A story all CPL holders should read & why you need plenty of ammo

[Spindrift]

Killed over a happy meal? Are you kidding me? NO amount of money is worth a life.

Poor judgment on the cop's behalf. Contrary to popular belief, police are under NO obligation to put themselves in harms way or protect any individual while on duty, much less off. He made a conscious decision, and a bad one. He had a choice and nobody forced him to be confrontational.

He started out on the right foot getting people out because he was privy to information most did not have. There's no way of knowing, but if he'd just stood there staring at the menu in a trance like most customers the perp would most likely have run past him and exited without incident. He had his money, there's no reason to believe he wanted any confrontation. Had he been in uniform, that would have been a different story. The BG never raised his gun until the cop "announced" himself.

With awesome power comes awesome responsibility. He forced the perp into a gun fight, and bears responsibility for his actions. I know one thing for sure. If I had been in the cops place and done what he did with the same results, I'd STILL be rotting in jail here, and all of my guns would be confiscated, and I'd be being sued by SO many people.

What was he hoping to do... save Mickey D's money? For what? Let the darn guy run away if he's running away.

My heart breaks for the cop, his family, the dead girl and everyone involved, except the BG. He could have robbed the place with a butter knife and everyone including himself would likely be alive. I doubt the employees gave ANY resistance at all even if he had no weapon.

I know... hind sight is 20/20 and who am I to judge not having been there.

Very sad story.

[BillCA]

Originally Posted by Mr Dish

Seems to me that this may be a very educational post if it is completely true....LEO admitting that he should've simply left with his family? It is presents itself as pure proof that the Police are not there to protect us. That is why we must maintain the right to protect ourselves. I was always under the impression that is was the duty of LEOs to do what he did, get as many people to safety then attempt to stop the BG.Monday morning Quarterbacking is the only reason he has doubted his reactions. He had no way of knowing if the BG killed the employees in the back office or what his next intention was. The death of the innocent girl is very unfortunate but could not have been prevented unless you look back after the dust has settled.

I sense some confusion. The officer is off-duty with his family with him. His first obligation is to himself and his family, if it's to anyone. No one could, nor should, expect him to willfully subject his family to danger. Second, a LEO's duty is to act in the best interests of public safety (which I believe the officer attempted to do in this case) but also not to make stupid decisions. If he felt he was outgunned or outnumbered, I would expect him to exit and provide intel to the arriving on duty officers.

What are the lessons here?
From the citizen's point of view:
- Getting yourself and family to safety is paramount.
- If you can get others to safety along with you, great.
- Stay low-key to avoid "escalating" the situation to a gunfight.
- Good training is a high priority. Perfect practice makes perfect.
- You should be able to reload your weapon at least once, just in case.
- No matter how much the angels smile on you, expect Murphy to pi** in your coffee.

The tragic death of the young girl is squarely upon the head of the BG. The officer tried to send his family to safety and then get as many people out of the line of fire as possible. If he'd had more time, I suspect he would have been the last one out of the building. I see his actions as commendable and about as solid as can be expected working alone.

[Old Wanderer]

The one thing that has not been commented on in this article is the stupidity or apathy or the general public.

When told to get down, move or get out, how many just stood there???

I have seen this in my personal experience, where I drew a weapon, and told my date to get down, HUH was the response. Totally brain dead to the danger.

I have been in this restaurant numerous times. It is huge. When the BG appeared from the office, I believe the officer was totally focused, and believed those he had told to leave, had indeed followed instructions. Even his wife, who he had coached did not manage to leave.

In my case, I did not have to fire, as I was able to remain concealed behind a post until the BG walked by me, them I put my gun to his ear. Somehow he did not want to engage me. However, my date asked,,,shall I call 911? she was still standing close by me...I had no idea.

My heart goes out to this officer and his family...and I hope we all can learn by his experience.

[Sport45]

In my case, I did not have to fire, as I was able to remain concealed behind a post until the BG walked by me, them I put my gun to his ear.

Old Wanderer,

Just out of curiosity, are you a LEO?

