchair Hero's. Simply addressing the OP's topic.

YES, it's hard to hit a small moving target at distance with a hand gun. YES, Police were outgunned.

What I hope we learned is LEO's need the right tools to do their job and that day they didn't have them. I'm not sure arming them with AR's is the best idea. On that day a shotgun was probably just as ineffective as a hand gun. With the fire power & body armor the definitive shot that day would have been a headshot from a rifle with good glass. isn't that wat one of the guys did? shot himself in the head.

 

[Harley Quinn]

Here is some information that many don't know about, the female officers that were on the scene (several) never shot one round. Many did not want to draw attention, was not what some wanted. Total mess up not really...

It was a situation that if it happened today would be quite a bit different I would think. Policy and rules and background and responsibility and fear are all in there somewhere.

The good guys won, the bad guys died. No one on the good guys side died. Not because the bad guys did not try to kill

All landings in an airplane that you survive are said to be good ones, may not be the best looking or the technique was off, but if you walk away that is a good sign

 

[willbrink]

"On that day a shotgun was probably just as ineffective as a hand gun. "

Not with slugs in it no, thus we come full circle to my post!

 

[rainbowbob]

With the fire power & body armor the definitive shot that day would have been a headshot from a rifle with good glass.

No argument there.

I'll go so far as to say Most 90% of THR members could have made the shot...

But the assertion that "90% of THR members" would need no more than two rounds to end that particular situation - under heavy fire from moving, armored targets - is...is...well, probably "90% of THR members" know what that is. If you don't know what it is - nothing I say will convince you.

 

[lonegunman]

Everyone in this thread who has been in a gunfight raise your hand! I'm still here

Everyone in this thread who was at the Bank of America that day raise your hand!

I was not there when the Wright brothers flew the first plane and yet I still know they fly. This is simply not relevant.


lonegunman said;

Quote:
99% of cops can barely make a gun work,much less fire an accurate aimed shot at 75 yards.

You got something like an NIJ study that shows this or are you just throwing out some wild speculation to create controversy? What's your personal experience with the state of firearms training in American law enforcement? Are you an instructor? Where? For how long? What certifications do you have?

Can you personally demonstrate this 100 yard head shot with a handgun under fire? Where and when did you perform this feat of marksmanship under fire. There certainly must be a news article you can point us to. Don't be bashful, stand up and take your cudos.

Demontrate under fire? This is just silly. Do you honestly think handgun bullets wont go a hundred yards? I have demonstrated a head and torso hit at 100 yds with a handgun dozens of times. It suprises quite a few people that the gun is capable of that. Will it work everytime? Of course not, but with a little effort and a magazine of ammo, it is easy enough to do over and over again.

In about 1993 a lowly USAF airman shot a gunman in the head from about 75 yards ending a shooting spree. The gunman was armed with an AK47 and the airman a genuine M9 pistol and kneeling. He was not shooting from cover either, not did he have dozens of officers to support him. Cops usually are well ahead of criminals in terms of ability with a firearm, that does not mean they are experts in knowledge or use of firearms by any means. That is not a slam it is simply an observation based on twenty years of interaction with cops.


Quote:
They asked for AR's or something to blast back with as many unaimed rounds as possible.

Source please? What proof do you have that the intent was to spray unaimed fire fire at the gunmen? Did you read this in an LAPD after action report? Where did you come up with this information at.

The original reports all say they (LAPD) went to a nearby gunstore for equipment, specifically AR's and ammo for pistols and shotguns.


Quote:
40cal, 10mm, 45acp, 357mag and 9mm will all easily hit a man sized target in center mass at 100 yds with a little aiming.

True. But it doesn't matter in the least because none of those weapons would have penetrated the body armor the gunmen were wearing. Then there is that little problem of making those 100 yard shots under fire. Again, please relate your personal experience with that.

Yet again, these guys were not 100% covered in armor and they were not firing at every single officer at every single moment of the engagement. Watch the video, one guy shoots, one guys drives the car. He stops to reload, swap guns and fiddle around over and over and draws inaccurate fire over and over. The anti-armor drill is not unheard of and was not unheard of even then.


