That’s Detective Kenneth Ayala headed home from the hospital yesterday. He was one of four of New York’s finest who were shot by Nakwon Foxworth when the NYPD Emergency Service Unit stormed his apartment. They were called after the Brooklyn resident had waved a gun at some movers and threatened his girlfriend and child. It looks like all of the cops will recover and gladder of that we could not be. Our only question is why the hell were they shot in the first place?

And no, we don’t mean that crap about illegal guns flowing into NYC from Virginia and North Carolina. Mayor Mike and Chief Kelly will do what they do and rail against the inconvenience posed by the Constitution ad nauseum. We’re wondering what possessed those four cops to storm Foxworth’s apartment in the first place?

Sure, he was armed and erratic. But he was alone.

He started waving a gun, and one of the movers called 911. Foxworth then barricaded himself in his sixth-floor apartment with his girlfriend and the baby.

Moments after the ESU team arrived, the terrified girlfriend ran out of the apartment, with the child, to safety. She later told cops that, moments earlier, Foxworth had started loading all three of his illegal weapons.

OK then. We’re not SWAT tacticians and we don’t play one on the Intertubes. But we’re second-guessers par excellence. So think about the situation for a moment. The cops had an armed, angry guy holed up in his apartment. His girlfriend and baby were safe. Turning our 20/20 capabilities up to eleven, wouldn’t the safer course of action have been to evacuate nearby apartments and either wait him out or disable him with some handy flashbangs and perhaps a soupcon of teargas?

Instead, the cops charged into the joint with Kevlar shields up. Foxworth may have been nuts, but we apparently wasn’t stupid. He shot under the shields, hitting all four of them from the calf on down.

Of course, you wouldn’t really expect a New York reporter to ask a question like that. Even if a paper like the Post assigns three of their top ink-stained wretches to the story. No, they were too entranced by the tale of the twelve shots Foxworth fired from his “9mm revolver” and the “cop-killer bullets” loaded in his “sawed-off military assault weapon.” That probably sells more papers than stories of a possible tactical screw-up that landed four cops in the hospital.

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54 COMMENTS

  1. Why would anyone need a sawed-off military 9mm assault revolver with cop-killer bullets? They’re no good for hunting and should be banned.

    • I hear he had a one of them new detachable military assault cop-killer airliner-destroying shoulder-things-that-go-up in his possession, too.

    • Actually, his sawed off rifle was a .223 mini-14, though why anyone would saw off part of this carbine I can’t imagine. These are the “AP” rounds that would have penetrated the Kevlar shield.

  4. Is is possible that they thought Mr. Foxworth was going to start shooting through the walls of the apartment to try to kill his baby’s momma and maybe them as well? Perhaps killing some neighbors in the process.

    Kudos to Mad Mike Bloomer for tracing those firearms so quickly. Contacted ATF, ATF contacted Browning, Browning researched the serial number, ATF contacted FFL in NC, FFL pulled 4473 all in the span of eight hours on a holiday.

  5. illegal guns flowing into NYC from Virginia and North Carolina.

    See that is the problem.
    As one poster stated, we need to go after the gun owners who have weapons legally and are law abiding. Then the Goblins would not be able to get the guns.
    I enjoy watching Fantasy Island as well, which is what NYC is.

    • +1
      It is beyond my linguistic ability to accurately describe my utter disdain for every aspect of NYC.

      • Hollow points in a pistol are the last thing you want if you hope to penetrate a vest. The more surface area the projectile has the better the fibers in a vest work. Rifle rounds are another story – too much energy for kevlar alone to stop.

  6. You must be certifiably delusional to think that modern-day police (especially NYPD ESU) would even consider de-escalation as a viable tactic. Any perception of “backing down” would be detrimental to their role as enforcers.

    • This reminds me of an episode of Alaska State Troopers, where a trooper is sent alone to a remote village to arrest a man on weapons charges. How does he do it? He knocks on the man’s door, and when he answers he says “I’m trooper so-and-so. I have a warrant for your arrest. You’re going to have to come with me.” At this point the suspect turns around and allows himself to be handcuffed. It’s amazing what cops will try when they don’t have the resources for heavy-handed tactics.

  7. I only have one question if anyone knows the answer. What does it take, weapon-wise to defeat those kevlar shields?

    • Apparently, not much if the officer holding the shield doesn’t know how to “tactical crouch.” 9-year-old boys playing video games can figure it out; why the NYPD ESU couldn’t is the real question.

      • Why don’t you try that in real life, and see how that works? It doesn’t. You slow down in a close quarters gun fight, and you get killed. Real life is NOT call of duty.