[larryh1108]

As I was standing near the front counter trying to get some of the kitchen help to get out, the suspect came from the office area and began running in my direction.

I immediately noted the large semi-automatic pistol in his hand. The distance was about 15 to 20 yards. I drew my weapon, announced myself and took a kneeling position behind the counter. Unfortunately, the suspect raised his weapon at me and the gunfight erupted

The off duty officer DID NOT initiate the gunfight. As his words described. he was still at the front counter attempting to clear the area of bystanders. He only drew when he saw the BG running towards him with a gun in his hand. The BG did not know that this guy was a cop or even if he was armed. He saw people fleeing and rushed to ?? (what). If he was ushering his family out and the gunman saw this and rushed them, what would the gunman have done? Human nature for many is to see trouble and flee in the other direction. Others freeze to watch like it's some movie. We have no idea what the gunman would have done! Was he done robbing the place or would he have held up the patrons? Would he have ushered the people into the cooler, ala Brown's Chicken, and shot them all for no reason? You have no idea what the gunman was thinking.

The off duty cop did not escalate the situation until the gunman was coming at him with his weapon drawn. The cop did the only right thing in trying to de-escalate the situation. It didn't work and a little girl died. If the cop left with his family the gunman may have left or he may have killed 10 people. No one knows and will ever know. However, the gunman reacted when he saw a patron helping others to safety. That could have been anyone helping their family to safety. The gunman acted first in an aggressive manner to people attempting to flee.

The cop did everything right with a bad ending. The ending could have been worse. There is no logical sense to armed criminals. They don't think like you and I do.

[yrralguthrie]

11 rounds in 2 seconds by a LEO is out of control. End of story. He even admitted he didn't think about a second perp until he has to reload. He acted like a civilian.

ljg

[larryh1108]

Yeah, like 1 poster said. 1 to the chest and 1 to the head. Uh huh. I guess that adrenaline has no factor in it at all. That darn adrenaline.... always kicks in when you need it the least. I'd be willing to bet that anyone under direct fire would be cool, calm and collected from shooting those mean old paper targets. Uh huh. Yep. If it ever happens to you (generic you) just cover up the wet part of your pants when you do your cool dance.

[BillCA]

Originally Posted by Old Wanderer

The one thing that has not been commented on in this article is the stupidity or apathy or the general public.

When told to get down, move or get out, how many just stood there???

I have seen this in my personal experience, where I drew a weapon, and told my date to get down, HUH was the response. Totally brain dead to the danger.

An excellent point. What would you do if you were eating and some guy in shorts and a colored T-shirt came by and said "Get up and leave, this place is being robbed" just loud enough for you to hear? If you're with a friend or your family, do you abandon everything and leave? Or, do you look for some indication it's a joke or a scam?

And there are those folks who'll just stop and watch, agog that it's happening in front of them. They go into "TV-Viewer Mode". That's how many people respond to a situation in public -- because they've safely sat through similar events in their living rooms, this'll be the same.

I did have a g/f a while ago who was oblivious to a lot of things around her. And a few of her friends were just as bad. We'd eaten at a Chinese restaurant on night and I was last out. Five people. Four were talking when I grabbed two and said "Back inside and get down." I get "Huh?" and "What're you doing?" and "Aren't we leaving?" I was the only one who saw a seriously pi--ed off guy walking from our left to right about 20 feet away with a nickel 1911 in his hand! In daylight. I just grabbed and shoved folks inside and said "Get down!" loudly once I closed the wood door. They still wanted explanations until those first two shots rang out.

Originally Posted by yrralguthrie

11 rounds in 2 seconds by a LEO is out of control. End of story. He even admitted he didn't think about a second perp until he has to reload. He acted like a civilian.

When someone is coming at you shooting a gun, you'll squeeze the trigger until you see some indication that your shooting is being effective. Or to put it another way...
- Why do experienced drivers "stand" on the brakes in wet weather?
- Why do people who should know better throw water on a grease fire?

