OK, leading off with a non-whoops because it’s just too cool to ignore. You’ll remember Nick’s post from a few days ago that showed Jerry Miculek ripping off six rounds of .50 BMG in under 1 second. Well, Jerry’s back, this time with a V-Drill. Five targets, nine rounds, 3.76 seconds, 0.80 RT. The man is a machine. Click here if the embedded video doesn’t work, I don’t want you to miss this.
And with that, on with the show…
Seattle police responding to an unrelated call encountered two women fighting in a parking lot at 11 p.m. Wednesday night. Officers stopped to break up the fight, at which point one of the women took off running. When the pursuing officer caught up with her, she refused to show her hands. The officer drew his gun in response and accidentally fired a single shot, striking the 19 year old woman in the leg. He immediately radioed for medics and “offered his apologies” to the woman. She was later found to be wanted on several felony warrants. Reader Hasdrubal sends this comment he found on a local news site: “Funny story. At 19-years old I came up with this crazy technique for not getting accidentally shot by a cop. Here’s what I did, try to follow: At 11pm on a Wednesday night, I was putting up chairs and mopping floors at Godfather’s Pizza in Rancho Cordova, CA as fast as I could so I could rush home and finish studying to be ready for my 7am class on Thursday mornings. Crazy huh?!”
The Orlando airport seems to be leading the standings for most firearms confiscated at security checkpoints. The vast majority of those losing their gats are locals and the situation has the blue-gloved gropers freaking out. “‘Bringing a loaded weapon into a crowded checkpoint is a serious matter,’ TSA spokeswoman Sari Koshetz wrote in an email. ‘Sometimes passengers literally throw their carry-on suitcase onto the X-ray belt and an accidental discharge could be tragic!'” And as we all know, dropped guns – let alone properly packed pistols – go off all the time.
Two would-be carjackers in Wilmington, North Carolina were thwarted this week when they got more than they bargained for. The victim was stopped at a traffic light, smoking a cigarette with his arm out the window when a man grabbed his arm and said, “Give me your truck!” Instead of complying, the man pulled his own gun and pointed it at the suspect, who promptly beat feet along with his companion. Police are still looking for the suspects, having lost the trail after the brown streak petered out.
Finally, a followup on the Springfield Armory XD-s recall, now with video goodness. It’s not new information if you already knew about the recall, it’s just tnoutdoors9 (one of my favorite YouTubers for ammo reviews) going over the details and procedure. Thanks to Scott D for the tip.
http://youtu.be/sN593fBvx9o
The man is the cyborg, the gun IS more human, Jerry is the machine.
Yep, cyborg.
That drastically slowed-down report sound is SO COOL….
Folks, don’t take that as any type of excuse for the SPD officer. It was a screwup, and they flat out admit it was a screwup. Which is sort of nice in itself, because if ever there was an unjustified shooting that could be explained away with some creative report writing, this was it.
The guy has less than two years on, but it shouldn’t take two years to teach trigger and muzzle discipline.
At the risk of being labeled an apologist for bad Police practices, I’m sorry, but based on the facts stated in this post, I think the woman is lucky she did not take a fatal round. The police officer in this scenario certainly sounds like he was justified doing what he did. You had a situation where an unknown suspect was fleeing the scene of an altercation and refused to show her hands. I can’t imagine doing things differently from what the cop did in that case. He certainly had reason to be concerned. From his perspective, he did not know if the woman was armed and possibly posed a threat to him. This is very different from a cop who walks up to someone minding their own business. That said, a leg shot certainly does sound like a negligent discharge as most cops in a similar situation would have been aiming for center mass, not the leg.
The moral of the story it seems is that if a police officer rolls up on you when you are in an altercation with someone else and asks to see your hands, you show them to the officer.
I’ve taken a bunch of force on force training and as a non-LEO, if I found myself confronted by someone who I thought posed a threat, one of the things I have been taught is to demand to see that person’s hands as well. If they continued to refuse, they might just eat a round or two and I would not be aiming for the leg. Granted, I would not be pursuing someone – I would let them get away, but Police have different rules, They have the right and obligation to pursue suspicious people and to deal with them as needed. I will absolutely not get behind a cop who does something they are not supposed to be doing, but in this case, it certainty sounds like the officer had probable cause. Of course I don’t have all of the facts of this case – just what was presented here, so it is all that I have to go on. If the actual situation had a different set of facts, then my support might be withdrawn.
Many police officers are good, careful people who have a difficult job to do. There are certainly mall ninjas among the police as well and when they step out of line, they need to be slapped down, but a police officer who follows correct procedure is someone who will have my support.
We may cuss the cops a lot on this blog, but the fact is that I am very glad my town has a police force. Sure, I could probably defend myself and my home without cops, but I am certainly not one who longs for a lawless society without cops to keep the peace. If I hear breaking glass in the middle of the night, you can bet that I’ll be calling 911 first, then I’ll get ready to defend my family and my home with my life (or more likely the life of the ass-clown who kicked in my door).. .
One of the first things I learned when I worked at the prison all those years ago was how many people with felony warrants, on probation etc., can’t do a simple thing like keep a low profile and not draw attention to themselves. If I had a dollar for every man I met that got caught because of expired tags, busted taillights and loud music or exhaust at 2 am the IRS would have been a lot happier with me.
This is a classic example. Multiple felony warrents and she couldn’t resist a cat fight in the middle of the night. You can’t make up shit this stupid.
