Shooting proficiency of the average police officer

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I'd be impressed if they had a 1.5 second draw requirement out of a retention holster that everyone in the department had to meet, and they did... That would be far more challenging than just about anything else in this thread, except maybe 3 rounds in two seconds from the same start position.

I'm not saying that entire PDs should have to measure up to to speed by competitive standards; that isn't really realistic. With the majority of courses stated in this thread (which are somewhat similar to the CCW course in SC if I remember correctly; it has been a while), the scoring will not differentiate between someone who can just barely make all the shots in the time alotted, vs someone who can do it in 1/3 the time or less. Many of the par times are so generous that it is simply a "bullseye" excersize.

Just wondering if there is a good reason for this, or if it just "how its always been done". You'd think time would always be considered a key factor in any kind of practical shooting.
 
I have not read this thread. So, that caveat being out there, I have a suggestion if anyone wants solid, quantifiable data on this. The founder of FR&I worked on a doctoral thesis on the competency and quality of law enforcement handgun training and use. He did a LOT of solid, well-backed work on this. I have heard the results of his research, but will not be sharing them without his permission. If you truly want to know, and have a legitimate academic or professional purpose behind the inquiry, he may respond to you. Steve is as good and knowledgeable an instructor, as his website is crappy. You can give it a try.

www.f-r-i.com
 
I know when I took my CCW class sometime ago, there were 2 marines and 1 air force pilot in my class. I have shot 22LR rifles all my life but never a handgun. I bought my first handgun 3 days before class and put in 20 rounds. During the shooting session, I scored the highest in my class out of 18 people. All along I thought I was gonna fail the shooting section and embarrass myself.
 
I am an officer in south Georgia; my department issues the Glock 21C .45ACP compensated model. Before becoming an officer, I did not like Glocks in particular, because I was always used to shooting a revolver and a 1911. After going through the academy, and putting upwards of 1,000 rounds (at no cost to me) through my issue weapon both at the academy and at my department's local range, I have only praise for it. Yes, its a handful, but it sure it comforting when you're clearing a building at night. In Georgia, the POST (Peace Officer Standards and Training) council annual qual course consists of firing from the 25, 15, 7, and 3 yard lines. Each officer must qualify at 80% or better, with a maximum score or 300 and a minimum score of 240. I can't exactly remember how many rounds are fired; I want to say 30, but I cannot recall the exact number. At the 25 yard line you must use a barricade, and lean from cover to fire. Then at the 15 yard line you use the barricade again, and are required to drop to a knee, reload, and fire from cover. Then your headshots are at the 7 yard line. It is a timed course, but it isn't too bad. Again, it doesn't simulate real world incidents, but we have several different training days throughout the year to deal with active shooters and a simulator. We also have the opportunity to go to the department range each month to practice; all ammo for our duty weapons are provided for by the department.
 
I haven't read this entire thread, but it has been my experience that civilians who shoot in competitions are better shots than the average police officer. I base this on my experience when I was shooting competitively the officers who were not regulars would come out and shoot would have the worst scores. I also know a trainer and an armorer at two different departments who have told me that a large majority of the officers at their departments could barely pass the annual requirements, which weren't that difficult.

Just because you have been exposed to training, doesn't mean you are trained. You need to practice regularly. For me, I have to practice at least once a week to maintain or more often to improve.
 
A friend is a gunsmith, armorer, and member of police reserve for a PD. He said the regular cops are absolutely the worse shots he has ever seen. Dopes at the local gun range look like Carlos Hathcock compared to these cops. They just don't take marksmanship seriously, the gun is just part of the uniform.

But what do you expect, PDs have to run ads on the radio, billboards, TV that they are looking for recruits. Another friend who knows said it was not being able to pass the drug screening that bounces most of the PD candidates....
 
ny32182 said:
I'd be impressed if they had a 1.5 second draw requirement out of a retention holster that everyone in the department had to meet, and they did... That would be far more challenging than just about anything else in this thread, except maybe 3 rounds in two seconds from the same start position.
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Stand on 1.5 yard line. Interview stance. Target faces - draw while you take a step backwards - fire 2 rounds - target goes to side. Duration: 1.5 seconds. That's 2 rounds out of a total of 50 for the entire course. It's FAST but it's also ClOSE. Officers are far more likely to hold a round on some of the sequences from the 7 and 10 yard line that involve movement, cover, reloads, etc.

Patrol officers must qualify quarterly, I think admin and the like can go annually (same as state mandated course, which all have to do annually)
 
It's longer than 1.5 seconds. If the targets are pneumatically operated, it could easily be twice that time frame. If state of the art, add at least 1/4 second to each end of the target facing.
 
David E said:
It's longer than 1.5 seconds. If the targets are pneumatically operated, it could easily be twice that time frame. If state of the art, add at least 1/4 second to each end of the target facing.
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lol. It's not 3 seconds. Not even close.