Same reason. Fear. You perform those tasks that you believe will solve the problem, even sometimes it's not the right solution. In this case he was able to rapidly repeat his "solution" until it worked.

[Teuthis]

Every armed citizen should heed this post. We have no right, no mandate, no reasonable excuse to engage armed criminal unless our lives or our families lives are in immanent and unavoidable danger. Perhaps the police officer had a duty to engage the perpetrator. We would not. Call the police, get out if you can, and let the pros handle it.

[Auto426]

As others have said, this really isn't a warning about capacity of your CCW. I'm sure that if the officer in this situation had a fully auto AR with a 30 round clip, he would still have been left with an empty weapon at the end of this encounter.

I've seen this a few times before in police shootings. In intense, adrenalin fueled situations such as this, very few people stop to keep track of their ammo. They simply pull the trigger till the gun stops going bang. 5 shots should have been enough to incapacitate the gunman, leaving him enough ammo for another gunman should there have been one.

[MLeake]

... one of the ROTC instructors at UF told a class about an incident he'd had as a point man for his squad, in VietNam.

He ran into an enemy scout. As his story went, they looked at each other; both their eyes went big; they raised their rifles and let loose, full auto, while ducking around. They both shot their guns empty; neither was hit. They both turned and ran for cover.

My friends who were in that class didn't say if the instructor mentioned changing mags, after the fact.

[FreakGasolineFight]

I'm not a big fan of the police. Most of the cops I've met have been complete jerkoffs. But, I will say, I'm a little miffed at all the heat this man is catching for his actions.

Was engaging the criminal a bad idea? Maybe. He didn't predict that a child would be hit by the gunfire. This is somebody going on instinct here, and his priority was to take down the threat and take it down fast. And, the BG fired first.

He admitted that he made a mistake, but I think a lot of people might act rashly in that kind of situation, and it's not entirely something that you can be blamed for.

Also, 11 rounds in 2 seconds with all on target is not at all inconceivable. I won't say I've done it, but I'm not SWAT either.

[MilProGuy]

If...this scenario is true, the gentleman would have done better to take his family and get out of the restaurant and called 911 on his cell phone.

Perhaps, if he had done so, the little 9-year-old would still be alive.

What a horrible tragedy.

[Jim March]

A few people in this thread are using this case to justify a policy of "I defend me and mine only". Now, there's people who take that tack, and if that's your position, that's fine, you don't have to justify it with this or any other case.

The lesson *I* take from it is "don't use a gun to solve the problem unless the alternatives are FAR, far worse!"

In other words, I won't defend a business' money or property. But if I think a robber is about to kill somebody, yes, I absolutely will act. Been there, done that, the bad guys backed down because they saw I wasn't bluffing.

In this case the cop had pretty good evidence that murder was not foremost on the goblin's agenda. The goblin and at least one employee had been in the back room together, no shot fired, goblin was now leaving. That's a very strong sign that gunfire wasn't needed. The cop should have faded from view so that he COULD (at the cop's option) gone into "be a good witness mode". And then if necessary, ONLY if necessary, switched to "sniper in a covered position mode", which is a really good place to be at the beginning of a gunfight.

Instead, by standing out in the open with a drawn gun, the cop caused a gunfight to go down in a bystander-dense environment - PLUS the cop's got no cover or at least concealment. That's doubly-bad-tactics right there.

Me, I'd rather be proned out behind a really sturdy garbage-box-that-holds-a-can thingie like most fast food places use, looking like somebody who's avoiding trouble, gun NOT visible, peeking out with one eye. Odds are I won't have to shoot, that's just how the statistics break down - most armed robberies don't involve a murder.

Fun fact: one of the biggest predictors of a successful outcome in a police gunfight is whether or not the cop(s) make it behind hard cover - at least something like a car engine block. When they do, in one piece and still armed, the successful conclusion rate goes through the roof, one number I saw put it at 95% success rate where "success" is measured as "won the fight and not hurt too bad".

