Police Marksmanship & Other Silliness

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XLMiguel

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This is an embarassment. Arlington Co. is inside the Beltway, too close to DC, and I guess the ineptitude is catching :what:

Police Officer Could Face Sanctions In Connection With Deer Killing
(Arlington, VA) -- An Arlington police officer faces possible administrative sanctions for the manner in which he killed an injured deer. According to "The Washington Post" the officer responded to Williamsburg Boulevard last month and tried to destroy the animal which jumped a guardrail and fell 30-feet to a roadway. Following department policy, he shot the animal in the head. But when the deer did not die he authorized other officers to drive over the animal's neck. When that failed they suffocated the animal with a plastic bag. The officers took a photo of the dead deer and the sergeant, saying it was needed for the incident report. Police spokesman Matt Martin says poor decision making was used and that's not how the department usually operates. He says such incidents are rare in the county, so the department is talking to other agencies about their policies to better handle such situations.
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Actually, they tried to run over it twice. What's wrong with just shooting teh poor critter again? I can hardly wait for the Bambistas to start wailing :barf:
 
huh....Sounds like there were at least three officers there, and none were hunters. You think that at least one of them would have an "uber-tactical" knife to put the deer out of its misery. I guess if someone's trapped in a burning wreck they'd have nothing to cut the seat belts.

Used to be around here (MD-DC-VA) you could find a cop that wasn't a hunter.
 
Uh, Pokomoke, not to be a wiseacre, but I
(a) always carry a sharp blade for utility/emergency use; and
(2) would be EXTREMELY loathe to try to finish an injured deer with it.

Even critically injured critters got hooves & lots o' muscle to apply them. :eek:

I agree a better placed second round was the obvious solution . . .
 
Couldn't shoot it with a squad shotgun or rifle?

The squads in WI when equiped with a SG typically have both slugs and 00 buck shot. Not in VA?
 
careful, justin. anymore bad judgement could establish a precedent
 
Actually, this has been surprisingly civil so far.

Driving over the animal has got to be one of the silliest notions I've heard of yet, but I'd be willing to bet that they didn't spend alot of time on this in the academy. May or may not have been a marksmanship issue - most likely he didn't go after it with enough gun. Definitely would use a shotgun or patrol rifle (if so equipped). Here, every UP car is equipped with a shotgun, but only a couple of cities have started to issue rifles.
 
Please tell me that this is a joke! If it is real I am at a loss for words. That really needs to be a saturday night live skit.
 
Following department policy, he shot the animal in the head.
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Out of sheer curiosity, where is that policy written in the LEO handbook? :confused: Is it a policy that they may only shoot deer in the head 1 time, or they shoot all wounded creatures in the head (Sorry you sprained your ankle, man...... :what: )? Or am I alone in not knowing when that precedent was established? :uhoh: :eek: :edit: or maybe i'm just a moron for not knowing to begin with :banghead:
 
Sounds like the scene out of the movie Me, Myself and Irene. Maybe it was a zombie-deer.
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Maybe he should of dropped a couple elbows on it "The Rock" style.

I have dispatched of a couple wounded deer here before with a 9mm, we always are told to shoot them in the head which dosen't always work. I just put a couple through the boiler room and then finish them off in the head.
 
The only question I have is, why didn't he shoot it again in the head? The logic train on this one is derailed...
 
scbair

Uh, Pokomoke, not to be a wiseacre, but I
(a) always carry a sharp blade for utility/emergency use; and
(2) would be EXTREMELY loathe to try to finish an injured deer with it.

Even critically injured critters got hooves & lots o' muscle to apply them.

========================
Agree with you on that in almost all instances..however this particular deer had jumped from thirty feet and since it was still enough for them to drive over, I reckon three fair sized cops could have rassled the deer and administered last rites.

But the key element remains the cops' lack of adequate pistol training and zero sense of how to dispatch wounded animals. Now having said that, I wonder what they'd do with a wounded bear, which have beencropping up here abouts.
 
I hit a deer with my truck about ten years or so ago in neighboring Fairfax County Virginia. It was pretty much the same scenario, badly broken deer, cop tries to put it down. Only in this case the cop pointed his gun at the deer, turns his head away and pulls the trigger and misses!

He had to radio in a second time for permission to discharge his weapon. The radio was real quiet when he finished, and then all you could hear was hundreds of clicks from his fellow officers, keying their microphones, "laughing" at him.
 
Va. Officer Probed In Killing Of Deer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/05/AR2005070501419.html

By Jamie Stockwell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 6, 2005; Page B02


The injured deer was suffering, so the Arlington County police officer shot it in the head. When that didn't kill it, the deer was run over by a cruiser. Finally, a bag was placed over its head and it suffocated.

