120 rounds

Last week was fairly exciting for the MSM (Main Stream Media) in terms of criticizing police effectiveness in a 'shooting situation".


Moby SUV

On May 9, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) in Compton attempted to shoot Moby Dick (a white SUV) which had been chased "at speeds approaching 35 mph", driven by a man who they considered a suspect in an earlier drive-by shooting. When the SUV appeared to be menacing the 10 patrolmen, they fired as many as 120 handgun rounds (according to early reports) at the Evil SUV. The results were:

• the SUV was well and thoroughly ventilated.
• the driver of the SUV was hit four times, in 'the extremities' (hand, arm, shoulder)
• One deputy was hit by a bullet and knocked down; fortunately the bullet failed to penetrate his bullet-proof vest
• several rounds hit houses in the immediate vicinity
• Neighborhood residents stated "it sounded like a war!"
• An investigation is being conducted to determine whether the police over-reacted.

Assault Buffalos

Then on May 10, police in Colorado Springs were called to deal with five Buffalo (I swear I am not making this up!) which had escaped from a truck delivering those, and several other buffalo ("American Bison") to a meat-packing company loading dock.

Finding these unregistered ungulates peacefully grazing in the carefully groomed back yard of a private residence, Police evacuated nearby homes and called for a truck into which they could herd the recalcitrant ruminants. That scheme failed, as the truck was unable to negotiate the alley.

Then the police attempted to herd the herd toward the truck anyway. The buffalo resisted arrest, and first one, then another ... in the end, all five buffalo charged the police.

The police, responding according (one presumes) to well-defined departmental policy for dealing with the common situation of being attacked by half-ton homocide-bent herbivores, opened fire with rifles. Not handguns -- rifles. Two will get you ten that if the police could lay their hands on a howitzer, they would have been screaming into their two-way radios "FIRE FOR EFFECT!!!"

Having no artillary available, they did the best they could with .223 caliber rifles.

Here are some direct quotes:

When one (bison) made a run for it, charging at the fence along West Colorado Avenue, police opened fire.

It took many hits to bring the animal down. (Colorado Springs police Lt. Larry) Laxson said the buffaloes took several shots in the head and “didn’t even flinch.”

Police had decided that if any of the others came within 30 feet of them, the animals would be shot. Laxson said the other buffaloes eventually charged as well — one after another — and were killed.

“It was not a good ending. We did whatever we could to try to capture the animals without killing them,” Laxson said.

By the time the shooting stopped about 1:15 p.m., as many as 120 rounds had been fired, a few of which hit the empty houses and a nearby parked car.

Laxson said police were unable to locate equipment to tranquilize the animals, and they doubted Tasers would puncture their thick hides. G&C employees tried to back a trailer up to the yard, but they couldn’t maneuver in the narrow alley.

“We have an obligation to protect public life and property,” Laxson said. “We didn’t make the decision to kill them until it was absolutely necessary to do so.”

The incident jarred many in the neighborhood.

“I thought they went overboard, and I thought my life was in danger,” said Karl Remisch, who was visiting the house next door when the shooting started. “They just opened up and it sounded like World War II.”

On May 11, the city manager (Loren Kramer) ordered an investigation into the killing of the five buffaloes...".

Why?

• The images of the buffaloes being hit by dozens of bullets before dropping were captured by television cameras and outraged some in the community.
• Calls also poured in to police, some angry, some offering to provide better firepower next time buffaloes get loose.
• City Councilman Larry Small doesn’t want a next time. He asked for a police inquiry at a council meeting Tuesday, and other members agreed. (It was the second escape of buffaloes from the plant since December 2003.)
• Small doesn’t think police were at fault, though he wants to know why they didn’t have heavier weapons to kill them more efficiently.
• He also questioned why Colorado Division of Wildlife policy prohibited the agency from providing tranquilizers.
• But Rob Lamb, transportation director for Booth and Sons Trucking in Lucerne, said the driver backed up the trailer properly and had unloaded the animals.
  He said he left a gap in the chute to walk out of, and the buffaloes were frightened by a G&C employee and ran through the gap. He questioned the need to shoot the buffaloes.“We’ve always been able to walk them back into the pen, that’s what we did,” Lamb said.

On the one hand, residents thought there was too much shooting by the police.

On the other hand, residents thought the police weren't using enough gun.

The City Councilman (Small), among other opinions, thought that there was some legal reason why the police were unable to use tranquilizers. (The information from the articles suggests another reason ... they couldn't FIND tranquilizers powerful enough to stop a charging 900-pound buffalo, or equipment to deliver them. Not surprising, in a small city where stopping a charging buffalo may not have been part of the job description of the city police.)

And finally, the director (with the improbable name of Lamb ... that's just TOO precious to have been a made-up name!) of the trucking company that was responsible for the accidental release of the buffalo suggests that the police were not competent in the proper management of wild animals.
Well, that may be true; so where were the company representatives who WERE supposedly competent in that field of expertise, when the wild animals for which they were responsible were escaping?

Summary:

We may permit ourselves to draw a few conclusions about this episode:

1. The LASD should identify the Colorado Springs Police Officers, and offer them jobs as tactical officers or at least as patrol deputies. They may be undergunned, but they can take down a Raging Bull!
2. Police and sheriff's departments across the land might spend a little of the time previously spend planning for the 'minimal use of force' and think about planning for 'maximum force levels' which could be called for in special circumstances.
3. Use enough gun? Hey, what's wrong with the Barrett .5o Caliber BMG? I betcha THAT would have taken down a charging buffalo in less than 120 rounds.
   
4. Sorry, but Colorado Springs probably doesn't have any BMGs. In Leftist Colorado, they're lucky they have M-15's. And those Evil Assault Weapons are only good for killing people. It says so right here! (Apparently, they're almost right!)
   
5. If the buffalo had magically appeared in Los Angeles County (which DOES have BMGs), chances are that their Barret's rifles wouldn't have been in working order. Since Los Angeles declared the BMG "The Evil Gun", Ronnie Barret has refused to sell to any LA department, or to service the BMGs they already have.

Here's The Word from Geekistan:
The LASD showed deplorable gun-handling skills in Compton. They found themselves in a near-blue-on-blue situation by setting up a 'quick ambush' on both sides of a target. Even Robert DeNiro knows better than to do that!

Their deputies should be flagellated by their tactical officers because nobody can accept that this is the way they have been trained; their tactical officers should be flagellated by the Sheriff because nobody can accept that these tactics have been trained 'out of them'; and the Sheriff should be flagellated by the people who elected him, because he obviously hasn't insisted on proper training for his deputies.

On the other hand, the police officers in Colorado Springs should be praised and feted for handling, under terrible conditions and in the best manner available given the pathetically underpowered equipment available to them, a situation for which they couldn't have been expected to be trained.

The trucking company which negligently released the buffalo in Colorado Springs should shut up and take his lumps for providing inadequate security to prevent an incident which has already occurred once and for which they SHOULD have been prepared 'this time'.

There's plenty of blame to go around. Pointing the finger at the cops-on-the-ground in either Los Angeles or Colorado Springs is not only counter productive, but also cheap, too easy, a cop-out (sorry!) and entirely too cheezy for words.

Here are two final thoughts, both from Theodore Rosevelt:

For the cops on the ground:

In life, as in a football game, the principle to follow is: hit the line hard. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

and for the politicians and bureaucrates:

I want to see you shoot the way you shout.

(UPDATE: 16-MAY-2005)
Corrected typographical errors ... well, most of them ... and awkward sentence structure.
Added some links, and the Roosevelt Quotes. (I hope to add an even more applicable Rooseveltianism soon -- when I can find the exact text.)