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They NYPD reports are at this URL: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/stats/re ... force.page

They've changed the name of the report to the "Use of Force Report," which now includes use of non-firearm forms of force like tasers and 'rasslin'.

WildRose wrote: ↑Thu Oct 25, 2018 4:10 pm

ELB wrote: ↑Tue Oct 16, 2018 4:52 pm Before you click the link, pick a number.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/20 ... n-on-duty/

That's a whole lot higher than I've ever seen posted before even by LEO sources. To say that's surprising would be an understatement.

The NYPD publishes an annual report on officer involved shootings. When I first became aware of that report some years (gulp, decades?) ago, they tracked hits and misses, and the hit rate, IIRC, varied from year to year between about 15-25%, but (again IIRC) usually 20% or lower. They were the only PD I knew of that publicly published these kind of stats, other departments may have had higher or lower percentages, I dunno.

I just read a recent copy of the NYPD report, and it seems that now they do not publish hits and misses. Instead they publish an "objective completion rate," which is essentially "we hit the bad guy and he stopped being bad." That is regardless of how many shots were fired. If an officer shoots five times and hits the subject only once, but the subject stops, that's a "pass" because he got a hit and stopped the threat. If the officer fires five rounds and the subject runs away, that's a "fail" even if the subject was hit (which is not likely to be known for sure because he got away). For 2013 their overall objective completion rate was 63%: officers got hit(s) in 25 out of 40 adversarial shooting incidents. In four incidents the subject got away, and it is implied that the remaining 11 incidents the subject was taken into custody but was not hit by officer's gun fire.

>>>>ETA: I realize I went off track on my own thread, I remembered the "hit rates," but not the percentage of NYPD officers that only used their firearm. I think that data was there, but I don't have the older reports at my fingertips.

The study notes that white and military veteran officers were more likely to report having fired their weapons. I wonder how much those two groups overlap? I remember from stats a few years ago that whites are represented in combat arms at a much higher percentage relative to their proportion in society, while minorities tend towards combat support. Rory Miller has noted in his writings that people who are used to exercising a certain level of force (like arguing loudly) are more comfortable using less force, but have a problem going to a higher level-- it feels bad to them. Someone who is trained to use more force, and may have already done so, can operate just fine at lower levels, but has no problem escalating to higher levels if he needs to.

Interesting question that should be considered in parallel with studies like this:

"What percentage of police officers SHOULD have fired their service weapons on the job, but didn't?"

No doubt it would be difficult to come up with a hard statistic on that last one, but it is not a trivial question.

Deputy Dinkheller comes to mind of course, but I have seen other situations where the cop should have shot somebody but didn't. Deputy Peterson too, for that matter.

I remember one a few years ago because there was a good video of it. Some disgruntled/deranged man went to a school armed with a handgun and chased the office staff out of their offices. He was challenged by an armed school resource officer (a sheriff's deputy I think), who drew her weapon, but didn't fire. He pointed his gun at her, she pointed hers at him, and they danced around literally at arms length pointing guns at each other for about 10 minutes with her telling him to drop his weapon. The first responding deputy from outside the scene promptly shot the guy as soon as the deputy saw him. That ended the event.

At first there quotes from the school officials and others praising her bravery (which I will grant) and her "restraint", and talk of awards and such, and then suddenly it all (including the videos) disappeared off the internet and I could never find it again. My first thought was she should have been fired as a guard/security officer/deputy, and I'm guessing that the Sheriff's department came to the same conclusion. She gave the bad guy an infinite number of chances to simply kill her, take her weapon as well as his, and go mow down school children.

I suspect the only ones who will pursue questions of like this will be the Force Sciences Institute.

Before you click the link, pick a number.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/20 ... n-on-duty/