Police assist a fellow officer who was hit during the gunfight in Charlotte.

A recent tragedy in North Carolina shows us that no matter how prepared you think you may be for a situation, you can’t overcome the problem of action vs. reaction. But, if you are careful to not rely on too many assumptions and always keep an eye on your surroundings, your chances are far better.

Initially, the situation seemed like many other law enforcement situations. One guy needs to be picked up for an arrest warrant, and doesn’t want to go. Deputy U.S. Marshals see this kind of thing all the time, so they came prepared to fight with the man. He was wanted for being a felon in possession of a firearm, so they expected the chance he might resist with a gun if he didn’t want to go willingly. And, resist he did, exchanging shots with them for a bit.

But, what the officers didn’t expect was that there was a second shooter. Once everyone got engrossed in the shootout with the guy they were trying to arrest (and ended up killing), four police officers were shot and four more injured by someone shooting from a completely different angle. According to witnesses, the shooting lasted for several minutes (an eternity in a gunfight).

After the shooting stopped, a three-hour standoff ensued, with police officers bringing in armored vehicles and poles to destroy the home until the second shooter was no longer a threat. Police say that there were two other people in the home, but did not specify whether they were taken in cold or warm.

Many Police Aren’t Accustomed To Serious, Organized Opposition

I’ve seen it over and over. When there’s video of a big group of police officers going to do a raid, they’ll all walk up to the house in a big group, all in the open. Because they’re usually up against some unorganized group of people who weren’t planning on being raided, this show of force is usually enough. When someone does threaten them, they withdraw and come back with armor to not take any chances.

But, this time, they came across a group of people who had just a little bit of a plan. By waiting until the first guy had everyone distracted, the rest of them were transformed into sitting ducks in an instant, and for long enough for at least eight of them to get shot.

What Everyone (Police Or Not) Can Learn From This

It’s completely natural for a person to get tunnel vision when there’s a deadly threat. In addition to not seeing things off to the sides, even a few degrees, the human brain tends to ignore sounds, lose fine motor control and suffer a whole host of other disabilities to focus on what’s important: winning the fight. But, these responses evolved (or were created if that’s your belief) some time ago, long before there were firearms and other ranged weapons that could make a threat materialize so quickly.

So, the first thing is obvious: you need to train to look around, and not just to move your head and make your instructor happy. You should actually be looking and seeing what’s going on, and maybe even training to deal with a sudden target appearing a few degrees off of the main one. Or, have someone hold up fingers, and you have to both look and see how many they’re holding up.

For the average concealed carry person, you’re not going to be participating in raids, but if you do participate in them, some rethinking of the “walking up in a crowd” strategy needs to be done. There’s no way to eliminate all threats, but you should at least have someone keeping an eye on everyone’s backs and sides.

55 COMMENTS

  1. “what the officers didn’t expect was that there was a second shooter. Once everyone got engrossed in the shootout with the guy they were trying to arrest (and ended up killing), four police officers were shot and four more injured by someone shooting from a completely different angle“

    Really? And who was this second shooter? His weapon? Did he escape or was he killed?

    • Learn what research means Miner49er.

      Police believe there were two shooters involved in the incident, including the individual killed in the initial shootout. Its suspected that one of the other two people in the house may have been a second shooter, but police haven’t charged them yet or said for a fact. The shooter that was killed was shooting at the officers from the upstairs of the house (the angle from there is different from downstairs), but there were other shots from the lower downstairs angle thus “someone shooting from a completely different angle“.

      • “Police backed away from their assertion Tuesday that there had been two shooters. On Monday, Jennings had said a second shooter opened fire when officers approached the suspect’s body. But on Tuesday, he said that, while police aren’t dismissing the possibility of a second shooter, they’re not seeking any other suspects.

        Two women who were in the house with Hughes have been questioned by police but have not been charged. Jennings said they are “fully cooperating.” He declined Tuesday to say what their relationship with Hughes might be, but said one is an adult and one is a 17-year-old.”

        https://www.wunc.org/2024-04-30/updates-4th-officer-killed-has-been-identified-police-no-longer-searching-for-2nd-shooter

      • Earliest reports said the fugitive was in the front yard, shots came from the house after he fell.

        4 versions so far…

      • “Learn what research means Miner49er“

        So for all your bluster, you don’t know shit neither.

        “Jennings said they are “fully cooperating.”

        If they are fully cooperating, that means they are answering questions honestly and I’m sure the investigating officers asked if they fired the shots. Also, what weapon was used and where did it end up, the police have not said anything about finding a weapon in the house.

        But from the fragmentary reports, it seems the second shooter inside the house may have been the one who killed four police officers…

        And then escaped with his weapon.

          • “Tinfoil”?

            So who fired from inside the house and killed four cops?

              • How easily you use empty phrases in an attempt to conceal your befuddlement.