    • I believe a high caliber, say a 50 cal rifle should go through it. If they are talking the hard shields with those little windows in them, I think the velocity and mass will penetrate it.
      To that end many armored vehicles, are good against most rounds, i.e. hand guns, and small rifles but larger rifles like a 30-06 or the 50 will get through.

      • Most ballistic shields are level IIIA armor. Meaning they will stop pistol rounds, and NOT rifle rounds. There are some level III and IV out there, but they’re super heavy and super expensive. They’re probably not in general issue.

    • I know there is a Kevlar helmet in the 82nd Airborne museum that has a NATO 7.62 (.30 Caliber) Stuck in the side of it. I think that Sanchanim is right anything much bigger than a 308 will penetrate.
      I think the only reason that one in the museum stopped the bullet was because the guy didn’t have his chin strap on so it took the helmet off his head. I think these shields are made of the same level of Kevlar about .5 inch thick.

    • I’m pretty sure that they rochambeau for the shield. Loser gets it. The conversation goes something like this:
      (Loser)”Come on man, I had it last time”
      (Winner)”Don’t whine Cletus, get the target and get in front”
      (Loser)”Oh man… can I at least throw it at him?”
      (Winner)”And don’t forget your knee pads and the pistol with the shaved off front site. You’ll need them…”

  10. So, you’re in an apparent building, and you just more or less kinda rescued the hostages. However, there is still a suspect holed up. He is obviously well armed. He is either drugged up or under the effect of some high powered emotions.

    You can wait maybe a half hour, maybe two or THREE hours for SWAT to roll out and cordon off the building, stack up, etc, etc.

    But for all you know, he’s going to come out after you, and his lady friend, or maybe start shooting through the paper thin walls.

    You don’t know what hes going to do, but you know he’s well armed, and not right in the head at this particular moment. You can either take the initiative, or let him take it.

    Most officers don’t doesn’t keep CS gas or flash bangs in their patrol cars. The SWAT guys might, but when seconds count, backup is only minutes away. In gridlocked NYC traffic.

    You could try and talk to him, and start negotiations, but its pretty well established at this point that hes not reasonable. He would probably be just as likely to shoot at the sounds of an officers voice than listen to what they had to say.

    Plus, just having the hallway and exterior of the building doesn’t mean the subject is contained. Fire Escapes are meant for, what, exactly? Oh, that’s right, escaping out a window then the front door is blocked. The only thing worse than a crazy guy whos all tooled up is a crazy guy whos all tooled up making a desperate escape attempt.

    I hate siding with the cops, but I think they did the right thing, here. Who knows wtf would have happened if they would have waited for SWAT to respond?

    • +1

      It would have been stupid for the cops to wait around for the cops. When seconds count, the cops are minutes away.

    • ESU is, essentially, first line SWAT for NYC. They have the big trucks with lots of gear, including tactical stuff but also diving, elevator rescue etc.

      It’s sort of a compromise – because of the difficultly of moving around within the city, instead of having one super-cool SWAT organization located in what is inevitably the wrong part of the city, you have multiple teams in each borough at all times, not just sitting around waiting for a shooting but assisting the precinct cops with various “hard” things, including serving high risk warrants, but also climbing, extraction and other missions dictated by NYC’s geography. .

    • +1.

      Many of you at TTAG are pretty damn critical of the police, but they would have come for your girlfriend as well, even if it meant facing this guy. They faced a lot more danger in that appartment than you face at your keyboard.

      • You don’t know my keyboard — or New York cops. The only danger most of them face is donut diabetes.

  11. You can second guess it as much as you want, but unless you’ve actually ever stacked up and been about to go into a room where you know there’s some one armed, and willing to kill you, you have NO idea what that feels like. Its terrifying. Words can not describe the stress and the feeling just before you go in. Very, very few people would ever do that willingly unless they really believed it was the only option open to them.

  12. Serious question here: do they make ballistic greaves? It seems like if they have ballistic shields, those are the obvious accompaniment.

    • Yes, they do.

      But they’re very, very expensive, and only go up to level IIIA. They’re also heavy, and make it real hard to move.

  14. Maybe I’m missing something, but how did this guy calmly shoot FOUR sets of police legs without being shot by said police?

    • He shot 4 cops 5 times with 12 shots. 4 cops shot 25 times and hit the guy once. NYPD spray and pray in full effect.

    • Apartment distances man… apartment distances. Also remember that the guy with the shield isn’t just blocking the perps shots, he’s blocking yours as well. I’m not sure what use that shield really is in a moving confrontation.

  15. Fools! They had to rush him, if he’d escaped the apartment with his Zombie Killer Pistol Bayonet intact, he might have slaughtered thousands, if not millions!

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