Now, an Arlington police officer is under internal investigation for his handling of the incident last month.

The sergeant, whose name was withheld by authorities, faces administrative sanctions for the methods he chose June 18 when trying to destroy the injured deer, said Matt Martin, a police spokesman. The officer is not on administrative leave, nor have his duties been redefined, but the department wants to examine its policy on injured animals.

"We recognize [the entire incident] showed poor decision making," Martin said yesterday. "If administrative sanctions are recommended, they will be implemented."

Martin said the officer was called to the 6900 block of Williamsburg Boulevard about 6:40 a.m. after the deer jumped over a guardrail on Interstate 66 and plunged 30 feet to the road below. After consulting with his supervisor -- a lieutenant in the patrol division -- the officer fired a single shot at the deer's head, Martin said, in accordance with the department's policy to kill any suffering or dangerous animal.

But the deer didn't die.

Instead of shooting the animal a second time, the sergeant authorized two other responding officers to drive a cruiser over the deer's neck. That, too, did not kill the animal.

Finally, Martin said, the three officers wrapped a plastic bag around the deer's head and suffocated it. A photograph of the dead deer and the sergeant was taken by one of the other officers, but Martin said the sergeant's explanation for the Polaroid was that it was needed for the incident report.

The department, Martin added, is conferring with other agencies on their policies so that Arlington County, which responds to one or two such incidents a year, is better equipped to handle the situation next time.

"This is not how our police department normally does business," Martin said. "This was an isolated incident, something our officers are called upon to do only a couple of times a year . . . but it's not the kind of judgment that we expect out of our supervisors."
 
Relative hit a cow once, and he and the farmer tried to kill it, but they used a shotgun. They shot it in the head, but it didn't penetrate. He said the head was mushy, but the cow wouldn't die. So even a shotgun isn't enough, with the wrong loads.

If you have to put a large animal down, you use a rifle.

Incidentally, does anyone have tips for bullet placement in this situation? I only understand the old stand-by when you don't know the physiology, the eyeball, but I also hear it's not an easy shot.
 
The department, Martin added, is conferring with other agencies on their policies so that Arlington County, which responds to one or two such incidents a year, is better equipped to handle the situation next time.
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Better equipped? Like with more common sense? :scrutiny:

The more I think about this the more it bugs me... :fire:
 
They probably never shot a pistol without hearing protection before. Imagine their surprise :D

I don't see what all the fuss is. Their main objective was accomplished. It is hard to believe that running over a deer's neck with a wheel (several times) won't work until you actually try it. Back before shall issue we had no choice but to be creative. Never thought of the plastic bag trick myself but then I probably didn't have one anyway.

I just used a knife after that. Works like a charm.
 
I recall reading somewhere that the rule of thumb is to draw a line from the right eye to the left ear, and from the left eye to the right ear, and put the round (or bolt, in the case of what I was reading) through the intersection.

But I don't remember what I was reading, so that could be crap.
 
Shot placement

When I went to Montana State University I took a "Meat Cutting" class which included killing the animals with a device which used a .22 blank to drive a bolt into the head. The location of the impact was determined by drawing an imaginary line from the left ear to the right eye and from the right ear to the left eye. The point where those two imaginary lines crossed was the point of impact. Sheep, cattle, and swine all dropped instantly from this treatment. The animals were then lifted by the back legs and bled by sticking a very sharp thin knife blade at a 45° angle in the base of the throat and then straightening the knife to the horizontal before withdrawing the blade. This effectively cut the jugular causing the animal to bleed out. I became quite good at all this since most everybody else in the class was a bit too much of a weeney to do the killing. I don't think the bolt treatment actually killed the animal. The idea was to keep the heart beating in order to more effectively bleed the animal. A 9mm or larger round driving through that point would probably do the trick however.
 
This is Arlington County.
They probably needed to feel for the deer, hold a public hearing, and then reach a consensus decision.

When Virginia passed shall issue for CWP, Arlington tried charging $35 for the sheriff, $35 for the PD, and $35 for the Commonwealth Attorney to perform the background check.
Then the judges refused to sign the permits, and pushed through the law that allows the clerk of the court to sign for them.
They also played games by trying to require separate payment for each portion of the state mandated fees.
They tried floating an interpretation that carrying in stores that sold beer and wine for off premises consumption would be a violation of the law.

Arlington is sort of like the Berkeley of the east.
I cannot wait to finish moving into Fairfax in about one month.
 
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