                So who fired from inside the house and killed four cops

              • Of the two of us only one pretends to not be a troll and hide behind carefully curated “facts”. But do go on you are making your points oh so well.

        • ok Miner49er… you ask a stupid question and the answer is right in front of you with a little research, and I even summarize it for you…and you complain about me telling you to do some research and post stuff reaching the same conclusion I shortly summarized for you.

          why don’t you learn what discussion and context means.

          why don’t you just keep

    • MINOR49er, being that “ace investigator” you are, why don’t you go to North Carolina and get the answers for us.

  2. “Many Police Aren’t Accustomed To Serious, Organized Opposition”

    Good God, is THIS ever a loaded statement, especially in these polarized times. It begs the question, what will the cops do once confronted with “organized opposition?” It also demands an answer to the question, who is or will be the “organized opposition?” It also hints at an answer to, if the opposition gets organized, WTF can the cops do about it, given in 2022 there were only around 710,000 cops for a population of over 300 million, with over half of that population armed?

    The future looks interesting, if nothing else.

    • Use the screen name in relation to Bosnia/Kosovo but with more guns. If things get bad they will get real bad and the good will of most people is about all that holds everything together.

      • …. and the goodwill meter goes towards empty as the shitometer gets near full.

        • Hence the unending push for ending the 4th 2nd and 1st amendment in about that order

  3. “…At first, police believed there were two shooters, but on April 30, CMPD chief Johnny Jennings announced police are not seeking additional suspects, although they are not dismissing the possibility of a second shooter either.” Either way it would appear to me at least that these guys got complacent and they paid for it with their lives.

  4. They arrested a man who crossed the southern border illegally with alleged ties to ISIS. Will there be a time when LEOs have to deal with a group of ISIS trained terrorists who are okay to die in a hail of bullets as martyrs?

      • Yeah, that’s it! And that’s why the police let the second shooter go, they are all working for George Soros and Allah.
        Wait a minute, a new dispatch is coming in… It is the central American migrants!

        A group of Cuban refugees is on a boat sailing for the United States and is at first met by what appears to be a US Coast Guard boat with armed personnel. The captain of the vessel declares that the refugees are welcomed to the United States, but the Guardsmen open fire on them and take several bags of cocaine hidden in the boat. It is revealed that the armed personnel were Latin American guerrillas disguised as Guardsmen on board a hijacked Coast Guard vessel.

        The guerrillas land in Florida and exchange the drugs for weaponry from a drug dealer. They are led by the Soviet operative Mikal Rostov, the fake Coast Guard captain who opened fire on the Cuban refugees. Former CIA agent Matt Hunter is asked to come out of retirement, but he declines. When Rostov and a team of guerrillas destroy Hunter’s residence in the Everglades and kill his friend, John Eagle in a failed assassination attempt, Hunter is convinced to reconsider.
        Later that day, hundreds of additional guerrillas land on the beaches of Southern Florida and move inland using several pre-positioned trucks.

        We sure are lucky to get this advance Intel so Americans will have the information they need to stop this migrant caravan that is invading America!

        • Let us just say that things “might” get a lot more interesting in the near future. Gang members from several countries, illegals already here, home grown terrorists loyal to Iran or other causes…who knows what is going to happen in the next months of this year…as they say…keep your powder dry.

        • Cuba spent years training anti-Israel activists behind campus protests
          https://justthenews.com/accountability/watchdogs/cuba-spent-years-training-anti-israel-activists-behind-campus-protests

          “WSJ pointed out, “NSJP have been received and administered by the Wespac Foundation.”

          According to Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, in a recent Washington Examiner op-ed, Wespac’s website has a photo of activists holding up a sign that reads “Another World is Possible.” He said this slogan is well-known and used by organizations that “despise capitalism but feel they must cloak their communism.”

          “WESPAC funds various revolutionary far-left/anti-Western groups,” Ryan Mauro of Capital Research Center, who tracks these activists groups, told Gonzalez.

          Mauro told Gonzalez that WESPAC donations include monies from Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and George Soros’s Open Society.
          https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/student-campus-protests-veteran-activist-groups-17ccd094

          • Frozen in time from the occupy wall street days. Wild how easy it is to identify yet no one is keen on reporting it.

  5. It’s unfortunate that equipment has supplanted tactics in most modern PDs, and a ready talent pool of returning vets are unable to fit in with the hierarchy that exists – an idiot mayor dictating to an idiot appointed chief dictating to idiot kiss-ass captains… and this is the result.

  6. “Police say that there were two other people in the home, but did not specify whether they were taken in cold or warm.”

    They were warm, taken into custody. A later statement by police said both individuals were female and they had exited the home following negotiations with a SWAT team.