I could buy that it's somewhere between 1.5 and 2.0 seconds, but those targets are fast, and if the bullet leaves a horizontal line because you hit it in transition it scores a 0

But the instructors, who are good and know their stuff, say it's 1.5...and I'm telling you, it goes FAST
 
I'd say it varies from department to department, but from what I've observed, the larger majority of law enforcement don't practice as much as they should. That being said, I know some officers who can drive tacks, even in high stress situations...Could cover em up with quarters. The same cannot be said about many others, unfortunately.

Our local agency gives each person 50 practice rounds every 2 weeks and lets them come practice at the range whenever open range is held. It's a shame how empty it is sometimes. Skill definitely deteriorates if you don't keep up with it.
 
Warp said:
lol. It's not 3 seconds. Not even close.

I could buy that it's somewhere between 1.5 and 2.0 seconds, but those targets are fast, and if the bullet leaves a horizontal line because you hit it in transition it scores a 0

But the instructors, who are good and know their stuff, say it's 1.5...and I'm telling you, it goes FAST
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Then it's not old school pneumatic.

They plug in the target presentation (full facing) time, so you're getting an extra 1/4 second on the front end while the target turns, adding 16.7% to the time frame. 1/4 second may not sound like much, but that's the average reaction time for someone poised to react to an impending stimulus. It's almost the same as starting with your hand on the gun.

Still, there's not much room for error and I applaud those guys for including this string of fire.
 
David E said:
Then it's not old school pneumatic.

They plug in the target presentation (full facing) time, so you're getting an extra 1/4 second on the front end while the target turns, adding 16.7% to the time frame. 1/4 second may not sound like much, but that's the average reaction time for someone poised to react to an impending stimulus. It's almost the same as starting with your hand on the gun.

Still, there's not much room for error and I applaud those guys for including this string of fire.
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Not old school. The entire firearms building was, I am almost positive, just built a handful of years ago. Mid to late 2000s, IIRC? It's VERY nice. Must've been expensive. There is also no audible for visual notice that they are about to turn...they just start doing so.

No, there is no room for error. If you have to so much as press your hood release a second time you are going to hold at least one shot, and even a relatively minor error can have you missing your chance at both shots entirely.

I am sure their standard is above the vast majority of departments.

The good news, stress wise, is that you shoot the entire course 3 times and you only have to get a passing score on two of them. You don't know scores of any until after shooting all 3. With 50 shots you can afford to drop one or two if you are reasonably skilled.
 
The reason I brought up the added time to the target facing that is sometimes cops believe they are more skilled than they really are.

To wit: talking to a cop friend he told me he can reload his gun in less than a second. Knowing how fast and difficult that really is and having seen him shoot, I was skeptical. I asked him how he did it. He described a sequence in their CoF where the target faced for 3 seconds requiring two shots, they faced away for ONE second during which a reload was required, then they refaced for another 3 seconds, requiring two more shots.

Their system was an older one where there was at least a full 1/2 to 1 second delay. Often, cops had their guns out waiting on the targets to fully face. Two fast shots, then they began their reload before the targets turned away for the ONE second. As a result, he honestly thought his 3.5 second reload was really ONE second because that was how long the target allegedly faced away. :rolleyes:
 
David E said:
Their system was an older one where there was at least a full 1/2 to 1 second delay. Often, cops had their guns out waiting on the targets to fully face. Two fast shots, then they began their reload before the targets turned away for the ONE second. As a result, he honestly thought his 3.5 second reload was really ONE second because that was how long the target allegedly faced away. :rolleyes:
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That is pretty funny.

I'm sure he really believed he was performing a 1 second reload
 
I have not read through the entire thread, but here is a response to the OP.


While my mother was looking into getting her CHL, she brought the subject up with a female counselor at one of the schools that she works at. It turned out, this counselor is a retired LAPD police officer and had actually fired her weapon in the line of duty....Not once, not twice, but three times. In total she had fired 13 rounds in the line of duty, and all of them were fired at (and hit) human aggressors.

She is not a huge gun person, but she knew that if she at any point had to use her firearm, there was no room for error. She said that she practiced once or twice outside of agency range-time (being a single mom didn't giver her much extra time). Is this typical of other police officers? Not at all. Is it typical of civilians who have found themselves in self defense situations? Also no.

There are some police officers that are great shots, and there are some that only shoot to qualify. The same can be said for civilian CHL holders. Is either group inherently more accurate than the other? We can't confirm or deny that.
 
That is so sad, that he could actually convince himself that that was true...and then to embarrass himself by telling other people :eek:. Think of how much fun it would be if they shortened that COF to 3 seconds total...running 1sec; 1sec; 1sec

Although I guess it isn't any worst than folks who fire one magazine through a pistol, hit somewhere on a silhouette, call it, "good enough for Minute of Man" and never practice again
 
The main reason I go to the range is repitition - mag in, cycle slide, de-cock, shoot, and then reload. In a self defense scenerio, I think gun dependability is number one, and closing the distance is key. Get one shot off fast.

