LEO's: PCP?

[.351winchester]

We have all heard the true stories-unbelievable and gruesome failures to stop, the stuff of zombie movies. Usual behavior ranges from disassociation (staring at the wall, basically comatose) to bizarre acts similar to the seizures of temporal lobe epileptics(nudity, climbing furnature, jumping from windows or trying to float in water).
However there are the petty crooks on dust, who out of the blue(no previous violence*), commit a 7-11 holdup and decide to shoot it out with responding officers. Taking dozens of COM hits with zero effect. Getting their forearm blown off at the elbow and using it to club the EMT's working on him. Or the enraged ones who wanna go barehanded, and 8 grown men cannot overpower. It's pretty scary stuff to think about, particularly if all you have to rely on is a handgun. 1982 was the year this crap was the thing. As far as what I've read, today, the drug is particular to specific cities (such as DC, NY, Buffalo, St. Louis, and the major cities in CA). And as a boost to low grade pot, not so much requested or purchased itself. I have never known anyone who knew anyone who did it. Is it still a common street drug in your estimation, and do these ridiculous situations still go on.

I've read of a chemical produced in the brain of those using cocaine and alcohol together called cocaethelyne(sp?), which makes a person incapacitation/death proof, beyond PCP, outside of being laid on their chest or hogtied (which will suffocate them). A lot of people do blow and every one of them drinks with it. Probably no superhuman strength stuff, but that being impervious to pain, and a seeming removal of the body's death instinct let alone self preservation.

Just something I was thinking about, how common is it that you guys or civilians have to deal with whacked out dust heads.

*I recall a film in school where this hippy woke up in a cell, bewildered to be in jail, no memory of how he came to be locked up. They asked if he used drugs and he said weed occasionally. They told him apparantly his last bag was laced with PCP and while out he had decapitated his two year old kid.

[TargetTerror]

which makes a person incapacitation/death proof, beyond PCP, outside of being laid on their chest or hogtied (which will suffocate them)

Anyone has the capability to continue a fight right up until their body is no longer physically capable of fighting. In many cases, people will choose to stop fighting well before they have expired.

Harder drugs that anesthetize or otherwise make people impervious to pain simply help a person stay in the fight longer. There is no drug that will act as a bullet proof vest. The body is a system, and when key parts of that system have been dismantled, the body ceases to function.

[.351winchester]

Today, was thumbing through Handgun Stopping Power (just for amusing stories) and kept seeing Angel Dust being brought up. I know adrenaline coupled with determination and a trapped rat outlook make someone keep going strong when a normal person would drop over dead. I just started thinking though. CNS hits are what are called for in any confrontation your life is in danger. I train shooting COM (and Mozambiques, secondary pelvic hits with buckshot(not that I believe in it just a drill for when something isn't working), etc.). Michael Platt was clean as a whistle when they ran his fluids and look at what he did from a completely unsurvivable wound minutes after. This PCP crap though...I dunno. Seems like you either have to wait for them to bleed out or have cardiac or respitory failure, or blow their medulla/brain stem out the back of their skull. These guys were were taking the brunt. 30+ rounds of .38 spl, 9mm,everything. Solid hits. Maybe someone should have went over and buttstroked them on the jaw. It just doesn't seem right that a guy with literally a chest full of lead can continue functioning like that.
I mean damn, I read about this guy in NY, a biker IIRC who was still on his feet after taking 18 12 gauge slugs. 18! That's over a pound of lead and 3/4" diameter on entry. The guy's brain was "exposed". I just wonder what it's like to have to deal with such a thing. Seeing a man blown apart by 12 gauge slugs and keep shooting at you is flat out scary. That is what we train for, to use our weapons to eliminate a threat. And factor in failures to stop, what we need to do, when there is no psychologicial stop or (normal human) physical stop. There are a LOT of these stories I've heard/read, not even looking for them. Like I said we all have to train for the worst, but I think if somebody lives where there are bums and thugs smoking this crap, rubbing it into their retinas or belly buttons straight, either move, or prepare to break them in two. They will not lose interest or fear their life with a doubletap in the sternum.
I think these people (if this goes on anymore), are in a class by themselves of invincibility. No matter how pissed, numb off drugs, guy taking crap all his life now at a breaking point, anything. When you read of impossible failures to stop PCP gets mentioned alot. For me, there's nothing scarier than the thought of putting a bullet in a guy's head and he keeps coming.

