17 May 02

This morning, I personally interviewed one of the deputies involved in the shooting of the "River City" robbery suspect. More facts:

The local SO uses Remington 870 shotguns with seven-round magazine tubes. The tubes are routinely charged with two slugs, then three 00 buckshot rounds, then two more slugs. All shotguns have a bead front sight and no rear sight.

The first round to strike the suspect was a 12ga slug. It hit him in the lower, left side of his abdomen and went through and through. The deputy indicated that he could see no blood, no bullet hole in the suspect's shirt, and no visible reaction from the suspect himself. He concluded that either his first round had missed or that the suspect was wearing body armor. A second slug was fired a moment later. It may have hit also, but the autopsy report is inconclusive. In any event, there was still no visible reaction on the part of the suspect.

Simultaneously, the second deputy started firing with his S&W 4556, striking the suspect several times in the upper chest. The first deputy then fired two more 12ga rounds, both 00 buckshot. The suspect finally buckled at the knees and pitched forward. He achieved DRT status a few seconds after that. The first deputy had ejected one live slug from his 870 by mistake; another good argument for autoloaders.

>From first shot to last was probably less than ten seconds, but it seemed to be lasting forever. This "slow-motion" effect is common, and it often leads people to mistakenly conclude that their shooting is ineffective. Fortunately, our two deputies were familiar with the forgoing and continued to fire. Neither officer was able to accurately recall the number of rounds they fired. Both fired more rounds that they thought they had, and both perceived the suspect as being closer to them than he actually was.

The second deputy used his pistol, because, when he attempted to retrieve the shotgun for his car's electric rack, he couldn't get the lock to open. Electric locks on all the racks in all beat cars are now all being examined.

An examination of the deceased suspect revealed that he was carrying a pocketful of plastic, electrical ties. We conclude that he had planned on tying up everyone in the pharmacy.

Additional Lessons:

If you have a defensive shotgun maintained in transport mode, DON'T MIX SLUGS AND BUCKSHOT TOGETHER IN THE MAGAZINE TUBE. You'll never keep it straight. Make it all buckshot or all slugs, so you always know positively what is in the chamber.

WE NEED TO REPLACE SHOTGUNS IN BEAT CARS WITH MILITARY RIFLES! Our shotgun-armed officer did some accurate shooting with his bead-sighted shotgun, but, compared with an iron-sighted military rifle, accuracy from a slug-shooting shotgun is poor, particularly if it has a marginal sighting system like a solitary, front bead.

When shooting is necessary, KEEP FIRING UNTIL THE THREAT IS DECISIVELY ENDED, even when it appears that the suspect is not responding. Anyone who needs to be shot, needs to be shot thoroughly! When you shoot someone, there will be no blood, no bullet holes, and likely no immediate reaction from the suspect. This is all normal. STAY IN THE FIGHT. FINISH THE FIGHT.

/John