FBI:Study on cop attackers and their weapons

**Illiy** · 10-23-07, 05:00 PM

New findings from FBI about cop attackers & their weapons

[From Force Science News provided by The Force Science Research Center.
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New findings on how offenders train with, carry and deploy the weapons
they use to attack police officers have emerged in a just-published,
5-year study by the FBI.

Among other things, the data reveal that most would-be cop killers:

--show signs of being armed that officers miss;

--have more experience using deadly force in "street combat" than
their intended victims;

--practice with firearms more often and shoot more accurately;

--have no hesitation whatsoever about pulling the trigger. "If you
hesitate," one told the study's researchers, "you're dead. You have
the instinct or you don't. If you don't, you're in trouble on the
street…."

These and other weapons-related findings comprise one chapter in a
180-page research summary called "Violent Encounters: A Study of
Felonious Assaults on Our Nation's Law Enforcement Officers." The
study is the third in a series of long investigations into fatal and
nonfatal attacks on POs by the FBI team of Dr. Anthony Pinizzotto,
clinical forensic psychologist, and Ed Davis, criminal investigative
instructor, both with the Bureau's Behavioral Science Unit, and
Charles Miller III, coordinator of the LEOs Killed and Assaulted program.

"Violent Encounters" also reports in detail on the personal
characteristics of attacked officers and their assaulters, the role of
perception in life-threatening confrontations, the myths of memory
that can hamper OIS investigations, the suicide-by-cop phenomenon,
current training issues, and other matters relevant to officer
survival. (Force Science News and our strategic partner PoliceOne.com
will be reporting on more findings from this landmark study in future
transmissions.)

Commenting on the broad-based study, Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive
director of the Force Science Research Center at Minnesota State
University-Mankato, called it "very challenging and
insightful--important work that only a handful of gifted and
experienced researchers could accomplish."

From a pool of more than 800 incidents, the researchers selected 40,
involving 43 offenders (13 of them admitted gangbangers-drug
traffickers) and 50 officers, for in-depth exploration. They visited
crime scenes and extensively interviewed surviving officers and
attackers alike, most of the latter in prison.

Here are highlights of what they learned about weapon selection,
familiarity, transport and use by criminals attempting to murder cops,
a small portion of the overall research:

Weapon Choice

Predominately handguns were used in the assaults on officers and all
but one were obtained illegally, usually in street transactions or in
thefts. In contrast to media myth, none of the firearms in the study
was obtained from gun shows. What was available "was the overriding
factor in weapon choice," the report says. Only 1 offender hand-picked
a particular gun "because he felt it would do the most damage to a
human being."

Researcher Davis, in a presentation and discussion for the
International Assn. of Chiefs of Police, noted that none of the
attackers interviewed was "hindered by any law--federal, state or
local--that has ever been established to prevent gun ownership. They
just laughed at gun laws."

Familiarity

Several of the offenders began regularly to carry weapons when they
were 9 to 12 years old, although the average age was 17 when they
first started packing "most of the time." Gang members especially
started young.

Nearly 40% of the offenders had some type of formal firearms training,
primarily from the military. More than 80% "regularly practiced with
handguns, averaging 23 practice sessions a year," the study reports,
usually in informal settings like trash dumps, rural woods, back yards
and "street corners in known drug-trafficking areas."

One spoke of being motivated to improve his gun skills by his belief
that officers "go to the range two, three times a week [and] practice
arms so they can hit anything."

In reality, victim officers in the study averaged just 14 hours of
sidearm training and 2.5 qualifications per year. Only 6 of the 50
officers reported practicing regularly with handguns apart from what
their department required, and that was mostly in competitive
shooting. Overall, the offenders practiced more often than the
officers they assaulted, and this "may have helped increase [their]
marksmanship skills," the study says.

The offender quoted above about his practice motivation, for example,
fired 12 rounds at an officer, striking him 3 times. The officer fired
7 rounds, all misses.

More than 40% of the offenders had been involved in actual shooting
confrontations before they feloniously assaulted an officer. Ten of
these "street combat veterans," all from "inner-city, drug-trafficking
environments," had taken part in 5 or more "criminal firefight
experiences" in their lifetime.

One reported that he was 14 when he was first shot on the street,
"about 18 before a cop shot me." Another said getting shot was a
pivotal experience "because I made up my mind no one was gonna shoot
me again."

Again in contrast, only 8 of the 50 LEO victims had participated in a
prior shooting; 1 had been involved in 2 previously, another in 3.
Seven of the 8 had killed offenders.

Concealment

The offenders said they most often hid guns on their person in the
front waistband, with the groin area and the small of the back nearly
tied for second place. Some occasionally gave their weapons to another
person to carry, "most often a female companion." None regularly used
a holster, and about 40% at least sometimes carried a backup weapon.

In motor vehicles, they most often kept their firearm readily
available on their person, or, less often, under the seat. In
residences, most stashed their weapon under a pillow, on a nightstand,
under the mattress--somewhere within immediate reach while in bed.

Almost all carried when on the move and strong majorities did so when
socializing, committing crimes or being at home. About one-third
brought weapons with them to work. Interestingly, the offenders in
this study more commonly admitted having guns under all these
circumstances than did offenders interviewed in the researchers'
earlier 2 surveys, conducted in the 1980s and '90s.

According to Davis, "Male offenders said time and time again that
female officers tend to search them more thoroughly than male
officers. In prison, most of the offenders were more afraid to carry
contraband or weapons when a female CO was on duty."