Quote:
Aiming for the gut(centermass), would have eventually resulted in enough leg, groin, neck and arm hits to stop these guys in short order.

The fact is, there were plenty of COM hits on the gunmen. All ineffective because of the body armor they were wearing. Without a rifle or a round that had enough kinetic energy to knock the gunmen off their feet (which would also knock the shooter off his feet BTW) they weren't going to stop them, covered in kevlar with padding under it as the gunmen were.

Cite this? If there were "plenty of hits", where did they hit. Nothing was ever released showing them fully armored from head to toe with no spots to penetrate whatsoever.



Quote:
Shotguns with 00buck, would have caused plenty of injury at 50-75 yds if they were fired accurately.

Are you referring to some kind of super-secret armor piercing buckshot?


Does buckshot disappear into the ether in your world? In the world beyond video games, projectiles go quite a ways and can still hit and injure people.


Quote:
These guys were overwhelmed by noise,

Really, you know this how? You were there? Quite a few hits on the bad guys for poorly trained officers overwhelmed by noise.

Quite a few hits when compared to what? Lets play hypothetical for a minute.

Each bad guy got hit "plenty of hits" We can call 20 hits "plenty".


Lets just say there were 40 officers in the area returning fire and they fired on average 3 mags each, that would be over 2000 rounds expended, if combined they hit the bad guys 20 times that would be a 2% hit percentage.






Quote:
Cops have different rules of engagement that the rest of us.

What rules of engagement do you operate under? My rules of engagement are not relevant for this discussion. Law enforcement in general has pretty extensive guidelines for shooting. Civilians on the other hand have a recognized right of self defense. I'd have to check the most recent DoJ crime stats but civilians used to shoot 10 times as many bad guys as cops.


Quote:
Knowing you are going to get investigated,

What do you think will happen if YOU shoot someone, presentation of a Good Citizen Certificate at the next city council meeting? A ticker tape parade in your honor? Make you guest host of the next Girls Gone Wild video?

Watch any coverage on a police shooting where officers fire what reporters call "an excessive amount of rounds" As in the recent NYPD case the officers were aquitted only to be threatened with "violating civil rights" by the feds. Remember Rodney King? It is harder to run mag after mag at bad guys when you know you will have to write page after page explaining why you did it no matter what the outcome.


Quote:
get psych eval'd and possibly sued for collatorial damage makes it a little tougher to lay down fire than you might think.

What personal experience have you had that makes you an expert in what it takes to lay down fire?


I have personal experience, do you? I do not provide documentation or personal information to internet weirdos, sorry if that upsets you. I've been involved in my chosen profession for more than twenty years and competitive shooting for more than twenty years and have send tens of thousands of rounds downrange all over the world. (two-way range time is usually limited) I have an NRA Expert or Master classification in five disciplines, I have instructed, RO'd and had chances to test all sorts of weapons on all sorts of targets at all sorts of ranges.

I do not consider myself an expert. I consider my self "a knowledgable person". I have taken the time to inform myself so I can speak intelligently about the topic at hand. There are plenty of after action reports on shootings, findings and procedings to all sorts of shooting related events that are available to read. The DoJ keeps extensive crime statistics and FBI has a bunch as well.

Accuracy is always underrated before a gun fight. The ability to deliver a fatal or incapicitating gunshot is critical and often rated behind speed draw and rate of fire. This was an unusual event, events where armored men with automatic weapons go on a rampage are rare to say the least. Being unprepared is not suprising.

One single guy with a decent bolt gun could have ended this from a block away.

These guys were not so much "well trained" as they were well armed and they have mentioned they may have taken painkillers before they started. They were not superhuman, magical or anything of the sort. In the end they were just two losers with a death wish. To much credit is often given to the bad guy for possessing some special skill. Everything dies if you shoot it enough in the right places, that is a proveable fact.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but anyone expressing what he obviously considers an expert opinion needs to be able to share his personal experience and what research has led him to form this expert opinion.