As far as a cop's proficiency - that's like a pilot's proficiency. I can't help but think a simulator is the way to go.
 
As far as a cop's proficiency - that's like a pilot's proficiency.
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No, there's a big difference. People become pilots because they want to fly an airplane. Not all cops are into firearms.

Hand out free firearms to a random sample of the population and make them shoot twice a year. They probably won't score as well, compared to a group of people that choose to purchase firearms on their own.

There are other issues at play. A police officer is rarely going to be found personally liable for accidentally shooting an innocent bystander. They also always carry spare mags while on duty, and in the empire state incident, there were 9 officers. When you have 8 buddies carrying 50 rds each and almost no personal liability, you can afford to be a little more liberal on the trigger in the name of self-preservation. In fact, if I was one of those cops and the bad guy was actually shooting at me (small detail), I'd rather my buddies were shooting more rather than less.
 
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Maybe someone touched on this and I missed it. It seems the issue is that someone felt the private citizen is unable to effectively and safely defend themselves with firearms. The position was supported by reports in which police effectiveness was challenged despite the contention they were highly trained experts.

My experience with armed conflict is in the Army. It is hard to know how people will react when faced with the life and death struggle. Once downrange, there were some surprises, but, overall, the soldiers I was with performed very well, even when under fire. It was most, but not all.

Personally, I accepted the fact I may not survive and just stayed alert and ready. One of the things I learned is that one can do everything right and still fail. Real life does not offer up the well structured scenarios one sees in training, but it covers the fundamentals well enough to give you a chance.

People inexperienced with armed conflict may have unrealistic expectations. I knew guys who never seemed to miss at the range. How would they do in a crowded place? Maybe well, or maybe no better than the average.

The issue I see with civilians is that there are no defined standards of performance. I think minimal performance thresholds may be possible. In the end, good preparation can change the odds in our favor, but it will not completely determine the outcome.
 
on that +p 40 Buffalo Bore, I copied one of the reviews from the posted website,

I called Glock in Smyrna GA and spoke to the tech guy because I was concerned about the "supported chamber" comment. I read the description of this ammo to him, word for word, and he said that I could fire this without concern. Ray, this was in no way meant to be disrespectful to you. I am posting this so we all know what the Glock tech guy says. He did say that using Plus P ammo will wear the Glock, or any auto-loader, at a faster than normal rate. His recommendation was to use the Plus P for specific reasons and recreationally shoot with standard ammo. Hope this helps.
This was in reply to the comment that Glocks should not fire this ammo because of the non fully supported barrell.
There were also several comments in the review of the ammo which denied the fact that this was a +p load, just a jacked up load. I don't know what the difference is, it would seem that a +P load would be exactlly that, a hotter load than the regular 40.
The main reason I go to the range, is to functest the guns I own, and myself. Knowing I will never have the time I once had nor the resourses to shoot enough, "at least once a week" , I do the best I can and practice at home "dry firing" most days for a few minutes.
I found that if you handle your gun on a steady basis, you will stay fairlly close to where you would be shooting live ammo.
 
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One of the biggest things that bothered me about the ESB shooting was something I noticed on the video. The shooter was on the left side of the screen with an officer on the right, the officer was facing the wrong direction! Your pistol marksmanship is completely and utterly useless if you aren't shooting in the right direction. I have seen soldiers in the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan mess up the point of origin of a mortar attack close to a mile away, sure. But when a shooter is a few feet away and you miss it? That is just not a good sign.

I have trained a few police officers and put them through courses I have designed. They may fail the first few times but they all end up better shooters. One of my first students is a police officer back in VT who is a firearm instructor for his department. He uses my course whenever budget allows.
 
The problem is that if an officer is practicing with their firearm than they are technically "working" and so the department has to pay for it. Therefore, the department must authorize such practice time and these days not much extra time is authorized. There is also a matter of who is going to pay for the practice rounds. How many rounds would you say is enough for an officer to practice with on a monthly basis? Lets say 300 rounds per monthly practice session. Lets say $300 for 1000 rounds which is pretty much about $100+ per session of practice not to mention range fees if applicable, etc.

The final aspect is time. Officers nowadays spend a lot of time filling out reports more than anything else. Where will a department find the time to train an officer?

The average firearms enthusiast is better trained than the average officer or soldier/sailor/Marine. In fact, when I was in the US Army a lonnnggg time ago we only went to the range every once in a while and than we fired under very controlled circumstances with a limited amount of ammo. Most firearms enthusiasts go to the range a few times a month and blast off a lot of ammo...probably more ammo than most soldiers or police officers.
 
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