On the street, however, both male and female officers too often regard
female subjects "as less of a threat, assuming that they not going to
have a gun," Davis said. In truth, the researchers concluded that more
female offenders are armed today than 20 years ago--"not just female
gang associates, but female offenders generally."

Shooting Style

Twenty-six of the offenders [about 60%], including all of the street
combat veterans, "claimed to be instinctive shooters, pointing and
firing the weapon without consciously aligning the sights," the study
says.

"They practice getting the gun out and using it," Davis explained.
"They shoot for effect." Or as one of the offenders put it: "[W]e're
not working with no marksmanship….We just putting it in your
direction, you know….It don't matter…as long as it's gonna hit you…if
it's up at your head or your chest, down at your legs, whatever….Once
I squeeze and you fall, then…if I want to execute you, then I could go
from there."

Hit Rate

More often than the officers they attacked, offenders delivered at
least some rounds on target in their encounters. Nearly 70% of
assailants were successful in that regard with handguns, compared to
about 40% of the victim officers, the study found. (Efforts of
offenders and officers to get on target were considered successful if
any rounds struck, regardless of the number fired.)

Davis speculated that the offenders might have had an advantage
because in all but 3 cases they fired first, usually catching the
officer by surprise. Indeed, the report points out, "10 of the total
victim officers had been wounded [and thus impaired] before they
returned gunfire at their attackers."

Missed Cues

Officers would less likely be caught off guard by attackers if they
were more observant of indicators of concealed weapons, the study
concludes. These particularly include manners of dress, ways of moving
and unconscious gestures often related to carrying.

"Officers should look for unnatural protrusions or bulges in the
waist, back and crotch areas," the study says, and watch for "shirts
that appear rippled or wavy on one side of the body while the fabric
on the other side appears smooth." In warm weather, multilayered
clothing inappropriate to the temperature may be a giveaway. On cold
or rainy days, a subject's jacket hood may not be covering his head
because it is being used to conceal a handgun.

Because they eschew holsters, offenders reported frequently touching a
concealed gun with hands or arms "to assure themselves that it is
still hidden, secure and accessible" and hasn't shifted. Such gestures
are especially noticeable "whenever individuals change body positions,
such as standing, sitting or exiting a vehicle." If they run, they may
need to keep a constant grip on a hidden gun to control it.

Just as cops generally blade their body to make their sidearm less
accessible, armed criminals "do the same in encounters with LEOs to
ensure concealment and easy access."

An irony, Davis noted, is that officers who are assigned to look for
concealed weapons, while working off-duty security at night clubs for
instance, are often highly proficient at detecting them. "But then
when they go back to the street without that specific assignment, they
seem to `turn off' that skill," and thus are startled--sometimes
fatally--when a suspect suddenly produces a weapon and attacks.

Mind-set

Thirty-six of the 50 officers in the study had "experienced hazardous
situations where they had the legal authority" to use deadly force
"but chose not to shoot." They averaged 4 such prior incidents before
the encounters that the researchers investigated. "It appeared clear
that none of these officers were willing to use deadly force against
an offender if other options were available," the researchers concluded.

The offenders were of a different mind-set entirely. In fact, Davis
said the study team "did not realize how cold blooded the younger
generation of offender is. They have been exposed to killing after
killing, they fully expect to get killed and they don't hesitate to
shoot anybody, including a police officer. They can go from riding
down the street saying what a beautiful day it is to killing in the
next instant."

"Offenders typically displayed no moral or ethical restraints in using
firearms," the report states. "In fact, the street combat veterans
survived by developing a shoot-first mentality.

"Officers never can assume that a criminal is unarmed until they have
thoroughly searched the person and the surroundings themselves." Nor,
in the interest of personal safety, can officers "let their guards
down in any type of law enforcement situation."

NOTE: For new findings from the FBI researchers about highly dangerous
suicide-by-cop confrontations, read the exclusive 2-part report by
Force Science Research Center board member Chuck Remsberg here.

The FSRC was launched in 2004 by Executive Director Bill Lewinski,
PhD. - a specialist in police psychology -- to conduct unique
lethal-force experiments. The non-profit FSRC, based at Minnesota
State University-Mankato, uses sophisticated time-and-motion
measurements to document-for the first time-critical hidden truths
about the physical and mental dynamics of life-threatening events,
particularly officer-involved shootings. Its startling findings
profoundly impact on officer training and safety and on the public's
naive perceptions.

For more information, visit www.forcescience.org or e-mail
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**Star Man** · 10-23-07, 08:08 PM

Good post.

.

**Car 4** · 10-23-07, 08:15 PM

A lot of very good info here. Many thanks for this post.

Car 4

**2525** · 10-23-07, 09:44 PM

Originally Posted by Illiy

Researcher Davis, in a presentation and discussion for the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police, noted that none of the attackers interviewed was "hindered by any law--federal, state or local--that has ever been established to prevent gun ownership. They just laughed at gun laws."

What? Does this mean gun laws have no effect on those who would break laws anyway?

**Doc_Holliday** · 10-23-07, 09:45 PM

Originally Posted by 2525

What? Does this mean gun laws have no effect on those who would break laws anyway?

SHOCKING...isnt it?!?!?!

**BEB** · 10-24-07, 06:51 AM

Good read with a lot of sobering detail. Its been passed along, thank you for sharing it.

**Virginian** · 10-24-07, 08:37 AM

Predominately handguns were used in the assaults on officers and all
but one were obtained illegally, usually in street transactions or in
thefts. In contrast to media myth, none of the firearms in the study
was obtained from gun shows.

That drives me absolutely crazy. States banning concealed carry by law abiding citizens should be held responsible for their murders on the streets.