BART officer involved shooting

[JTchinoy]

Let me know when the verdict from his trial is reported.

[dfens]

So much misinformation. One the officer involved was issued a Glock and Glock's don't have a manual safety or decocker. Which means it only goes off if you pull the trigger, their is no switch to disable the gun that you have to remember to actuate on or off. I think you guys are thinking about the old standard issue Beretta 92 series which does have a safety but SOP is not to have it on and the gun in Double Action mode.

Personally I think that his poor training, inexperience, and the heat of the moment that he wasn't concentrating pulled his taser which they were just issued. It was a big accident, was he negligent yes, liable more than likely no. Really people like at that time he was thinking I going to shoot someone/execute a man for no reason and think he could get away with it, and all those witnesses around.

Cops are not the most proficient gun handlers/shooters. Hell I have more training and experience than most cops.

Still 25 million dollars what a crock. We all know they are going to settle out of court for money but no one gets that much money for a accidental death it's not suppose to be a windfall. Will he see any jail time I doubt it. It's like when they have a police chase and someone gets hit or in a accident as a result. They have laws so that they don't have to worry about hey are we going to be sued so we better let the suspect go vs being criminally and civilly liable.

Will their be riots, maybe in ghetto-ass oakland if it happens where I live, not really a chance I'll be prepared.

[PyronIkari]

So much misinformation. One the officer involved was issued a Glock and Glock's don't have a manual safety or decocker. Which means it only goes off if you pull the trigger, their is no switch to disable the gun that you have to remember to actuate on or off. I think you guys are thinking about the old standard issue Beretta 92 series which does have a safety but SOP is not to have it on and the gun in Double Action mode.

Personally I think that his poor training, inexperience, and the heat of the moment that he wasn't concentrating pulled his taser which they were just issued. It was a big accident, was he negligent yes, liable more than likely no. Really people like at that time he was thinking I going to shoot someone/execute a man for no reason and think he could get away with it, and all those witnesses around.

Cops are not the most proficient gun handlers/shooters. Hell I have more training and experience than most cops.

Still 25 million dollars what a crock. We all know they are going to settle out of court for money but no one gets that much money for a accidental death it's not suppose to be a windfall. Will he see any jail time I doubt it. It's like when they have a police chase and someone gets hit or in a accident as a result. They have laws so that they don't have to worry about hey are we going to be sued so we better let the suspect go vs being criminally and civilly liable.

Will their be riots, maybe in ghetto-ass oakland if it happens where I live, not really a chance I'll be prepared.

So much misinformation by someone trying to "educate others". I never read that the officer involved had a glock. If this *IS* true then, that makes it even worse. The trigger on a glock is insanely heavy and you have to WANT to fire a glock to fire it. If you pull back the trigger like you would a standard fire tazer then a glock WILL NOT FIRE. He either pulled it full force out of shock(which is impossible based on proof of the video even in that horrible quality), or he pulled the trigger all the way back. In which case there is 0 way he couldn't have realized it was his glock and not the tazer. And you're wrong about police not having fire arm training. All officers have mandatory fire arm training.

[Dagger-6]

I'm curious where you heard that it is SOP to not have the safety on.

I am a Marine reservist with two deployments to Iraq.  I worked for a short time in the Oakland Police cadet program, and as a reservist, I serve with many Marines who are police officers in the civilian world.  I have never heard of rolling with safeties off as being official policy.

And on a different note, don't underestimate sheer human stupidity.  In Iraq we witnessed a Lieutenant Colonel (no small rank) point his weapon at the clearing barrel, chamber a round, fire, and proceed to walk to the chow hall as if nothing happened until a Ugandan security guard chased after him.

[buzzsaw13]

So much misinformation by someone trying to "educate others". I never read that the officer involved had a glock. If this *IS* true then, that makes it even worse. The trigger on a glock is insanely heavy and you have to WANT to fire a glock to fire it. If you pull back the trigger like you would a standard fire tazer then a glock WILL NOT FIRE. He either pulled it full force out of shock(which is impossible based on proof of the video even in that horrible quality), or he pulled the trigger all the way back. In which case there is 0 way he couldn't have realized it was his glock and not the tazer. And you're wrong about police not having fire arm training. All officers have mandatory fire arm training.

I don't know where you get your information from, but standard issue Glock triggers are notorious for being light.

[dfens]

The standard Glock trigger pull is about 5.5 pounds, while a tradional DA/SA in single action mode is about 4.5 pounds. Now in new york and other cities they have a trigger connector that increases it to anywhere between 8-12 pounds which greatly affects accuracy and makes it highly unlikely to have a neglegent discharge with such a heavy trigger pull.

Oakland PD like most LEO's now a days carry Glocks which own about 60-75 percent of the law enforcement market. If you want to know for sure look it up.

