Police & Lethal Force, If he fires, does he shoot to kill? Options

[nezumi]

This is a debate I'm having with my roomies after seeing X-Men 2... When a police officer fires a weapon (uses lethal force), is he supposed to shoot to maim or shoot to kill? IIRC, a police officer is only trained to use lethal force when someone's life is in immediate danger, and then he's supposed to shoot to kill (otherwise, why shoot at all?) Also, are there special rules on when he can draw his weapon?

So I open the debate up to the Dumpshockers, both because if I'm wrong and cops shoot to wound, that means that in my games LS and KE will do the same, and because everyone knows how smart a group you all are.

[Tanka]

IIRC, LS and KE can not use lethal force. They have to say "Halt!" or something along those lines a few times. If you don't, they can use Stun Rounds/Baton, and if you fire back, then they can use Physical damaging bits.

Some security forces, however, have the right to use lethal force. They can shoot then say "Halt!"

[Austere Emancipa...]

I'm with you on this Nezumi. If they shoot, they shoot to kill.

Sure they generally have to go through the whole Order-Grab-Hold-Hit-PepperSpray-Dog-sequence before they are allowed to fire by law (at least in Finland), and even then they have to fire 2 warning shots first, but if someone aims a gun at them and is clearly going to fire, they will shoot to kill.

If you aim at the guy's arm, you might miss or he might simply be in a good enough condition to return fire. I doubt most police would take that chance. There'd have to be a very special reason for that.

Just IMNSHO, I have no idea how the police use of force works in the US.

[Pthgar]

How is a warning shot better than a miss? Isn't there a chance the rounds will hit something else?

[Tanka]

There is, which is why security rarely fires warning shots. The possibility for a lawsuit is too great.

[Austere Emancipa...]

I knew I was being too ambiguous. :( What I meant was that if the target is not a threat to anything at the moment, and the police officers only concern is to move him/her somewhere (off a premise, into jail, whatever), THEN the police will have to go through that whole sequence, and cannot shoot the person until he/she is sure nothing else will work.

If someone is a real threat to the life of the police officer or that of someone else, and it's obvious no other use of force will help (ie person A is aiming a gun at person B, both of which are 10+ meters away from the police, so there's no way the cop can tackle the gunman, etc), the police will shoot, and will shoot to kill.

Obviously when there are loads of civvies around, it's not very likely that there will be warning shots. My MP training didn't really take that into consideration, because we only had the right to use any kind of force inside the military area, where it would be extremely unlikely that a pistol shot would hit anything important.

This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Dec 3 2003, 04:21 PM

[Connor]

In regards to LS an KE, you could also base an assumption off of the security rating of the area. In a A-AAA rated zone most beat cops probably just carry stun rounds and tasers/pepper spray, but once you get below that they probably pack live rounds and when they're forced to shoot, they probably shoot to kill. If for no other reason than to keep the suspect from being able to harm the officers.

Of course, all law enforcement officers are probably going to do all they can to avoid using lethal force if they can help it.

[BitBasher]

After asking some fellow employees... officers never, EVER shoot to do anything but kill. If they draw a firearm, by the time the firearm is in use they intend to use it to kill someone. Period. A firearm is a lethal weapon, it serves absolutely no other purpose.

<--- Works for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

[nezumi]

Tanka, I don't see where you're coming up with LS and KE not being able to use lethal force at all. After all, the thunderbolt is their standard issue weapon, and I've never seen anything saying specifically they can't. I'd probably agree with Connor, though... If you kill some bigwig's kid, even if he has a gun pointed at you at the time, expect trouble. However, in C and below areas, what's a slag gonna do if you blow away his brother? Not sure how keen they should be to use said lethal force against bums, though... Hm.

Thanks for the answer, BitBasher. Although I did get the response 'oh, that's in Vegas. What about in like Wisconsin? I'll bet they don't do that there...' *sigh* some fights you can never win.

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

Police don't draw their weapons unless there is an imminent threat to their life or the life of someone else, and then they are ONLY to use lethal force. It doesn't matter if it's in Vegas, L.A., or the backwoods of Alabama, or Wisconsin. Police do not shoot to wound because they shouldn't have even drawn their weapons unless it was a matter of life and death. Moreover, there is a serious risk to life if they only wound because they have failed to neutralize an imminent threat. As far as I'm concerned "shoot to wound" is not only a myth, but just stupid, and no police dept. I know of would subscribe to it.

[Req]

Damn straight. Everything I've ever heard says the only kind of shot you take in a combat situation is a center-mass shot with the most probability of hitting. The idea of shooting out someone's legs or whatever just seems laughable.

If you're trying not to kill someone, don't use a firearm. That's not what they're for.

[Maxwell Silverha...]

As both active duty Military police, and as a state law enforcement officer, I can tell you with certainty, that there is no such thing in real world law enforcement as "shoot to wound, maim, or disable." When an officer draws their sidearm it is to "stop the subjects action" If the officer shoots, I.E. uses "Deadly Force" the intention is not to kill, nor to wound the subject, it is to stop the subjects action. The distinction is important.

