(NYPD) Beyond the Record Lows, Data on Police Shootings Offer a Wealth of Details

[alp227]

Source: NYT

Last year, 52 officers from the New York Police Department fired a total of 236 bullets during confrontations with suspects. About half of the officers used a two-handed grip on their firearm, as the department encourages, while the others shot one-handed. And in a sign of just how tense these 33 separate shooting episodes were, and how rapidly they unfolded, only one officer reported using the gun’s sight before firing.

The department’s latest annual firearms-discharge report provides further evidence of the steep decline in shootings by the police in recent decades. It also catalogs a rich array of details gleaned from internal reviews of each shooting, in the hope of improving training for officers.

Among its findings, the report found that a greater percentage of shootings happen from a distance of 6 to 10 feet than from 1 to 5 feet. The report also notes that one officer fired from a distance of more than 50 feet and missed.

Still, the most significant lesson to be gleaned from the report is perhaps just how rare shootings have become.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/nyregion/2010-ny-police-shooting-report-shows-record-lows.html

[Flagrante]

1. Now they taser people instead of shoot them

The article tries to push the 'Cops are showing restraint these days' meme, but I suspect shootings have gone down because taser use is easier and has less paper work to do afterwords, plus it's more like torture.

[DCKit]

2. What you said. nt

[lunatica]

3. Tasering and pepper spraying and rubber bullets and their like have gone up

According to Rachel, these non-lethal weapons are used more widely because they're non-lethal 'to protect people', but she also points out that if non-lethal weapons are actually being used in cases where lethal ones would be used then why did they pepper spray people like the 84 year old woman in Seattle? Would they have used a gun on her if they had no alternative?

She made a great point. And she had many more examples. Rachel is nothing if not thorough.

[caseymoz]

4. This report praising police restraint just happens to come out now?

When the police have a PR problem concerning restraint? I suppose there are stranger coincidences.

[russspeakeasy]

5. Those stats are from the police. They are also reflect only

"issued" firearms, not personal "shoot and drop pieces".