This is of course just my opinion.

 

[30 cal slob]

Here's the thing. Head shots are easy to make at common handgun ranges on the square range. Get the target moving unpredictably, get the shooter moving, add the stress of the target putting out suppressive fire with an automatic rifle and suddenly that easy head shot isn't so easy. Inflate a balloon with helium. Tie it so it floats about 6 feet up. Tie the other end of the string to an RC car and have your buddy randomly move it. Have another buddy stand next to you on the range with an AR or an AK. Have that buddy dump the magazine as fast as he can pull the trigger, showering you with hot brass, noise and blast. Come back and tell us how easy it was to shoot that balloon.

Hmmm. Sounds like fun, I think I will do that.

 

[Jeff White]

lonegunman said;

Demontrate under fire? This is just silly. Do you honestly think handgun bullets wont go a hundred yards? I have demonstrated a head and torso hit at 100 yds with a handgun dozens of times. It suprises quite a few people that the gun is capable of that. Will it work everytime? Of course not, but with a little effort and a magazine of ammo, it is easy enough to do over and over again.

I am quite aware of the maximum effective range of typical handgun rounds. I do question your assertion that anyone can make that shot, especially under fire. Frankly your assertion makes me doubt your experience.

In about 1993 a lowly USAF airman shot a gunman in the head from about 75 yards ending a shooting spree. The gunman was armed with an AK47 and the airman a genuine M9 pistol and kneeling. He was not shooting from cover either, not did he have dozens of officers to support him.

Was he making a deliberate head shot or did he get a lucky shot. Where did this happen? How much fire was the Airman under? How many rounds did the assailant fire? All important details that you left out. If this incident happened in 93 there should be ample documentation of it, because it would have been a rare event. Let's see it.

Cops usually are well ahead of criminals in terms of ability with a firearm, that does not mean they are experts in knowledge or use of firearms by any means. That is not a slam it is simply an observation based on twenty years of interaction with cops.

You said in your earlier post that 99% of police officers were incompetent with their firearms. Now you say you didn't mean that as a slam, but it's based on 20 years of interacting with cops. What kind of interacting? I asked before and I'm asking again. 20 years of interacting with cops could mean anything from you spent 20 years as a terrible driver and got a bunch of tickets to you were on a bowling team with a bunch of cops. Interacting is vague and doesn't make anyone's argument. So again were you an instructor? If so where? What special experience gives you this direct knowledge of the firearms proficiency of 99% of the 700K or so sworn officers in this country?

The original reports all say they (LAPD) went to a nearby gunstore for equipment, specifically AR's and ammo for pistols and shotguns.

That's right the reports say that. That is not in dispute. What is in dispute is your statement that they went in looking for weapons that would put out a high volume of fire. That is simply not true. It is well documented that they wanted weapons that could penetrate the body armor the gunmen were wearing.

Yet again, these guys were not 100% covered in armor and they were not firing at every single officer at every single moment of the engagement. Watch the video, one guy shoots, one guys drives the car. He stops to reload, swap guns and fiddle around over and over and draws inaccurate fire over and over. The anti-armor drill is not unheard of and was not unheard of even then.

They were nearly covered in armor. If you would do a bit of research you would find that prior to the robbery the gunmen had taped kevlar panels around their legs and arms. This cut into their mobility but it made them all but immune to anything other then the perfect shot with the weapons LAPD initially deployed.

Anti-armor drill?? Planning on taking out T62s and BMPs with AT4s? I have been involved in law enforcement training since 1985 and Army small arms training since 1974 and I have never heard of a failure drill referred to as an anti-armor drill. I am familiar with the terms failure drill, failure to stop drill and Mozambique. Never heard it referred to as an anti-armor drill. Where did you receive your training?

Cite this? If there were "plenty of hits", where did they hit. Nothing was ever released showing them fully armored from head to toe with no spots to penetrate whatsoever.

There is plenty of video from the shooting showing them reacting to plenty of hits. There has been quite a bit released on how much armor they were wearing, including a TV special report done by The Discovery Channel people. I guess you must have missed that.

