Editorial -

Training Tactics Need Scrutiny
After Tragic LAPD Police Shootout

The Bradley Report is sympathetic to the police forces of America, and it is our firm belief that the overwhelming majority of police officers across the nation are honest, sincere and decent men and women who work hard every day to assure that their fellow citizens can move freely and without fear in their daily lives.

Yet there have been a number of troubling incidents in recent years, particularly in New York City and Los Angeles, that Americans cannot afford to overlook, since to do so is to give tacit approval to an apparent change in police tactics and approaches that ultimately could become a threat to anyone individually, or to everyone in terms of confidence in the citizen police entrusted with protecting their fellow citizens.

The police are, after all, not military or paramilitary organizations, although many state police organizations and large city police departments in recent years seem to see themselves more in that light. American police officers are citizens that the citizenry at large has empowered, through the political system, to wear a badge and uphold the laws. They are our fellow citizens and we are not, and should not, see ourselves as civilians or allow ourselves to be referred to as civilians in what has become current police jargon, which unfortunately the media has been all too quick to accept.

Such subtle and not so subtle changes in attitude and approach should not be overlooked. And of course the most important change in attitude is how police use deadly force.

In NYC not too long ago plainclothes detectives shot over forty rounds at a man named Amadou Diallo, riddling him with 19 bullets.

Less than half the rounds struck Diallo, and thankfully no other apartment dwellers happened to come out of their homes or be in the vestibule or the adjacent hallway, but marksmanship doesn’t matter very much when high-capacity semi-automatic pistols are simply emptied to rain bullets at a target. And what caused the barrage?

Diallo apparently turned to see who was chasing him into the vestibule of his Bronx apartment, but he turned while holding his wallet in his hand and the officers claim they thought he had a pistol. Even if he did, it used to be that police first tried to talk a suspect down before shooting, much less shooting in a manner clearly designed to kill.

But of course we are in the era of pre-emptive strikes.

And now on the other side of the country a tragedy has unfolded that once-again besmirches the LAPD.

A distraught, perhaps deranged and certainly intoxicated auto body man, Jose Pena, confronted an array of police officers after a stand-off of nearly four hours, during which he had fired his nine millimeter weapon a number of times, but had yet to injure anyone, although not for lack of trying; he fired after his teenage stepdaughter when she fled his auto repair shop. An earlier report that he had  threatened to kill everyone in his family had brought the police in the first place.

Finally police stormed the building and then Pena, with his 19-month-old daughter, Suzie, in his arms, confronted them with his pistol in his hand and began firing again, this time hitting a SWAT team officer, Daniel Sanchez, 39, in the shoulder and arm, where his flak jacket/bulletproof vest didn’t cover him. Eleven officers then opened fire, and Pena and his daughter died in a deadly hail of 90 bullets. Ninety bullets!

The point here is not that Pena was a simple man caught in an unexpected conflict with the police. All the evidence points to the contrary; he was a troubled man who some claim was an abusive father; he was drunk and there is some evidence he was also using drugs, possibly cocaine. 

And there is no possible excuse for Pena to have used his daughter as a shield for himself and in so doing put her in harm’s way; he died as a belligerent coward. He was not a victim; his daughter was the victim.

The point here is the barrage of bullets.

There were eleven officers confronting him, and others were in the rear of the building. Pena couldn’t get away. The police were armed with pistols and with assault rifles, and clearly had the firepower advantage. The question is how that firepower was used. Once Pena wounded the SWAT officer, and was firing at the police in close quarters, the police had little choice but to fire back; it’s how they fired back that matters and should be of concern to everyone regarding police training and tactics.

Even in Vietnam, American soldiers using assault rifles very similar to those used by the police were taught, when in close combat, to fire at the ground in front of the target. This produces what some call the ‘skip-shot’ effect, where the round hits the ground and ricochets upward into the legs, groin and stomach. It seems reasonable to think that this technique would have at least provided a chance that the child would survive while Pena was shot down.

Of course it would have been even better if some of the LAPD officers had simply demonstrated marksmanship skills and shot Pena’s legs out from under him, and if his legs for some reason were not an easy target – he was reportedly by then in his office – at least try to isolate the shots and either hit his arm or put a round in his head.

But instead a barrage of bullets were aimed at Pena, either indiscriminately or aiming for the trunk area. And so Pena and his daughter quickly died.

Unfortunately it seems that the various police academies are now training officers in that manner of firing response, and that is what is troubling.

The officers involved in this debacle are undoubtedly all decent people, and several were clearly distraught over the result of this gun battle. In some ways, they too are victims, only they are victims of a modern style of training that should now be scrutinized and discussed publicly, since it seems reasonable to assume that most Americans would not want their police officers trained to shoot to kill first and figure things out later.

It is worth recalling that even in the troubled 1960’s and early 1970’s, police were trained to always try to take a prisoner alive, to disable the suspect, and to shoot to kill only when there was no possible alternative. Clearly the training manuals have been vastly revised in the years since then, quietly and under the public radar screen, but now the results of that different training philosophy are being seen more commonly, and usually with tragedy ensuing. It is time to reevaluate police procedures in shooting situations.