As soon as this happened, I told my coworker that there would be a plethora of rounds fired, due to the apparent tendency of NYPD officers to shoot till slide lock before assessing the effect of the rounds fired.
Who should law-abiding citizens fear more, the sheepdog, or the wolf? If both bite and kill sheep, is there a practical difference?
At one time, I was involved in offering tactical training to LE agencies.
After two years of frustration, I became convinced that the typical LE agency would rather deal with multiple lives wrongfully lost and millions of dollars in lawsuits every year than to spend the thousands of dollars it would take to properly gain AND MAINTAIN relevant and realistic tactical firearms training.
Departments know they are hiring people without competence and then failing to properly select and assess the ones who should not be carrying a firearm, much less using it. Everybody is a winner these days. Doing this should be criminal.
A realistic firearms training environment would employ a crawl, walk, run methodology built around initial use of force proficiency, followed by scenarios of increasing difficulty and skills required, conducted by veteran personnel with tactical proficiency AND the demonstrated ability to transfer those skills to the students. The instructors would need to be experienced and well-trained themselves. I would say that a graduation exercise would be a scored, high stress, escalating force, multiple distraction, all-weather, bright to dark (and vice versa) transitioning, indoor and outdoor, shoot-no shoot Simunitions scenario with multiple role players of unknown intent. This would be initially run as an individual, and upon successful completion, a team event. Application of lethal force against a non-hostile role player would result in a debriefing, followed by a retest, followed, if necessary by ONE retraining recycle. Other issues, such as use of force policy deviations, marksmanship issues (not involving shooting non-hostiles), tactical deficiencies, etc. could be dealt with by retraining, recycling, etc. Students failing to meet the standards in a reasonable number of recycles and retraining would be released from the program and forbidden to carry a firearm as part of their duties. No quotas, no preferences. Pass or fail. Retraining and requalification would be required at regular intervals to address time-based atrophy of learned skills. A impartial review board of experienced officers with proper lethal force resumes could adjudicate failures and handle appeals. All lethal force encounters resulting in firearms discharges would also be boarded. Feedback from the latest encounters would be incorporated into the training curriculum at regular intervals. Equipment/policy changes or added weapons like shotguns, carbines, etc. would require requalification as well.
Of course, this would take time and require expenditure of ammunition in training. In return, you would get a much more effective training program, and officers who shot less and hit what they were aiming. In my humble experience, most departments would prefer to spend the funds and time addressing wrongful death lawsuits than properly selecting, equipping, and training their officers. There are some exceptions, but far too few, IMHO.
NYPD has a a FireArms Training Simulator building at Rodman's Neck, IIRC. I wager that neither of these two officers have been inside it for quality lethal force training lately.
I believe that the ranges at Rodman's Neck are also restricted from firing during nightime hours because of noise complaints.
So much for a well-trained armed security force to protect and serve.
Mayor Bloomberg should resign.
TR