[rantingredneck]

My only encounter with someone on PCP was during the first week of my first psychology internship. My supervisor was called to the local ER to evaluate a patient for involuntary commitment and I got to tag along. He and his girlfriend had been doing PCP. He dove out a third story window. Other than a broken arm and some cuts and bruises he wasn't severely injured. When EMS and the police arrived he fought them. The reporting officer, who was there at the ER with the patient, said it took five of them to secure him. The guy on the gurney in front of us must've weighed about 110lbs soaking wet. His eyes were absolutely wild and twitchy. He was too high to even functionally communicate with my supervisor. He ended up going to the psych ward for a bit. Not sure what happened to him after that, but I'm sure he had some legal issues to sort out.

[j-framer]

Interesting subject.

I hope more LEOs chime in on this thread, because though we've all heard horror stories about invincible drug-taking zombies, I for one am not sure how seriously to take such tales.

Having someone absorb 8-10 rounds of .40 COM with no effect sounds very unlikely to me, but even though it stretches the limits of believability, I think I could eventually bring myself to accept that it could happen in the case of a big boy doped up on some very potent chemicals.

But when the claims become more fantastic than this, my natural skepticism kicks in and I would need solid evidence to convince me. For example,

I mean damn, I read about this guy in NY, a biker IIRC who was still on his feet after taking 18 12 gauge slugs. 18! That's over a pound of lead and 3/4" diameter on entry. The guy's brain was "exposed". I just wonder what it's like to have to deal with such a thing. Seeing a man blown apart by 12 gauge slugs and keep shooting at you is flat out scary.

18 12 gaugle slugs? I can't believe it, unless most of them only grazed the subject. I would have to see this in person. Of course, I understand you are only referencing stories you have read and are not vouching for this one's accuracy.

Also,

For me, there's nothing scarier than the thought of putting a bullet in a guy's head and he keeps coming.

It is indeed a frightening thought. There have been incidents where people have been shot in the head (major calibers, good hits, not glancing wounds) and survived or were able to continue functioning immediately afterwards. But in the cases that I have heard of, they survived because they were freakishly lucky with regard to the trajectory of the bullet or some other anatomy-related issue. These were not cases of junkies hopped up on some wonder drug that permitted them to withstand a head shot that would have instantly felled a normal person. A single, accurate skull shot with a .45? That is lights-out time, in my opinion. It would take some very graphic proof to convince me that our PCP-fueled friend could shrug it off and keep coming.

In a book titled "Living with Glocks", the author, in the process of extolling the virtues of the .45 ACP caliber, references an apocryphal tale of some wacked-out juvenile offender who chewed through his handcuffs (no joke, supposedly a true story). This is the kind of thing that sets off my BS alarm. A human being chews through handcuffs? No sir, not unless they were made of pine wood. Some of these stories seem merely to be testing the gullibility of the audience.

But let's hear from some LEOs who have been there, hopefully (or maybe not, on second thought ).

[DesertDawg]

I was a LEO from 1971 to 2002, and dealt with numerous "dusters". For that matter, I may have arrested one of the FIRST users of PCP....a 16 year old kid that broke into a vet's office back in the mid-1970's.

PCP doesn't give a person "super-human" strength, but it does inhibit their threshold of pain. One particular "duster" drove his motorcycle through a tempered glass window and sustained numerous deep cuts, but he felt no pain. When I came upon him, he was walking out of the building that he had driven his motorcycle into, and he was yelling that he was "God"! His entire body was covered with blood, and several shards of glass were sticking out of his wounds. Now, this may sound funny, but I had talked with several "Gods" before that one, and most of them would calm down if you spoke to them in a soft, understanding way. Fortunately for that man, my partner and I came along before he bled to death! The Paramedics and medical personnel also "soft-talked" to him while treating his wounds. When "God" came out of it, he had no recollection of what he had done, but he DID remember having smoked a PCP-dipped cigarette.

A person under the influence of PCP will have a very fast-paced pulse AND their body temperature will go almost sky-high (106-108 degrees). Many times, due to their increased pulse rate, they will seem hyper-active, but not in ALL cases. Also, due to the increased body temperature, the few brain cells that are still working properly MAY cause them to want to cool off (i.e., strip off their clothing OR jump into water). Quite a few "accidental" drownings were due to the "dusters" jumping into water to cool off, but not "remembering" how to swim.

