Posted on 05/10/2015 9:58:40 AM PDT by re_tail20
Timothy Stansbury died in a New York housing project stairwell in 2004 because he startled a police officer. The officer's surprise at encountering Stansbury caused the officer's hand to clench and his weapon to fire. The death was ruled accidental by a grand jury, though the officer was later stripped of his gun for the remainder of his career.
Akai Gurley died in another New York housing project stairwell last fall. A rookie officer with his finger on the trigger of his pistol tensed as he pushed open a stuck door; the added pressure on the trigger caused his weapon to fire a shot down the stairwell. The round ricocheted off the wall to strike Gurley. Though the shot wasn't intentional and the officer didn't even know Gurley was there, the death has been ruled a criminal homicide, and the officer's trial is pending.
In both of these incidents, the police officers were using the same weapon, a Glock: a polymer-frame, striker-fired pistol with a short trigger pull and no external safeties.
It's a popular handgun for law enforcement in New York and beyond. The Los Angeles Police Department has a number of firearms approved for use, including nine Glock models. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department recently began issuing new recruits the Smith & Wesson M&P, a handgun with a short trigger pull that operates in much the same way.
Glock uses the marketing term “Safe Action” to describe its firing-pin system, but the truth is that Glocks are accident-prone. They contributed to more than 120 accidental discharges in the Washington Metropolitan Police Department from 1988 to 1998. Anecdotes of increased accidental shootings have followed the pistol for more than 30 years wherever it has been adopted by police officers and citizens alike...
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I love Glocks, but they are a really bad choice if you are negligent. Most police have extremely good firearms manners, but even 10% being careless with Glocks will lead to weekly stories on “what the Glock did”. The truth though is that what the cop did was wrong, while the Glock is an excellent work of engineering that leaves no margin for error when reckless people violate safety rules.
I call Bull-Butter!
Glocks have (at least) one more safety than a revolver, which was standard issue for the vast majority of agencies even after the advent of semi-auto’s, not to mention striker-fired, polymer-framed pistols.
In both of the situations described, it sounds like the weapon was out of the holster due to some perceived threat the officers were trying to locate. If they are clearing a building/room, then even with a multiple-safety gun like a 1911, both grip-safety and thumb-safety would have been off with only a (relatively) light, short trigger press needed to make it go *bang*. Any pistol would likely have gone off in the situations described in the hands of those particular officers because they would (should) have made the gun ready to fire as soon as it cleared leather. If they didn’t have an articulable need for it, it should have stayed in the holster.
But back to revolvers, unless a Glock has had trigger work done, the factory (typical dept approved) trigger isn’t all that much shorter than an uncocked revolver, has a similar pull weight and is a whole heck of a lot longer & heavier than a revolver with the hammer cocked.
Instead of jumping to the easy, “low-hanging fruit” conclusion that the pistol is to blame, they should take the hard path and ask if standards and training have been lowered to meet budget demands. Perhaps they should also look at recruiting for quality instead of quantity.
Some cops can be trusted with a 3lb trigger. Some shouldn’t be trusted with a 50lb trigger. What was the case here? So again, I call bull-butter. The problem in both cases is more likely to be found with the Officers and not the tool. Plenty of officers employ all manner of handguns (including Glocks) in high-stress, life or death situations and do not AD.
There is no substitute for a good 1911. There are many good reasons why it’s the most duplicated pistol in the world.
Yup.
Frame index. Learn it, live it, love it. Any firearm in that situation can be touched off if the shooter is startled and has his finger where it shouldn’t be.
The truth is, most New York City cops I know don’t train other than their required qualifications. they get mad at me when I tell them I would train more if it was my job to carry.
Amen to that. My .40 will cut your skin if your not careful.
“I have never seen any evidence suggesting there was/is a compelling reason for most cops to carry those kinds of guns.”
Well, I think it’s like this: 99.99% of the time, they would be fine with just a revolver. Then there’s that 0.01% scenario, where they have some maniac criminals with a real arsenal who outgun the police. All the cops in the country hear about those cases, and then they want to make sure that never happens to them.
Back to Basics,
1911.
.
More BS for the gun phobic fools to eat up.
.
Yep. Basic practical, Day One.
In the trade, commonly called, “GLOCK LEG!”
Absolutely NOT for the untrained. I dearly love my GLOCK 19 and 26, but anyone else wants to use them? Buy your own damned GLOCK!
MARSOC recently approved them for use. At request of Marines themselves. That says a lot!
My instructor here in SC could not say enough bad things about Glocks.
We should go back to revolvers! I’ve been saying so for years!
If the AR-15 is a “Barbie” for guys, Glocks are “Mr. Potato head.”
“...I have never seen any evidence suggesting there was/is a compelling reason for most cops to carry those kinds of guns...”
When training to draw, aim and fire, a Glock is dang near the same as a revolver, which cops have carried forever. The biggest difference is how to deal with malfunctions. Otherwise, a Glock is no different from a revolver to shoot: “Point Gun; Pull Trigger”. Simple.
I think the key point of your post was training for “crisis situations” and with these particular officers, I would wager the outcome would have been same/similar regardless of the handgun they happened to be holding. They violated at least two of the four basic safety rules drilled into them on day one of their firearms training.
Had they had some other pistol with (hypothetically) a myriad of complicated safeties, none of those safeties would likely have been engaged. They were in the act of looking for a known threat or clearing a location of potential threats, would have had their guns out, safeties off and ready to fire. Their first mistake was having their finger already on the trigger when their fear, apprehension and stress levels were up - apparently to the point they were losing fine motor control. It just went downhill from there.
The firearms instructors and field-training officers who “passed” these particluar cops are in need of some soul-searching as well.
I learned all I needed to know about New York Cops when a pair of them wounded nine people in Time Square taking down a fashion designer.
I dearly love my 19. And apparently, thousands of others do as well.
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