All law enforcement agencies will have a system of escalation, dependent upon the "subjects action". All law enforcement will follow some form of the "totality Triangle", and "Reasonable Objectiveness" These were established by the US Supreme Court in Graham vs. Connor 490 U.S. 386, 104L.Ed2d 443, 109 S. CT. 1865 (1989

Do a web search on these to find out more about how Law Enforcement handles their basic Use Of Force (UOF) Model. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle. :rotate:

[Abstruse]

In Shadowrun, things work a bit differently though. The response an officer can make depends on several things. First, the contract with the city. Usually, it will stipulate under what circumstances lethal force is warranted. Second, company policy. It's bad press to blow away a kid or to fire on a celebrity, so company policy will dictactstuff like this. Third, and most importantly probably, it matters whose story is going to be believed in the end. The KE/LS cop files his report saying the perp drew a weapon and pointed it at the cop, so he drew and fired. Is there anyone to say that the guy was laying on the ground submissive but just so happened to have a history of cop killing on his rap sheet? Nope. Is anyone on the force going to investigate much deeper than that? Doubt it.

And remember, in almost every case in Shadowrun, these are not government agencies. These are CORPORATIONS. The Lone Star sourcebook repeatedly tried to pound this point home. CORPORATIONS don't care about civil duty and drek like that. They care about the bottom line in dollars and cents. Also remember that KE and LS are both have extraterritoriality, therefore their employees answer only to corporate law (and their contract with the city) and corporate law can change at a moment's notice to save a good employee's ass.

The Abstruse One

[Grey]

Police in America are trained to shoot to kill.

However, my father-in-law did some police work in Germany and they are trained to shoot to maim.

[Req]

Please define that - "trained to shoot to maim" means shoot someone where, exactly?

[Kurukami]

Or, at the least, some measure of perceived threat. In San Jose, California, there's recently been much uproar over the shooting of a 4'11" Vietnamese housewife, age 25.

Basically, the woman (Cau Thi Tran) had been trying to open a locked door in her house with a vegetable cleaver/peeler. She had been quite upset about it, and apparently had been screaming in anger (there are questions regarding whether or not she was currently taking her prescribed medications) loud enough for a passerby to become concerned and call the police. The police showed up, came into the house, and (when she shook the kitchen tool angrily from some distance away, apparently making them think she was going to throw it at them) shot her dead without further ado. No words of "halt", "drop the knife", or that sort of thing, from what I remember.

Many in the local Vietnamese community are still outraged, but the officers involved in the incident were cleared.

News link here.

[Siege]

Prison guards are also required to "shoot to maim", but insofar as I know, that's the only formal instance.

As for the poor angry Vietnamese woman, don't brandish a cleaver at cops. It makes them nervous. That's a life lesson to be sure.

-Siege

[Grey]

[Chodav]

Some thoughts about law enforcement in this day and age (in part already expressed by two other LEO's):

1) No cop shoots to kill in the US. They shoot to STOP the subject.

2) Shooting a subject is not a form of killing them. It is a form of arresting them.

3) Warning shots are not allowed (due to the liability - what goes up must come down).

4) Drawing a gun is not using lethal force or even threatening it. It is a safety measure employed by cops in uncertain situations - the first rule of gunfighting is that you cannot outdraw a gun that has already been drawn. Ergo, cops try to get theirs out first.

5) A shooting is justifiable if a reasonable person would have used deadly force in the same circumstance, and if said circumstance meets the legal threshold for deadly force in the first place:

a) Officer's life in danger. (Note that this is pretty flexible - if you attack an officer in a way that might incapacitate him, he can shoot you on the assumption that you'll take his gun and kill him once he's incapacitated. Remember, EVERY conflict a cop participates in is an armed conflict. The cop brings a gun (or two) to every party.)

b) Fellow officer's life in danger. (This includes police canines, by the way. I remember a night when three cops shot a guy for beating on a police canine with a pipe. Dumbasses killed the dog, too, but that's beside the point.)

c) Citizen's life in danger.

d) When deadly force is the only means to stop a violent felony in progress. (i.e. SRT snipers and hostage situations, though 'c' usually applies in those as well.)

e) To prevent the flight of a violent criminal who represents a clear and immediate threat to the community if he is not apprehended, and other forms of apprehension have failed or will fail. (Note that cops can no longer shoot burglars running from them because the cops are out of shape. However, this is the reason many fleeing cop-killers get shot. There's little argument that someone who killed a cop is a clear and immediate threat to the community. Same goes for fleeing armed robbers.)

f) To apprehend (cute, huh?) escaped / escaping inmates. (Not jail prisoners awaiting trial, but escaped / escaping prison inmates who have been convicted of a felony.) Sorry, Siege, but I have never heard of prison guards having to shoot to maim. All the ones I've talked to / worked with were quite blunt about the shoot to kill thing. Most of them didn't even say shoot to stop, in fact. There's a reason why inmates picking up litter on the side of the road don't run off into the bushes. It's not Bubba in the truck following them who fires his sidearm once a year. It's every other cop that will be hunting them, and that is one of the VERY few circumstances where the cops don't have to frag around with warnings and non-lethal attempts to apprehend. (Depending on what the inmate was convicted of - murderers get a lot less slack than check-kiters.)

TWO CAVEATS -

I worked in the South.

This is 2003, not 2063. (But 2003 is usually a good starting point for SR - all you have to do is decide how things will change from where they are now.)

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

[Chodav]

[Grey]

[Chodav]

[CanvasBack]

For my nuyen, things get worse not better in the SR universe so there's going to be more corp cops getting away with high handed tactics that are clearly over the line today and for the incidents that are kinda in between now are probably just matters of course in 2063.

As for police tactics now... Some cops like to make the distinction in their own minds that shooting someone, even center mass, might not kill a suspect but will most definitely stop them. I have to say that is a tough sell to the general public of today's world but if cops sleep better at night and that lets them do their job better for believing it, well I guess that has to be tolerated to some degree. But any reasonable person should realize that death is on the table anytime a person gets shot, be it in the chest, leg, arm or even earlobe...

[Chodav]