As far as I know, the only "accepted"/effective ways of dealing with people under the influence of PCP are: (A) Speak to them in a soft-toned voice, and do not use "harsh" words, (B) If possible, douse them with cool water, which will at least give them temporary relief from their elevated body temp, and (C) Place a cool (not cold) towel over their face, to cool off their "cooking" brain. NOTE: "COLD" water or ice could cause them to go into immediate shock. Lastly, get them immediately to a medical facility!

By the way, you don't need to ingest PCP (smoking it or drinking it) to cause you problems! I've known several officers that had PCP liquid thrown at them, or they came into contact with it by merely handling containers that had particles on them. And lastly, I've seen individuals that had "flash-backs" from PCP usage....as much as 5 years AFTER they had used it! I'm certainly glad that the "trend" usage faded out!

[Double Naught Spy]

*I recall a film in school where this hippy woke up in a cell, bewildered to be in jail, no memory of how he came to be locked up. They asked if he used drugs and he said weed occasionally. They told him apparantly his last bag was laced with PCP and while out he had decapitated his two year old kid.

Yeah, that was one of the anti-drug horror films shown in schools. The one I saw in my school talked about the guy who thought he could fly and repeatedly jumped off the 3rd story balcony until it finally killed him. The people interviewed in the film about the terrible event turned out to all be actors, including the cops.

Don't put a lot of stock into such propaganda films unless you can verify their sources.

[Alex45ACP]

Aim for the head, and learn chokes if you're into unarmed fighting. Doesn't matter how strong someone is, if you have a blood choke locked in they're going to sleep within a few seconds.

[sterno]

There was a cop here in Louisiana that was shot in the head with a .45 by looters during the aftermath of Katrina. It was a penetrating wound that required multiple surguries. As of today, he's suing the NOPD because they're jerking him around with his job and pay (I.e. he's not dead and not a vegetable).

PCP or not, one bullet to any part of the human anatomy is gaurantee of nothing.

[Fishyfish]

people are usually more offensive than defensive. aim for the head, or learn some chokes, I agree.

Last time I ended up kicking the poor guy in the balls. I let him go, he was crying...

[CamoCop]

PCP is a high octane pain killer. i believe (not positive) it was developed by our government during Vietnam for field amputations.

[Salazar Schlitz]

I've heard a story from one of my NHP buddies(sub-rural NV) where a sheriff/cowboy actually choked out an unarmed shermhead with a cow lasso.


Maybe you guys should all start carrying a rodeo lasso on your duty belt.

[teeroux]

I mean damn, I read about this guy in NY, a biker IIRC who was still on his feet after taking 18 12 gauge slugs. 18! That's over a pound of lead and 3/4" diameter on entry. The guy's brain was "exposed". I just wonder what it's like to have to deal with such a thing. Seeing a man blown apart by 12 gauge slugs and keep shooting at you is flat out scary.

obviously he was not on drugs he was a zombie and 18 shots were justified:

[dchi]

I can't tell you about PCP. I worked as a LEO from 1999-2003. Only crack,meth and weed were popular. Don't believe everything you hear. A friend of mine was involved in a shooting. The suspect was shot 12 times in the chest with a G22 .40. Department ammo at the time was Fed HS 155. The guy was only about 7 feet from the detective. As he took one step toward the officer, the detective unloaded. I think the perp was still taking rounds as he was falling foward. He reported that the guy kept comming but measured crime scene shows the guy took about 2 steps. We did some test and showed that 11 shots could be fired in as little as 2 seconds. We believe this wasn't really a failure to stop but rather the guy just hadn't fallen down yet. My friend did report seeing the rounds hit his chest and it puffing up. He said the guy seemed unfazed but this was only about 2 seconds. The guy died about 6-7 feet from where he was 1st shot. I think you can find this some where on the news. About 2002 Louiville PD shoots man 11 times in handcuffs and kills him. BTW the handcuff part is true but many criminals can bring their hand all the way around even when cuffed. He had a box cutter and the room was only about 10-12' wide. officers were Brian Luckett and Mike O'neal. Dept name changed to Louisville Metro in 2003.

[Rifleman 173]

We had one guy who weighed in at about 130 pounds and about 5'6' tall get juiced up on PCP. By the time it was over, it had taken 5 really BIG cops and slightly over 20+ firemen and paramedics to bring him under control and get him to a hospital. He literally tore up a hotel room where he had been staying to the point that it was no longer usable. Just about every piece of furniture in the room was destroyed, which is what started everything, along with every piece of glass. At the end, it took two pairs of cuffs, leg restraints and plastic tie downs to be able to bring him in.

