Less Lethal

[Skip]

Hello all,
I watched in stunned silence a documentary on TV here last week which said that armed crime in Britain rises by some 30% annually! A good deal of which is psychiatric patients with swords and clubs that get out of control – but there has been a serious rise in organised, hard-core gun crime with AKs’ and similar weapons brought across from the Balkans.

Here there is only one less lethal weapon authorised by the home office – the Baton gun – but that has never been used on main land UK. It is however used at astonishing levels in Northern Ireland.

What are your experiences with less-lethal options and do you really think they provide the instant solution that lethal weapons do.

Another serious point here is that police are concerned that if they do use less lethal options – would that antagonise the suspect and this be used against the PD in court? What do you feel?

[grrlcop74]

Our department recently acquired bean bag guns (used by the tac team and select patrol supervisors) and Tasers (used by practically every patrol officer) after getting some bad publicity for killing scumbags who were waving around knives or trying to run over us with vehicles. Haven't had much occasion to use the beanbag gun, but we've been popping people with the Taser left and right and it has been an extremely useful tool. Email me if you want more specifics on training, cover-your-ass paperwork, etc. A good friend of mine headed up the Use-of-Force committee that recently submitted its report to the chief.

Kristen

[Sapper12B]

Skip,

I think that when we adopted the less lethal option, it added a step in the Use of Force continuum. Our tactic was to deploy the less lethal system with a cover officer armed with a firearm. Like you said, most of the time it is a non-active aggressor armed with some type of edged weapon, thus not necessitating the immediate use of deadly force.

As far as an instant solution, no. It merely provides another means with which to attempt to gain control. I have been present in 2 scenarios where we used the so called Sock round, a beanbag without squared edges. Both times, the suspect dropped like a rock.

Yes, you can overdo it with the less lethal stuff. If I recall correctly, in MN or MI, some guy got tagged like 30 times or so with a bean bag. He was a mental, armed, on a barricade situation. I think he died from shock or something. Not sure, but I do remember the Dept. got jammed for jackin' the guy too many times.

[jnc36rcpd]

Both my department and the county police just got the Advanced Taser M-26 out on the street. To my knowledge, neither agency has had an operational deployment yet (apart from my tasering an aggressive pit bull).

Concern that a less-lethal deployment will cause the suspect to attack is a valid one. Every street police on this forum has seen a handcuffing attempt go sideways when the suspect suddenly resists. As you know, the fight is then on.

An unsuccessful less-lethal deployment may very well escalate the situation. If the SIM or the taser miss, or are ineffective, the suspect may well be placed in a fight-or-flight mode. You had better be ready to deal with this.

A less-lethal failure can be catastrophic if the suspect is armed. A stationary suspect threatening suicide with a knife is a static threat. A failed taser or SIM deployment may turn the suspect into an active threat. The appropriate response will probably be gunfire. We then return to the burn-the-village-in-order-to-save-it scenario.

Patrol officers should certainly deploy tasers and other less-lethals with unarmed suspects and those armed with less effective weapons (the lawn chair, a pillow, a very thin board). Patrol should certainly deploy if an armed suspect is going mobile, becomes assaultive, or just presents a great opportunity.

Containment and negotiation resolve most of these situations, however, and there is no shame in waiting for ERT. They have all the toys and the specialists.

Less-lethals are a great tool, but they're never going to replace a SIGSauer 226. Be safe.

[mdb23]

I would love to comment on the subject, but our current administration doesn't quite trust us with these types of weapons.

However, I see that Sapper12B had the opportunity to play with these toys while in KC (no doubt sue to his affiliation with the quasi-Ninja Tac Teams). Damned Ninjas get all of the toys!!!!! That's all right, at least I never had to work Westport!!!!

