Interesting officer gun use data

Well, that was an unexpectedly interesting and useful article.  From Salt Lake police fired more than 135 shots in 18 months. Where did those rounds end up? by Dennis Romboy.  The subheading is Most incidents involved injured deer, though most rounds were fired at suspects.  The whole article is worth reading.  The data provided is consistent with that which I have seen eleswhere in recent years.  

Most officers never use their firearm.

In fact, only about a quarter of all officers (27%) say they have ever fired their service weapon outside the gun range, according to a Pew Research Center survey of 7,917 sworn officers working in 54 police and sheriff’s departments conducted by the National Police Research Platform.

Ever.  Not in a given year, ever.  

With about 565 sworn officers, the Salt Lake police department is the largest in the state.

[snip]

The report listed 29 incidents by date over the 18-month period in which an officer fired a service weapon, and in most cases included a brief description of the incident. Almost all of the rounds came from handguns. About a dozen came from rifles.

[snip]

In most of the cases, the gun was used to put down an injured animal: a deer 20 times and an elk and a fox once each, as well as one unidentified animal. Unless the number of shots was specific in the report, one shot was assumed. The report listed four officer-involved critical incidents, which typically involve use of force, but did not give any details. The vast majority of all rounds were fired in those four incidents. In two cases, officers accidentally discharged their weapons at home.

[snip]

While the police department did not provide details of the four officer-involved critical incidents, some of which it says are still under investigation, the Deseret News used news reports to match up the dates with the cases. In two of the cases, the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office had issued a review of the shooting.

In two instances, suspects fired at, or threatened to shoot the officers while holding a gun aimed at the offices.  One was killed and one was wounded.  In the other two instances, one was wounded and one killed.  Of the four instances, the suspects mental health appears to have been the key issue in two of the four.

So, 565 officers over 18 months discharge their weapons 29 times, 23 times to put down an injured animal, two accidental discharges while handling the gun (and no injuries), and four officer involved shootings with two dead and two wounded.  2 of the four were clear instances of self-defense while under fire or threat of attack.  

Reading the article, three of the four shooting appear to be unavoidable.  The fourth appears to have been a mental health condition with the suspect making an unexpected set of moves which were misinterpreted as reaching for a weapon.  

Now we are getting to the quick.

Six shootings (2 accidental and 4 involving a suspect) from 565 officers 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, 18 months.

2 of those shootings (accidental discharge) were entirely avoidable.  One shot fired is questionable whether it could have been avoided (six people in a confined space with one in some mental health crisis making unexpected movements.)  It would have to be a delicate judgment call whether that was conceivably avoidable but it is not obvious that it was.  

Now we are down to 2 avoidable shootings (accidental discharges.)  From 565 officers 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, 18 months.

Assuming that they handle or carry their weapon at least once a day, you are looking at 309,338 instances of possible discharge.  With only 2 avoidable discharges; 2/309,338 = An Avoidable Discharge rate of 0.0000065%.

That falls short of perfection but for a human process that is pretty tight.  Kudos to the Police Department.

The detailed analysis by Desseret does identify at least one theoretical opportunity for improvement.  That has to do with firing discipline.

Incident one - Suspect initiated firefight, shooting eight times over 43 seconds.  Officers fired between them 78 rounds, 13 of which hit the suspect.

Incident two - Suspect threatened to shoot officers with his shotgun.  Officers fired 14 times and suspect was hit at least twice (possibly more).

Incident three - Officers fired 12 times and suspect was struck 11 times (close quarters engagement.)

Incident four - Armed felon escaping officers attempted to break into a home and was shot at at least five times and hit at least once.

The theoretical ideal is to fire only once and incapacitate with a single round.  107 rounds were fired of which 27 actually struck the suspects.  An accuracy rate of 25%.

The Loyola Chicago study of the Dallas Police Department examined 149 officer-involved shootings from 2003 to 2017, finding “officers are not very accurate with their firearms in deadly force situations, which is consistent with prior research.” In 15 incidents, the total number of rounds fired could not be determined. But in the 134 cases where researchers could establish that figure, police hit their target just over a third of the time.

“When considering the total number of rounds fired, officers landed 123 of 354 rounds, for a hit rate of 35%. This means, incredibly, that 231 rounds missed their mark,” according to the study. “Unfortunately, the data do not provide a clear picture of what happened with these rounds, but, at worst, they struck other officers or innocent bystanders.”

Reporting on the Metropolitan Police Department in Las Vegas identified a hit rate accuracy ranging from 23% to 52% over the period of 2008–2015. In 2017, the New York Police Department officers fired 170 shots and hit their targets 75 times, a hit ratio of 44%, the New York Daily News reported. In 2016, New York police landed 107 of a total 304 shots fired, a roughly 35% hit ratio.

In other departments, strike rates vary from 23-52% and the Salt Lake City officers had a strike rate of 25%, on the low end but within the comparison range.

It sounds like the Salt Like City police department are solidly within performance norms.  The challenge is to train people to be ready for a threatening and kinetic event at any time when 73% will never even fire their weapon at all and for the small number among the 27% who ever fire their weapon, only 14% of the time will it be in the context of a criminal offender (the rest being putting down injured animals and accidental discharges.)

Gun safety is a serious matter and especially important when there are many officers with weapons and many instances where they need to be used.  Training is important and needs to be done but there is likely a very real limit (beyond the basics of gun safety) when most offices will never be called on to use that training.  Training to develop an unused skill is inherently susceptible to degradation.