[David Armstrong]

I hope more LEOs chime in on this thread, because though we've all heard horror stories about invincible drug-taking zombies, I for one am not sure how seriously to take such tales.

Not very seriously would be my suggestion. First, if you delve into the literature most of the same type of stories have been said about every drug. Heck read some of the early anti-marijuana stories about how the weed made women want to strip off their clothes and have sex with anybody close, and how it made the men into unstoppable monsters who felt no pain and had super-human strength. Same thing about cocaine and so on. Now you get the meth monsters and such. The interesting thing, (to me) is that youget the same stories about folks who did not have any drugs in theri system, or were boozed up. Some people are hard takedowns, period. Desert Dawg probably has the best info posted here, IMO.

[Double Naught Spy]

PCP is a high octane pain killer. i believe (not positive) it was developed by our government during Vietnam for field amputations.

Nope, developed in the 1950s by Park-Davis for use on humans, but not necessarily for battlefield amputations.

http://www.nida.nih.gov/Infofacts/PCP.html

Because of the disassociative side effects, it was discontinued for human use in 1965, but has found veternary applications.

[in625shooter]

I will never say I know everything. I have worked in LE of some sort for 21 years. I am on a federal swat team and firearms instructor. So I've seen a thing or two also. What a lot of agencies are going to is plan C. Everyone thinks two in the chest and one to the head is a cure all. That will probably not be as efective as fast as you need it to be in a case of someone "tanked up" on some substance. what we teach is when possible to take out/ shoot for the pelvic bone/ball joint region. crack that ball joint/pelvic bone it dosen't matter what they are "tanked up on" they are going down. it becomes physically impossible for their bone structure to support their weight after that point.
that is the best alternative but remember this is when Murphy rases his head so there are never any gurantees.

[Sarge]

PCP goes back a long time.

A couple of days before Christmas '81 and I'm a rookie riding a radio car for a metro area PD. We're having a dandy snowstorm, about 8" on the ground, temps in the single-digits with 30 mph gusts. I get a call on a young W/M doing karate moves in the middle of the street in his skivvies. So I wheel over there and sure enough, a tall skinny white kid is out there in the blowing snow making like Kung Fu.

So I park the lit-up cruiser in front of him & get out; it's pretty easy to see that he ain't armed. He's staring at my overheads with this apprehensive, 500-yards stare and I says "Hey pal, you're gonna freeze to death. Settle down and come on over here to the car so we can get warm."

He grunts some guttural, illegible sound and throws a roundhouse kick at my head, which is fast and not poorly executed; but I have just endured 16 weeks of PT hell, wind sprints and learning fighting from/having my ass kicked by bona-fide experts in several disciplines. So I blocked most of the kick upward, kicked out his support knee and stuffed my elbow deep between his shoulder blades as he started down. His head sounded like a melon hitting the snowpacked street.

He jumped straight up, took a swing at me and took off down the street; at this you might say I was a little surprised.

This kid is maybe 6'1"/175 and I'm about 5'11" and at the time, 195 pounds of hard muscle. I run him down and and as he turns & tries to charge me, I clothesline him. His head goes splat on the road again & I get a knee in his neck. He is finally winded and I get the cuffs on him in time to see my backup come sliding in. As John gets out we hear a woman screeching at us from her door and soon determine this is the caller, and Superboy's Momma. Superboy BTW is near-nekkid, has been outside for at least 30 minutes, and had his ass kicked twice. He is starting to turn purple so we take him inside to get him warmed up and get Mom's story.

Once we're inside Superboy sees Momma and says "You're DEAD, bitch." Now you don't talk to your Momma like that where I come from so he gets told to shut up. This PO's him further and he winds up on his belly with John astraddle of him. Our plan is to get basic info on what happened, clothes for him, a GOS signed and the three of us outta there- post haste.

About that time I notice the sister, a rather comely lass with that same 500-yard stare, walking in from a back room. She screeches at John to 'Get the F___ off my brother' and starts right by me toward my partner. I caught her arm and said "Sit DOWN there, shut up, or go to jail. Your choice." She listens, gives her account when asked, and all is well- for a fleeting second.