Just kidding brother!!!!!

mdb23

[Sharky]

Our Agents are testing them out in CA but we don't have them here. I know a 15 year old that was shot with a taser. He just screamed, reached up and pulled the prongs out of his chest. He was a mental case though and they sometimes have a weird tolerance for pain. This happened the day after he killed his next door neighbor, a 70 year old woman who had baby-sitted him since he was an infant. He broke into her home and was waiting when she got home. He shot her in the back of the head point blank with a .22. He told me that he just wanted to see what it felt like to kill someone.

Anyway, I like the less lethal option but I personally think that it should only be used when the deploying officer has backup with him who is ready to use deadly force if something should go wrong.

[Augie]

:confused:

My agency went and got a ton of training/gear on Non-leathal equipment. Stun guns, batons, ASP, pepper spray, bean bag guns etc. Then came the law suits (what's New about that ) and they stopped issueing the equipment. All but the ASP baton & spray ( which was stopped for awhile do to the amount of injuries recieved during training!)

Sharky, are they useing the E.D.M. unit? or something else like a taser? I had the training on it in 97 before INS started getting sued. I didn't think very highly of it

[dsumner]

SInce I work for correctional facility we have ton of less lethal stuff in our armory (tasers, stun guns, stun shields, bean bag rounds, OC spray, stinger rounds, etc), but thanks to several lawsuits (99% are bogus), and the ACLU we can no longer use many of the devices.

What I find funny is that is OK for me to hit someone with my fist, or shot him with a M-16 or 12-guage shot gun, but I can't use astun gun on him even though the stun gun only hurts for a few seconds, and leaves no permenant marks.

[USMCSNIPERONE]

Here is a good read on the subject: http://nsa.nps.navy.mil/Publications/Micewski/Coppernall.html

[MrPotatoHead]

As we all should know, nothing works 100% of the time. Not even lethal force due to various reasons. Bottom line, if your agency got dinged by one of the hairy toed, birkenstock wearing, booger eating moron groups out there for using less lethal munitions, I would say it's time to get a new legal staff.

[DCH]

Did anyone catch the standoff with the Astrovan on the fwy a couple of months ago? The intitial pursuit terminated on the fwy in the city of Baldwin Park, CA. The driver was 417 with a Tec9 and barricaded inside the vehicle.

In one instant, while the driver sat in the van, several points of bluish laser type lights flashed and danced in a pattern in front of the driver's side windshield. It only lasted a mere seconds, but it was nothing I had ever seen before. The media had no clue what it was, and speculated the driver had "set off fireworks of some sort"? Was it another diversionary tool debuting in front of millions of unwitting news viewers?

-DCH

[Sharky]

Augie: Negative on the EDM's. Nothing here but ASPs and spray. Even our OC spray is that 5% shit. When they sprayed me with it I laughed at them. What a joke. When I was a cop back home we had the good spray. This stuff we have now is a joke. There was a point in time where they took away our PR-24's but the ASP and spray weren't approved yet. I actually went to the head of training at FLETC Charleston and asked him if they realized what kind of liability they were opening themselves up for by taking away the PR's without replacing them with something else. It basically left only three steps in the force continuum. Verbal, DT and lethal force. Imagine the legal havoc if you were forced to shoot someone because your agency would not provide you with some type of interim force component. What a bunch of morons. And this from an agency who continually has the distinction of having 75-80% of all Fed LE shootings attributed to them every year. Gee, I wonder why we get sued so often?


As for that blue light, it was probably a new device that came out a couple of years ago. Can't remember what it's called by it basically disorients and nauseates the bad guy. Never saw it in person but they had a show that included it on the Discovery Channel about less lethal weapons. I think it was called something like "The Dazzler" or something similar.

[Augie]

Sharky The DD said No to pepper spray here in Chi-town. To much of a worry about the spray in the Airports, Buildings, and INS facilities. So we have to carry the ASP.

For an Agency that is always worried about lawsuits, management does some very dumb things. INS also has the highest rates of assaults on Federal LEOs approx. 50% of all the assaults every year.

Be Safe
Augie