Does buckshot disappear into the ether in your world? In the world beyond video games, projectiles go quite a ways and can still hit and injure people.

Buckshot won't penetrate even Level IIA soft armor at ranges of 25 yards and closer. The pellets often deform in the barrel and and rapidly lose accuracy and velocity at distances past 25 yards. That isn't a video game, that's real life. Ever pattern a shotgun with buckshot?

Quite a few hits when compared to what? Lets play hypothetical for a minute.

Each bad guy got hit "plenty of hits" We can call 20 hits "plenty".


Lets just say there were 40 officers in the area returning fire and they fired on average 3 mags each, that would be over 2000 rounds expended, if combined they hit the bad guys 20 times that would be a 2% hit percentage.

If you know so much about this, why don't you post the exact stats. they are out there. Open source. Do a little research instead of guess work. If I get time later, I'll dig them up. But there is no need to speculate, the facts are there.

My rules of engagement are not relevant for this discussion. Law enforcement in general has pretty extensive guidelines for shooting. Civilians on the other hand have a recognized right of self defense. I'd have to check the most recent DoJ crime stats but civilians used to shoot 10 times as many bad guys as cops.

You can find the latest figures here: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_13.html

In 2006 the police killed 376 criminals.

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_14.html
Civilians killed 241

In fact in the last 5 years civilians killed:

Year Total
2002 233
2003 247
2004 222
2005 196
2006 241

Compared to the police killing:

Year Total
2002 341
2003 373
2004 367
2005 347
2006 376

So civilians don't kill 10 times more violent criminals then the police, but the police actually kill around 100 more a year then civilians do. So why don't you come up with the data for when your figures were right.

Civilians are less likely to be involved in a deadly force situation and they have no duty to act. If you think that civilians have no rules about when they can shoot, then you are in for a very rude awakening if you ever have the misfortune of being involved in a shooting.

Watch any coverage on a police shooting where officers fire what reporters call "an excessive amount of rounds" As in the recent NYPD case the officers were aquitted only to be threatened with "violating civil rights" by the feds.

What's that got to do with the Bank of America shootout? For all the bad press, when it comes time to step up, the police seem to get the job done.

Remember Rodney King? It is harder to run mag after mag at bad guys when you know you will have to write page after page explaining why you did it no matter what the outcome.

Wait a minute here. Earlier you were castigating the responding officers because they fired too many rounds. Now you're telling me that they don't have what it takes to fire enough rounds to get the job done because they have to justify everything in a report? Just how many use of force reports have you ever written? How did you come up with this expert knowledge?

I have personal experience, do you? I do not provide documentation or personal information to internet weirdos, sorry if that upsets you. I've been involved in my chosen profession for more than twenty years and competitive shooting for more than twenty years and have send tens of thousands of rounds downrange all over the world. (two-way range time is usually limited) I have an NRA Expert or Master classification in five disciplines, I have instructed, RO'd and had chances to test all sorts of weapons on all sorts of targets at all sorts of ranges.

Wow, impressive. Of course it's meaningless, especially when posted by someone who posts anonymously behind a screen name.

On the other hand, I don't have to hide behind a screen name. Have a combined US Army and Law Enforcement Career of 33 years.

I do not consider myself an expert. I consider my self "a knowledgable person". I have taken the time to inform myself so I can speak intelligently about the topic at hand. There are plenty of after action reports on shootings, findings and procedings to all sorts of shooting related events that are available to read. The DoJ keeps extensive crime statistics and FBI has a bunch as well.

Go on post some links to the ones that make your points. I've asked you that several times now. I've already debunked the civilians kill 10 times more criminals then the police do. Right from the FBI stats you studied so hard.

Accuracy is always underrated before a gun fight.

By who?

The ability to deliver a fatal or incapicitating gunshot is critical and often rated behind speed draw and rate of fire.

What school teaches that?

This was an unusual event, events where armored men with automatic weapons go on a rampage are rare to say the least. Being unprepared is not suprising.

