Being a cop is not an easy job. We know this. But there are still some aspects to it that should not be that difficult to execute. Like, for instance, shooting a suspect. It should not take 84 attempts to hit a target. And yet, that’s exactly what happened last Friday when NYPD officers got in a gun fight with an attempted murder suspect in Bushwick. As the Huffington Post reports, out of the 84 shots fired at the man, only one actually hit him.

Early that morning, 27-year-old Jerrol Harris ran from the cops after attempting to steal a Brooklyn man’s car and shooting him in the arm. Police chased Harris who fired at them with a black .40-caliber Taurus Millennium pistol, according to The New York Times. After 84 shots fired by six different police officers, Harris was finally struck in the calf and brought down. Harris has 12 prior arrests, including four robberies and gun possession. He’s facing several counts of first-degree and second-degree attempted murder, as well as other felony charges.

Meanwhile, the NYPD should consider beefing up their target practice lessons

http://news.yahoo.com/police-fire-84-shots-man-233124390.html

seems they need some serious training all around!
Maybe lengthen the time they spend at the Police-Academy!
They are starting to look like the Misfits in the Movie,"POLICE ACADEMY"!

I know most cops never have to fire a gun, but that averages out to 14 shots a piece!
Mandatory Range time. That is just... scary & sad.

Agreed :)

Once upon a time,
Cops were trained in the use of firearms, and actually had to qualify on the range, BEFORE they could be certified to carry a weapon as a police officer.

Most cops are actually terrible shots. Like other facets of their training, once given the rudimentary skills, it is up to them to stay proficient.

Most police departments have some kind of annual 'qualification' process for no other reason than to keep their liability insurance carrier happy. The course of fire is usually something easy with known distances, known number of rounds to be fired, and what the scoring expectations are.

The stats are eye opening when you look at distances involved (usually under 20 feet), number of rounds fired (6-8), time of the 'gunfight' (about 3 seconds), and number of 'hits' (about) 10%.

For a time I served as a range officer at a local gun club, and had a cop join after both he and his partner had been wounded by a man with an H&K 91 assault rifle. Two other cops were killed in the incident.

He had cornered the suspect in an alley, and they had traded several rounds from behind dumpsters at about 25 feet with no hits. Out of ammo after a couple reloads of his revolver, he yells for his partner to toss him his loaded gun. As he reaches for it, the gunman puts a round through his right bicep. Being right handed, he now had to shoot with the wrong hand, and expose himself from behind cover to engage the shooter. With the gunman snapping a fresh magazine into place, and reaching down to operate the charging handle on the weapon, the cop fires six rounds, and with the final round scores a hit directly through the heart of the shooter.

Traumatized by the encounter, he vowed never to be outgunned again, and went to a Glock semi-auto in 9mm within weeks of them being introduced into North America. He also carried a double mag pouch, which is over 40 rounds of ammo. He became a serious student of pistolcraft and developed a skill level as good as, if not better than most SWAT team members.

Nowadays the high capacity 9mm like Glocks, or SIGs, are far more common, but the base skill set hasn't really improved. The training on use of force seems to have led to cops more often than not to immediately escalating into gunfire as the solution to the problem. In doing so, unleashing a hail of uncontrolled rounds downrange.

I remember seeing a John Stossel or 20/20/dateline/whatever thing on school shootings.

They had a room full of people.

One random person was the "evil" shooter.

The variable was the "good guy" in the class that had a gun meant to stop the "bad guy."

The "good guy" ranged from someone who regularly trained at a shooting range, vs. someone that just carried a gun, with little to no training or range time.

In those exercises no one did any better at stopping the evil shooter than the other.

I don't think being a better shot is the problem with cops shooting bystanders, or shooting a bunch of times for one hit.

I think the biggest problem is shooting in stressful situations and fear. It really screws up your body and ability to shoot.

Once upon a time, kids were raised shooting firearms..and were more proficient at 12 that new cops now just out of the academy.
Most of America, now, would $hit a brick at what we, as kids, were allowed to do with firearms. And we never came close to an accident.
Times have definitely changed.

Oh, as far as the OP, obligatory meme....

It's not just N.Y. police that are in serious need of firearms training under stressful conditions. There are hundreds of news stories about police officers all over the country unleashing a hail of rounds and not hitting their target. Ever since officers started carrying high capacity semi-auto weapons, spray and pray seems to be the rule of the day.

A police officers job can be pretty stressful I agree . Shooting at a person I don't know if I were a police officer that would be a hard part of the job.

Hey, Tackleberry was a good shot!