I've subscribed to Police Magazine during the academy and it is a wealth of knowledge. I've been catching up on a few issues and this article from the Shots Fired column caught my eye. A good review of what happens when this becomes real. I've highlighted a few items.
Shots Fired #100: Anywhere, USA
The first POLICE Magazine "Shots Fired" article was published in June 2005. I've written one for every issue since. And that makes this our 100th article in the series. So I'm going to step outside the normal formula of our concept and talk about some things I've learned and some heroic officers I've had the honor of interviewing.
Consider the following examples:
- Number 13 (June 2006) detailed Rapid City, S.D., Officer Spencer O'Bryan's off-duty confrontation with an armed prowler outside his own home.
- Number 37 (June 2009) chronicled how South Congaree, S.C., Officer Jason Pruitt'sact of kindness led to a life-or-death struggle with a violent felon who was determined to kill the officer with his own sidearm.
Developing the Concept
- Number 81 (February 2012) featured Skokie, Ill., Officer Tim Gramins' harrowing street shootout with a robbery suspect.
...That "Shots Fired" would lead to an abundance of story topics was a given. Unfortunately, there are an awful lot of officers who face the ultimate threat on the job. And thankfully, most of these officers survive and prevail.
Less anticipated were the vagaries of issues that the "Shots Fired" stories would touch upon. While the importance of training and mindset was often in evidence, sometimes the focus shifted to the aftermath of the incident—how it became controverted in the media or the psychological impact that it had on the officer.
Throughout, the one constant has been an emphasis on officer safety. To that end, sidebars have accompanied the articles to pose questions of readers based upon the involved officer's experiences. Online comments posted by many readers have been particularly insightful and empathetic with the officers and their predicaments.
Stories of Heroes
The benchmark for candor was set by San Bernardino County, Calif., Sheriff's Dep. Jason Hendrix. His courageous honesty in detailing his every effort to save lives during an off-duty shootout in a parking lot covered everything from ballistic intervention to begging for his life when his gun ran dry and his assailant loomed over him for an execution shot—which the man then took.
While Hendrix's collective actions probably saved his life, one reader incredibly characterized Hendrix's conduct as "cowardly." Of all the sentiments ever shared in connection with anything I have ever written, none has outraged me more. Of course this reader showed great courage by posting his comment anonymously.
Fighting Back
Beyond their willingness to talk about their experiences in this and other forums—including training academies, interviews, and podcasts—the officers featured in "Shots Fired" have displayed their heroism with their ability to take initiative and take the fight to their attackers.
In fighting for their lives, as well as the lives of citizens and fellow officers, the "Shots Fired" subjects have called upon a variety of inspirations. Several officers articulated their faith as instrumental to their survival.
Having something to live for also counts a lot, and the impetus for several officers to prevail in their deadly engagements was often thoughts of their loved ones. Thoughts of missing his son's birthday party weighed heavily on Tim Gramins' mind during his firefight and provided him with added incentive to persevere.
"I was about to get off at six for family dinner and birthday cake," recalled Gramins. "There was no way I was not going to go home—on that day especially."
Orange County, Fla., Sheriff's Dep. Jennifer Fulford's determination to attend her own wedding saw her getting the better of two armed suspects in a residential garage, despite suffering multiple gunshots herself. My God, I haven't even had a chance to really experience life, she found herself thinking at the time. I haven't had children yet. I just ordered my wedding dress. But, I will not die here. I will fight with my every strength to see to it that I get out of here alive.
Training and Equipment
Perhaps no factors were more important to an officer surviving a shooting than his or her training and mindset. While all were indebted to the training afforded them by their agencies, more than one appreciated the legacies of prior employers. One carry-over from Orange County, Calif., Sheriff's Dep. Richard Olszynski's experience as a Marine was the importance of aggressiveness in a gunfight (October 2010).
"We were taught to close the distance and engage the enemy," recalls Olszynski. "In one sense, it helped me to be quick. But looking back, once I got between cars (in engaging the suspect), I should have slowed down; still doing a fairly good pace, but slowing down a bit."