Um, he was drawing on her — sensible.
He accidentally let one off while drawing — oops.
Reread the story.
Hasdrubal and Russ are right Jim, the officer may have been justified by procedure to draw, but he wasn’t justified in shooting.
Also, I don’t see any calls for abolishing the police on this post or in the comments, so I’m not sure where you’re going with that.
Finally, Seattle area people who read the article will see that it happened on 120th and Aurora and say to themselves “well, of course”. Aurora Ave is Seattle’s block-wide ghetto. Things are sketchy all along it, but get a block or two off of it and the neighborhoods are just fine and in some cases pretty nice.
Fine procedure, bad trigger finger. I’ve had to draw in JUST such a situation (well… guy instead of girl) but in police work there is a difference between justification to draw and justification to shoot. He had the former but not the latter. He pulled a boner. Not malicious, not fatal (luckily), but a pretty big mistake.
shouldn’t this comment thread be on the next post, not the Jerry Miculek entry?i was so wowed by the Jerry Miculek i forgot to read the read of the entry.
It’s not just anyone that can manhandle a rifle that large and be that accurate at any range..
Jerry is truly a god among men.
Almost as impressive as Jerry was the shelf that Jerry was standing in front of…
“probable cause” to pull his duty weapon and shoot a woman in the leg????
He drew his pistol – no problem with that if he thought it appropriate. BUT WTF regarding his trigger discipline? He drew his firearm and caused a round to be fired, unintended though it is it is a colossal eft-up.
If he had pulled his firearm and capped a small child in the head?? Well, he was justified in drawing down on mom….oopsie!
I’m sorry – two years or twenty years, there is no effing excuse for losing trigger discipline. On or off duty. There are some things that are a given in the universe, paid or not – you don’t lose trigger discipline.
He didn’t make a bad choice in firing on someone. He lost control of his firearm and caused a negligent discharge. And shot someone. End of story.
^^This^^
What are they teaching at the academy?
My 10 year old knows trigger discipline. Maybe cause I taught her that. Sheesh. Idiots…
Maybe after this guy gets back from his paid vacation, I mean suspension, he should be made to carry a wheel gun. This sh^t doesn’t happen with a Python. Must have been a glock… (Sorry totenglock :). Maybe he got his house keys jammed in the trigger housing and didn’t realize it before he drew…
Fastest fingers…wife must be thrilled.
On the XDs recall, I took mine down to the Fedx place yesterday to send it out. I told the guy at the counter what was in the box and that I could not not use a drop box, it was no big deal.
“And as we all know, dropped guns – let alone properly packed pistols – go off all the time.”
In fairness, if someone is so epically stupid as to bring a gun in their carry-on bag to the security checkpoint, what are the odds that it’s properly packed, and not just bouncing around loose with the Bic pens and spare change?
This is a valid point.
That’s some shooting. He makes RoboCop look like a Chinese knock-off.
@Hasdrubal: For me, the first year college job was Shakey’s pizza…
I was working at a computer retail store. Not exactly a high crime field, but I did manage to get four speeding tickets in a year. Never had a gun pointed at me, though.
To clarify- the comment was on a local news site, I didn’t write it but I thought it was a funny comparison to the usual “all police are Nazis and should be fired out of a cannon into the sun,” kind of posts.
Yeah, I knew you were only the vector on that one. Great blurb though.
I’d have liked to work at a computer store, but in SoCal there were lots more applicants than slots. Also, while I knew them intimately, the Age of Solder was largely coming to a close insofar as computers were concerned and I was a little put off by the new turnkey stuff.
I miss the time when people actually built things.
No clue.
Jerry’s safe when charged by five rampaging elephants, that’s for sure! Normal people would be flat on their butt after the first round.
He’s a good shooter, but the way he formats his videos is obnoxious. He likes to waste a minute and a half explaining what he is going to do before he finally does it, as if doing what he is going to do wouldn’t have been self-explanatory. Thank’s, but I’ll skip to the fun part.
If you’re going to shoot, shoot, don’t talk.
Well, you’re two for two on leaving that comment under one of his videos, which makes you as tiresome to me as he is to you. If you don’t like the talking at the beginning, feel free to skip over it. Also, feel free to not tell us about it when you do. That’s just my general reaction to people telling me useless shit I don’t need to know about their lives, it’s not specific to you.
I’ll bet you won’t watch movies at the cinema because there’s no fast-forward button available to you for cutting to the chase.
I’ve even watched and enjoyed movies featuring neither chases nor combat.
By the way, on another video a “wasted,” wordy portion was his casually loading a revolver. His loading technique was at least as beautiful as his shooting.
Dif’rent strokes.
Kids these days. They have the attention span of fruit flies. Perhaps this one is off his Ritalin.
As a former Ritalin kid who erroneously got prescribed the nasty stuff because the public school admins in their infinite wisdom couldn’t understand why a 8-year old kid with an active imagination who was continually harassed by peers couldn’t sit for hours and pay attention to the “everyone wins” drivel that passes for modern educating these days–holy run on sentence, Batman–I had no problem following Jerry’s presentation and never went for the fast forward button. Go figure.
Jerry Miculek is NOT a machine. Machines have limitations. Machines wear out. Miculek does not such thing, he just keeps on getting better. I wish my house had a sign “Guarded by Jerry Miculek.”
I wish our country had that sign.
Comments are closed.