And there are now rifles in police cars all over the country since this happened. Some agencies deployed rifles before this happened. I guess we could call them cutting edge.

One single guy with a decent bolt gun could have ended this from a block away.

The one decent guy with a bolt gun stayed home that day. When the fight comes to you, you fight with what you have. At the end of the day, only the bad guys died. Which for all the Monday Morning Quarterbacking makes it a good day.

And all across the nation officers were equipped to deal with this type of incident and training was increased.

Jeff

 

[ilbob]

I have tried shooting at balloons that are just hanging from a target carrier on a string. Just the small amount of air movement from the ventilation system moves the balloon around enough that it makes a hit very hard even fairly close. No way I am going to hit a moving head at 100 yards, not consistently anyway.

I did used to shoot at steel targets with my 6" barrel 357. I think they were 6 or 8 inch plates. I could hit them fairly consistently (certainly not every shot though), but they were not moving any.

 

[Deanimator]

All that was really required was one Savage 110 hunting rifle in .30-06, which probably could have been obtained at any Walmart at the time, nevermind a real gunstore.

Instead, they HAD to have AR15s, which are far LESS effective against typical body armor, and probably took longer to procure.

I'll bet that if the shootout had happened in Pacific, Missouri, somebody (not even necessarily a cop) would have ended it very quickly with an old Remington 700, Winchester Model 70 or the aforementioned Savage.

 

[Deanimator]

When the fight comes to you, you fight with what you have.

NO, they waited to fight with what they DIDN'T have. I'll bet they passed over FAR more effective firearms in order to get those AR15s.

 

[Jeff White]

Deanimator said:

Instead, they HAD to have AR15s, which are far LESS effective against typical body armor, and probably took longer to procure.

First off, 5.56 is as effective as any other rifle round against soft body armor.

Secondly, why did it take longer to grab an AR out of the rack then it would have taken to grab a bolt gun? Why would you want to give a person who was going to run out the door into a gun fight, a bolt gun that probably had no iron sights on it and if it did have glass mounted, probably wasn't zeroed? Then there is familiarity, how many of the officers out there do you think had any experience with a bolt gun? If you handed an AR to anyone out there who had served in the armed forces, he or she would likely have had at least some knowledge of how the thing worked.

NO, they waited to fight with what they DIDN'T have. I'll bet they passed over FAR more effective firearms in order to get those AR15s.

I think the fight was about over with before anyone even went to that gun shop. They put up quite a fight with ineffective weapons. With anything they grabbed they were going to have to get close. I don't know of any gun dealer who zeros all the rifles before they go into the rack.

You are letting your hate for anything the police do cloud your judgment.

Jeff

 

[Bendutro]

I believe the Airman he's describing was the guy who shot Dean Melberg, a disturbed individual at Fairchild AFB in Spokane WA. He was shot in the head from ~75 yards by a base cop after killing 4 and wounding 23.

I was only 14 or so at the time and remember my dad reading the paper and saying it was an impressive shot with a pistol.

 

[General Geoff]

Unlike what happens in movies, you can't just give someone a strange rifle with strange ammo and have them shooting headshots at 100 yards from behind cover and without a bench five minutes later.

 

[lonegunman]

Does somebodie's mother work for LAPD? All the "Monday morning quaterbacking" is what got officers the training and equipment.

As stated in the beginning I offered my opinion. Your ability to quibble, bicker and otherwise piddle pick at other people is unequalled.

If you spent as much time on a range as you did offering snide comments and dribble you would be able to hit a target at a decent range.

I politely offered a brief glimpse on my experience and where I am coming from. I choose not to post my name and personal information on the internet. I happen to think it invites the ire of internet weirdos who do nothing all day but find posts to argue about on the internet.

If you want to learn more about the shooting at Fairchild AFB, try Google.

As far as stats, if I had no life and was an internet commander or moderator, I could spend all day finding crap to link people too.

Sadly, I am still employed and must pay the bills by working away from a computer.

Doing something for 33 years is no indication of ability. We have an engineer who has been at my company since 1965 and he is as worthless as bull milk.