Sometimes the tactical training received by the officers was very timely. The "shrimping" technique Montrose, Colo., Police Officer Rodney Ragsdale learned in an officer survival course came into play only two weeks later when he found himself fired upon at a suspect's residence (April 2012). Collapsing his body into a jackknife position then springing his extremities outward, Ragsdale was able to propel himself along the floor and out of the kill zone.
The importance of effective communication was also often a key factor in the way a shooting evolved. And lack of early communication between newly paired officers sometimes complicated their shootings, as the officers were unfamiliar with each other's tactical leanings. Incidents involving officers from neighboring departments or involving state police officers highlighted training and communications tactics that worked well, and those that did not.
Perhaps nothing frustrated officers more than equipment failures, whether it was a "stovepiped" gun, a broken radio, blocked or garbled radio signals, subpar ammunition (that typically was subsequently replaced by the department), or disabled patrol cars.
Sharing Lessons Learned
Still, the heightened drama created by individual setbacks was never eclipsed by the lessons learned by each of the officers, for every "Shots Fired" protagonist had a message to share.
Several officers demonstrated the advantages of using their cars for cover and concealment, and when away from their cars, using the natural or manmade landscape as a protective barrier.
Whether dodging bullets, shielding themselves from shattering glass, chasing suspects, engaging in close combat, or lying disabled on the ground, the ways in which officers returned fire and took the fight to the suspects were as diverse as the officers. They skipped rounds off of the pavement and shot through windshields. They fired point blank at their assailants. And some who were wounded in their strong hands, reloaded and shot back using their weak hands.
Lessons learned came not only in regard to the shootings, but in aftermath considerations.Many of the wounded officers that we interviewed were deposited in the backseats of radio cars by their comrades for frantic drives to the nearest hospitals. And they ironically found themselves more worried about being killed in collisions on the way to trauma care than dying from their gunshot wounds. Well-intentioned peers who transport wounded warriors for medical treatment should remember to keep their own emotions in check to avoid getting into crashes or needlessly elevating the blood pressures of their bleeding comrades through reckless driving.
The support offered to shooting survivors by fellow officers, both during and after the incidents, was always acknowledged. Similar kudos have been given to rangemasters and officer survival trainers.
After Care
The immediacy of physical and psychological responses to a shooting has always intrigued me. And within these columns is a wealth of insight to the myriad peculiarities that can be experienced while under the stress of a firefight.
While all of the officers expressed candor, some of that candor included regrets and fears that they preferred to not see attributed to them in print. Some of these sentiments have been deferred until now. And I won't identify which officers expressed them.
The most common regret was a belief by the officers that they didn't follow their visceral instincts early in the situation. Several believed that they might have avoided injury—or possibly mitigated the need for a firefight—if they had proceeded upon an alternate course of action that they previously considered. In some cases, it was an unwillingness to request backup for fear of imposing upon another unit. In others, it was the temptation to take action before additional personnel was on scene. More than one acknowledged that these suppressive thoughts were hardly unique and that they'd been indulged on prior occasions without repercussion—but not so on the day of the shooting.
Las Vegas Metro Police Lt. Randy Sutton had already been in four prior shootings the night that he dropped a suspect with a long gun. But he experienced a different dynamic with the "suicide-by-cop" that occurred in January 2008. (May 2012)
"This was different for me because all of the other shootings were me against them in a single combat situation," notes Sutton. "When you're tactical commander, like on a SWAT team, you're making that decision all the time. But when you're a patrol commander, that situation doesn't arise very often. So giving that order, which was tantamount to ordering the death of another human being, is different and it plays differently in your mind than just you making a decision about your own personal combat."...
The point of this column (or any after action review) is not to tell war stories. It's to show how things really happen and prepare others in case of similar issues. Great column Mr Scoville and great work over the years to prepare others for something we hope never happens.
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