Documenting our kills—the future of global security services
Thursday, May 29, 2008 at 2:29AM ARTICLE: "11 Years of Police Gunfire, in Painstaking Detail," by Al Baker, New York Times, 8 May 2008, p. A1.
A theory of my brother Jerome: eventually the U.S. must be willing and able to document all kills internationally just like cops do here at home.
NYC, as so often in history, leads the way in such innovation. Every single police gun ever discharged, accounting for every single bullet, all packaged up in reports used for "lesson plans."
More than that, though, is the public's sense of responsibility for its police: you own every single bullet, every single death.
What's so cool about such analytical efforts and how they change both the training and the culture: in 1966 NYC cops fire 1,292 bullets. In 2006, they shoot only 540 bullets, including all the accidents and even the suicides. Only 60 times in 2006 do police fire at people, killing 13.
Amazing stuff.
Ultimately, this is the standard our military will adhere to: every single round.
I know it sounds fantastic from today's perspective, but the technology is not, just the policy and the effort.
Meet that standard and we're talking a far different global security culture. Just moving in that direction will speak volumes to the world about who we are as a nation.
Reader Comments (4)
The military can't get a SysAdmin operation going, so a "Shooting Investigations Team" might be out of the question . . and the budget also . . y'think?
But, eventually, there may be something comparable, or at least we could, for the most part eliminate "Free Fire Zones" . . as long as both sides adhere to the same rules . . We've had a lot of problems with that, according to my friends who have spent a couple of 12 month vacations in Iraq . .
Bullets were flying in both directions in the 60's. In 1968, in Chicago, 8 police officers were shot to death. I think we had 15 wounded by gunfire. The police were taking a "shoot first" attitude that led to a record in 1975 when I believe we shot 135 civilians. That is a lot of folks. The city administration put it's foot down. Not because of any compassion for the citizenry, but because the city could not afford the costs involved. The lawsuits were depleting the treasury.
The solution was to start in the Police Academy with the new recruits. The Academy staff was basically ordered to mislead, yes that's right, mislead the recruits into thinking that there was virtually no justification for the use of "Deadly Force". The recruits were told that if they shot anybody, for any reason, that they were gong to be in real trouble. Dire warnings of criminal charges, firings, lawsuits were pounded into the recruits heads for all 14 weeks. It did not take very long for it to work. The Department did not have to wait for a complete turnover of personnel for this to take effect. Older officers do not get involved in shootings. The "shooters" are usually young officers with under 15 years seniority. So in about 5 years, you had cut the population of "shooters' down considerably.
Then by 1990 we had problems with Police Officers who were not using deadly force. We were seeing young police officers who were getting shot at and not returning fire. I was supervising an investigation where an officer was fired at twice (at two separate points in a foot chase) before the officer finally decided to return fire as the offender was shooting at him a third time. The young policeman was very upset and worried about getting in trouble. I had to take him aside and give him a "heart to heart". He was not in trouble and, in fact, he was given an award for bravery.
Lawsuits did it. When I would tell young Detectives that I shot 3 men and none of the shootings resulted in a lawsuit they could not believe it. You shoot now...you get sued.
Another factor that has reduced the number of rounds fired is the use of SWAT or HBT units. Before SWAT, the responding officers had to handle whatever they found anyway they could. Barricaded gunman....oh baby....look out! The biggest gun battle I ever saw took place at a housing project. Two police officers had been ambushed (minor wounds due to the gunman only having birdshot rounds in his shotgun and he was firing from long range) and the responding officers were angry. The Black Panthers had a large following in the project and they were itching for a fight. When I got there ( I had to investigate the ambush) I saw red tracer going in and green tracer coming back out. The department did not have tracer rounds. Since there was no SWAT, the officers on patrol carried their own "heavy weapons" and their own extra ammo. The supervisors looked the other way. I would estimate that between 1500 and 2000 rounds were fired by the police that night. Maybe 200 to 300 by the residents of the project. They even managed to drive the police helicopter away with ground fire. No other officers were injured in that exchange. No citizens reported injuries but the Panthers had ways of getting gunshots attended to without having to go to hospitals.
A police officer who shoots a citizen faces a grueling investigation. The officer has to come face to face with the person he shoots. The officer sees the result. Sometimes, they don't die right away. Sometimes you have to wait outside the emergency room with the Detectives and the supervisors. It's a very lonely feeling. If you kill someone you have to eventually face their family members in court or at an inquest. Even when it is a "good" shooting, it is tough to face grieving or angry people.
It is not the same as dropping a 1000 pounder from 10,000 feet and then going back to the "O" Club for cocktails.
US forces have fired so many bullets in Iraq and Afghanistan - an estimated 250,000 for every insurgent killed - that American ammunition-makers cannot keep up with demand. As a result the US is having to import supplies from Israel.
A government report says that US forces are now using 1.8 billion rounds of small-arms ammunition a year.
That's a lot of counting.