I've never seen a officer ever have the safety on, with his duty weapon unless it was a 1911 which it has to be on for cocked and locked carry or else they would be rolling around with a gun in SA mode that can easily go off. If it was on 9 times out of 10 I bet you they'll forget to remove it and when they try to shoot it nothing will happen and they'll be scratching their head. It's hard to accidentally pull the trigger on a 10-12 pound full length trigger in DA mode like on a Beretta.

Ever wonder why so many people accidentally shoot themselves with a Glock it's because they snag the trigger and it's 1 measly pound heavier than other guns out their.

In the heat of the moment grabbing something shaped like the grip of a handgun and having a brain fart don't go together. To most people how could he not know it wasn't the taser which is yellow or some off color and is way lighter. All it takes is 1 second to not be paying attention or lose on concentration and bam it all goes bad.

As for officer firearm training it's a joke. They qualify what 1-2 times a year if that. Maybe a mag or two and these are the people they put on the streets to protect us. It's not like they never touch a gun but I've been shooting since I was 6 over 20 something years now. I break down and clean/oil my weapons every 3-4 months even if it's not needed. Not every officer is this bad but I know most don't practice or put as much importance on their weapon as they should. Look at Heather Fong the SFPD cheif she went like 5-6 years with out qualifing on her sidearm and only did so after the media made such a fuss about how can she carry a gun if she hasn't proven she can use it like all the other officers under her command that mandated to do so. I bet being at the top didn't allow her to get away with it for so long. Or the fact that she never would have if the story never broke. Like I want her to make a shot in a life and death situation.

[Dagger-6]

Well, with the Glock all this discussion about carrying with a manual-safety is kind of moot.

I don't doubt the Glock is a popular firearm.

I do find it hard to imagine, and if it's real it's piss poor firearms training, if they really do prefer to teach people to roll around with safeties off.  You'd think if they can teach Marines to disengage a safety, they would bother to teach police officers.

[buzzsaw13]

In the heat of the moment, would you really want the safety to be on. Pulling out your weapon only to find the safety on could mean the difference between taking down a criminal or getting shot because you forgot your safetey was on.

[Dagger-6]

Yes, because the less-than-a-second it takes to disengage a safety is negligible, especially considering it can be done while shifting into a firing stance.  It's certainly better than all these negligent discharges and accidental shootings constantly happening.  That's just sloppy, and like I said, piss poor training.

It's very easy to train to disengage the safety as the weapon is drawn.  That is how the military trains their weapons handling procedures, why should civil protection be taught differently?

Treat every weapon as if it were loaded.
Never point you weapon at anything you intend to shoot.
Keep your weapon on safe until you are ready to fire.
Keep you finger off the trigger until you intend to fire.

Simple right?

If you can't remember how to handle your weapon, you probably shouldn't be handling one.  If you don't have the presence of mind to disengage your safety, maybe you should rethink your prospects in a job where you have to deal with stress and firearms at the same time.

[ewu]

I'm not saying anything that I know about the case, but the result would have been the same if the BART officer was trained to automatically switch the safety as he drew. I assume that a tazer has a safety too and possibly even in the same place.....but what do I know? I like knives:) projectile weapons are so dishonorable

[Dagger-6]

Well, technically the safety was on, because as other people pointed out, they're using the Glock, which has its safety built into the trigger. =P  So the manual-safety discussion is kind of an off-topic tangent.

But, the safety on the taser is in the same spot as most pistols, so that's a good point.

Another important reason departments need to better train to differentiate the taser and the handgun by putting the taser on a different side of the body.  It's typically that way these days, but apparently not with BART training. =|  You'd think they would have learned their lesson from that one woman officer that shot some guy thinking she was using her taser.

I remember one of my friends who used to be in the LAPD complaining about the procedures it took to actually shoot a guy.  You had to fill out a form justifying removing your weapon from the holster, another form if you disengaged the safety, and god help you if you actually shot at something because you'd be doing paperwork for the rest of the week. 

Considering the environment police operate, they should be discouraged from going to deadly weapons unless the situation actually warrants it, which the BART situation appears to have not.  It's not the wild-wild-west so they shouldn't be rolling that way.  If you have a safety, use it. (again, moot point with the damn glocks)

I'll go with the theory that he really was so poorly trained that he thought he was going for a tazer and decided to pull the trigger without even really looking at the situation, or aiming, maybe accidently pulling it.  Because, as other people said, I really doubt he's some evil man that was thinking "Hey look, a large crowd.  I will now execute this man, and then I shall take over the world one BART station at a time."

I respect and admire the police, but holy crap that is some serious training fail.

I say we go back to slings and really heavy rocks.  Or yo-yos and boomerangs.

At the very least if you give someone a handgun, invest a little more time in teaching them how to use it.

Same goes for Tasers

Edit: To clarify, I'm not saying that if the police never used trigger/grip only safety firearms accidents like this wouldn't happen or that those type of weapons are worse than weapons with manual safeties.

I'm ranting about the safeties because it's nonsense that if you have a safety you should leave it off because you might forget in the heat of the moment.  It's not that hard a concept to teach or wrap your head around.  That the military would stress weapons safety more than civil services is ridiculous.