  7. This is the same incompetence that led to the ATF killing in Arkansas of the airport manager, or the Branch Davidians. No one was being actively harmed at that moment. No evidence was being destroyed. But hey lets launch our attack on a guys home where he has guns, ammo, cover and protection. Don’t pick him up at his job, while commuting or something else. Even if they are catching an actual bad guy who SHOULD be caught why do it when the perpetrator is at their strongest?

    In comparison a few years ago while at work I received the call of a shooting and I had to respond basically to be the on-site medical person to declare a time of death. An interstate fugitive had been located. the local task force that was organized under the US Marshal’s office figured out where this guy was. they watched him a little bit and figured out when he was likely to get into his car and leave his apartment. he got into his car which was backed up to a curb with large trees and a fence behind him and cars parked on both sides. as this individual was sitting in his car the Marshall service backed a Suburban up Bumper to Bumper with him and stopped it and armed officers who were very clearly marked and identified as law enforcement surrounded him as he dropped it into drive and did a burnout trying to push the Suburban out of the way to the point where he ruptured both front tires. with two rifles and multiple handguns aimed at him the individual then decided to draw a gun on the officers upon which he was shot. I counted a minimum of 22 bullet wounds with the vast majority of them being in the upper chest neck and facial area. no officers were injured and the suspect was deceased immediately and there was no other collateral damage. after assessing the suspect and calling the time of death we did provide medical assessment for several officers since they were wearing very heavy armor and it was very very hot and humid that morning.

    Very different outcome between these. I know there are times it is necessary to stack up and storm a place but most of these arrests in these SWAT rates could be planned much more effectively safer with less chance of collateral damage or anyone but the suspect getting hurt.

  8. Why do cops think arresting felons at their homes is going to be magically safer than surveilling & arresting them on the street?

      • See one ofthe above coments, I also think their arent many veterans on local pds do to the way they are run by layers of p c kissups. Too bad

        • Varies by area but yeah I remember a lot of departments wanting nothing to do with Iraq vets. Not so much the case up here but available experience is quickly dwindling.

    • Innocent bystanders, elected Chief, passing gang members random and nonrandom, plus the bane of specialists everywhere – boredom caused by repetition.

  9. Uh…I believe the perp’s previous encounters should have been more than enough to have kept him in a prison for life. Parole boards are releasing known proven to be sick people who are prone to commit heinous crimes.

    • Once upon a time a group was being instructed on what a prisoner would need to get an early parole.
      One was a job upon being released.
      One of the individuals stated he did have a job upon his release.
      When ask what that job would be his reply was “Stealing cars.”

    • Hey deb is that your family reunion or your basket weaving group?
      Buy American

  10. Well, now, there being only 1 shooter really changes my opinion of this raid. If true, these guys must’ve been the most incompetent people they could find to fill their positions. Seriously, they had the drop on 1 guy and he killed 4 and wounded another 4? WTF?!

  11. Exactly what I’ve been saying for decades. With terrorism happening and much more in the offing, given the evil regime we’re living under, 360 degree awareness in horizontal and vertical dimensions is a must. When a perp and or terrorist is down, don’t stand around in a circle looing only inward. Always have people looking outward and upward to roofs, trees, higher stories, etc.

      • It’s……..not easy to train for. As much as I pushed it and demonstrated it’s critical need (wiping out a full squad on simmunitions day from an unassuming bedroom window) it is damn hard to get people in a stack or under fire to focus above their eyeline.

  12. “four police officers were shot and four more injured”

    Wouldn’t that mean that eight were wounded, when in fact four were killed and four more wounded?
    Say what you mean or mean what you say.🤷

    • From the PR side it may be better to not give a full accounting of casualties to reduce the perceived ease of infliction. I agree that accurate reporting is critical in a free society but given the last few years little surprises me anymore in how the truth is twisted to serve agendas.

  13. Spread your legs, face the incoming fire, and center the weapons stock in the middle of your chest.
    Pow pow pow
    Now maneuver behind a cars tire.
    Peek above the cars quarter panel.
    Stick rifle barrel above car, do not aim.
    Pow pow pow.
    Real professional.

    • “God had his hands on the pastor”: Man’s gun JAMS as he attempts to shoot“

      A bigger God would’ve stopped the man before he even entered the church.

      • Why are your friends, the 13%-ers and kaweirs, so intent on murdering “men of the cloth” and police? Is there some genetic deficiency among those two dysfunctional communities of Democrats?

  14. This tactic is known as the “Little Rock Counter.” As always, Practice, Practice, Practice….Little Rocking…sell that gun, coming to a front door of your home.

  15. Waco 2.0, with a bag of good weed and a hooker this guy would’ve jumped in a car for a fun ride… This display of arrogance and stupidity is an example of government gone wild. Maybe this is why Jordan Peterson said they don’t like hiring cops with an IQ over 100, because they don’t do what they’re told. Take a good look at the house condition. Sad display of unnecessary violence in a residential setting.

Comments are closed.