In most of the fast food places I've ever been in, if you have a few seconds you can set that up in a case like this. If you're not looking for and using cover the *instant* there's even a possibility of a gunfight, you're Doing It Wrong[tm].

True story:

I once had to call 911 because a bum was freaking out late at night in the area in back of some small office buildings right next door to where I live. He was banging on the windows and generally going nuts. I called 911 where the guy couldn't hear me, told 'em what was up, then walked around to the front of the office complex to guide 'em in. This was in AZ. I was strapped, didn't let the cops know it. So they wait until they have three cops, one stays near the front with me, the other two draw guns and go straight in - the guy's more or less in a dead end.

I stepped a few feet to the side so that I was just around a brick building corner from the cops with guns out. The one who was left behind with me asked me not to leave, I explained that I was just getting out of any possible line of fire and wasn't going further. The cop just looked annoyed. To him, cover was no big deal. Yeah...I don't think so buddy .

(Please note: I absolutely did NOT reach for my own hardware. Ain't. NO. Way...not in the presence of a twitchy cop. If somebody made it through the first two and was still a threat, I'd have beat feet first and let that no-cover moron try and slow whatever it was down. In the end they carted off a mostly-harmless meth head...)

Cover and even the remotest possible possibility of gunfire need to fit together in your head, always, so that in an emergency they'll flow together instinctively. Part of your "condition orange" drill should be the question "where's the nearest cover?"

Fun drill: when you're walking down the street, make yourself do a fast-as-you-can scan for available cover whenever a yellow car/truck/whatever is first in sight. Or a bus. Whatever. Point is, an unpredictable trigger. You get good at figuring out where the cover is in a hurry.

Remember kids: we can defend cover if we're attacked. And defended cover is a total nightmare for an attacker. It's one of the few factors that can give a handgunner an even footing or better against a rifleman. Every time a small number of soldiers have done well against a larger force, cover was part of the deal - the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto racked up way more than their own number in dead Nazis, and Cochise with 34 guys successfully held off 5,000 US cavalry by sniping from behind rocks way up in the hills. These were not flukes.

In the case this thread is about, it appears the cop doesn't realize even after the fact that cover on his part might have also concealed the gun long enough to prevent a gunfight from breaking out if it wasn't necessary.

[MTT TL]

You have to wonder how this would be MMQBe'd if the headline had read "robber kills four, escapes running past armed policeman"?

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Yeah, whatever. It's the reasonable outcomes you must consider.

There can be a possible bad outcome on most paths - you go for the least likely to go bad.

[BillCA]

Originally Posted by Teuthis

Every armed citizen should heed this post. We have no right, no mandate, no reasonable excuse to engage armed criminal unless our lives or our families lives are in immanent and unavoidable danger. Perhaps the police officer had a duty to engage the perpetrator. We would not. Call the police, get out if you can, and let the pros handle it.

I disagree. We have every right to engage an armed criminal. Our basic system presumes that power belongs to The People and we only delegate portions of our authority or power to the government. Your statement also omits the lives of others. Would you simply be a good witness while some knife wielding dogpile knifes a woman in a parking lot?

If there is little or no danger to a person's life, then there is little or no need to use lethal force in the first place. We cannot easily mandate that any and all citizens risk life and limb to stop a crime. We can justify the use of lethal force when a felony is being committed and a life is in danger, however.

I posit that it is every citizen's duty¹ to do whatever they can to stop any crime they see. That may simply be calling 911 for some. It may be a simple verbal challenge that scares the guy off or it could be using force, including deadly force when necessary.


¹ This "duty" stems from (a)the people being the legitimate source of power in the nation from whom the government is issued limited powers; (b) part of the moral and ethical obligation to country, state or community; (c) part of each citizen's responsibility as a free person to aid in maintaining order and preventing lawlessness.

[BillCA]

Originally Posted by MLeake

My friends who were in that class didn't say if the instructor mentioned changing mags, after the fact.

Did he mention anything about changing his shorts?

[BillCA]

Originally Posted by Jim March

Cover and even the remotest possible possibility of gunfire need to fit together in your head, always, so that in an emergency they'll flow together instinctively.