I hear a grunt-thump from the living room and Superboy (still cuffed behind his back) has bucked John off and is up on his feet. He comes charging across the room toward Momma, who I step in front off, preparing for Smackdown Number Three. Superboy however veers off and runs right through the Christmas tree & packages, destroying all. Folks, pain compliance will not work on a frostbitten man who can run naked, cuffed behind his back, through a Christmas tree. It did at least make him fall down again. When he got up I whipped a LVNR on him until he went limp; that resolved his issues for awhile.

Sis lost it about then, turned and ran out through the patio door. Which was closed. Mom just stood there and screamed. John, who had the foresight to radio for an ambulance, ran out the busted patio door and bulldogged Sis. I teased him about that later and told him the only reason he showed up at all was so he could wrestle the blonde on the back porch. Amazingly, she had but a few minor cuts from her little wreck.

We back-boarded Superboy and loaded him into the ambulance, for a trip to jail via the hospital. Sis was patched up & hauled straight in. Mom signed the complaint, screeched some more, and set about cleaning up the mess. To her credit she didn't try and bond anybody out that night.

The hospital staff told me later that the kid was definitely on PCP, and Sis probably had a little too. I was glad he didn't have a knife, club or other weapon handy that night, and determined then and there that I would shoot any SOB who had 'that stare', any weapon or dangerous instrument, and momentum in my direction.

Back in those days dusters were making it into a liquid, soaking their zig-zags in it and then smoking weed in them for a 'double whammy'. I'm sure some were ingesting it through other means.

I'm an old-school cop and not a big proponent of 'zero tolerance' or the failed war on drugs which has caused more casualties among individual freedoms, than anywhere else. I do believe however that anybody caught dealing PCP should rot in prison until they're ready for adult diapers.

[Night Trooper]

The answer to the original question of if it's still out there and is it seen is yes.
I've seen it a few times in the past 6 months but thankfully people have been just carrying it or mellowly high. Apparently it's the thing nowadays in our area (MA) to sprinkle some in when rolling your favorite blunt (MJ in cigar tobacco/wrapper). One of my buddies repsonded to a woman who decided to stop her car in the middle lane of a highway high as a kite on PCP/pot. She was mellow, thought she was in another state. 2nd arrest for this specimen for same gig in 1 year. Not looking forward to people eating it. My only taser has a .40 cal hole

BTW: in625shooter - I like plan C, favorite of the infantry. Also the femoral artery (hold thumb up, look and appreciate the diameter of how big that vessel is) runs in that area. Hands can keep moving but usually are a bit distracted as the pelvis gives way.......

[T. O'Heir]

"...PCP or not, one bullet to any part of the human anatomy is gaurantee of nothing..." Exactly. No handgun round gives you a 100% guraranteed one shot stop.

[Double Naught Spy]

A couple of days before Christmas '81 and I'm a rookie riding a radio car for a metro area PD.

Wow, in MO you still called them "radio cars" in the 1980s? Holy cow. I thought that term went back to the transition from call boxes...or were y'all still using call boxes just prior to the 1980s?

[Harrigan]

I read the story relayed above but it was 18 .38 cal and then ESU came on the seen and ended it with a few 12 gag slugs. All the same it shows the random posibilities of stopping power.

[Jeff #111]

No PCP experiences during my past seven years as a LEO. However I had a heck of a fight with a 100 lb female back in the winter of 2002. She was a diagnosed schitzophrenic who had stopped taking her meds and was self-medicating with Meth. She slugged me between my eyes, broke my glasses, kicked my partner and made a run for a cutting knife.

This was pre-taser so I slammed her to the ground and my partner (a bodybuilder) landed between her shoulderblades. She was a handful, but light and crazy. A fight but not unstopable. The hospital actually pulled out the straitjacket which hadn't been used for years, but the meds weren't having any effect. The state committed her to a state hospital. She was a H&W "client".

I've also dealt with other tough folks who were just very determined. No Meth, PCP, alcohol or anything else had been taken by them. Some folks are just tough like another poster typed.

[Sarge]

Wow, in MO you still called them "radio cars" in the 1980s? Holy cow. I thought that term went back to the transition from call boxes...or were y'all still using call boxes just prior to the 1980s?

The terminology was used out of respect for the grizzled old salts who still used that term when they taught me the job. We laughed at them too.

Behind their backs, of course...those old boys would hurt you.