Mr. March makes an excellent point here.

Time to react = Safety
Cover + Distance = Time
Thus...
Cover + Distance = Safety

If you're looking for cover after the first shot is fired, you're too late. Some part of your Mk-I Eyeball & Observation system should note where cover is located around you before any shots are fired.

Also learn the difference between cover and concealment. Cover stops bullets. Concealment does not, it only hides you from the shooter's vision.

What may appear to be good cover can turn out to be fake. A good example is the Hilton Hotel where the last GRPC meeting was held. While some of the exterior columns appeared to be concrete, close inspection showed they were merely plywood over which a concrete-like stucco was applied. Most interior walls inside homes are merely concealment. Perhaps even some exterior ones as well.

[WANT A LCR 22LR]

Same reason. Fear. You perform those tasks that you believe will solve the problem, even sometimes it's not the right solution. In this case he was able to rapidly repeat his "solution" until it worked.

There is a quote in the auto racing world " Fear has no place in a race car however caution does because fear leads to panic and panic is a murderer."

I have doubts the narrative attributed to the off duty cop is really the off duty cops words. The story just doesn't have the right feel.

[mordis]

I dont know if this was Discussed or not, but did anyone notice that the fire escape door was locked. In most states they have to be unlocked and functioning. That mcdonalds is also liable for not following there city/states fire code.

Personaly i wont intervene unless im or my family is in danger. Id rather be a good witness then be responcible for escalating a situation when it wasnt warrented.

[spacecoast]

but did anyone notice that the fire escape door was locked

Yes, back in post #27

[Twinsig]

Didnt read all the replies, so, this may have been suggested.

The security system (video) would not be set up for normal video (27 FPS,frames /sec). Could be as low as 1 FPS, or even 1 frame / 2,3,4,or 5 sec's. Conserves data storage issues/file size etc..

At any rate, interesting post & replies, will keep reading through this one later.

[therealdeal]

my opinion of the effectiveness and reliability of my CCW revolver hasn't changed with this story.

[DG45]

I've already posted one response on this thread but there are a couple of things that have really bothered me about some of the later responses.

First, I find no fault at all with the LEO's response in this shooting. Period. There is no question but that the BG he confronted was armed and in the act of performing a felony when he courageously confronted him. How can anyone from the safety of their armchair be so craven as to second guess this officer who took an oath to protect and defend, and who was trying to perform that SWORN DUTY at the risk of his own life, who had only seconds to determine what the best way to perform that duty was? I sure wouldn't throw that stone.

Second, the question about how would you feel about it if it had been YOUR daughter that was killed is a question that should have no bearing on what happened or should have happened. It's like asking how would you feel about the US having fought WWII if your own child had been killed in it? Well, I'd feel bad about it. I'd be devastated. So would you. But would it mean that we as a society should not have fought the war? Of course not. The war had to be fought and had to be won and a lot of people were obviously going to get killed in the process. Similarly, police must be allowed and encouraged to meet deadly force with deadly force, and we as a society, must be willing to accept the collateral damage that occurs when they do, no matter how tragic, or else we must abandon our country to murderous thugs, ala Mexico, and accept the the atrocities that will follow.

Third, I know I'm dreaming, but I do often wonder whether the police in this country wouldn't be better off to go back to the very accurate long-barreled 38 Special revolvers they carried in the the days before semi-autos and "spray and pray" became all the rage. Every cop of that era knew that if he planned to survive to old age, that his life would at some point probably depend on his skill with his service revolver, and many, if not most officers in those days practiced diligently to become proficient with that revolver. If this particular shoot-out had happened back then, I imagine that the cop who confronted the BG would have been armed with a Colt or S&W revolver and would have simply put one aimed 158 grain LRN through the BG's skull as soon as he saw him, and that would have been that. If an innocent little girl had been killed by the criminals bullets, it would have been just as tragic then as today, but in those days the criminal would have justly been blamed for her death, not the officer.