Overkill?

The Big Guy sent me this story, curious what my take would be...

After 50 Shots in Harlem, One Dead and 6 Hurt

The shooting in Harlem started after a fight broke out at a crowded party that had spilled from a park into the streets on Sunday morning. When it was over, 50 bullets had been fired, one man was dead, and six others, including two police officers, were wounded.

Pretty sensational, eh? This story has pretty much everything: Two men fighting over a woman, one of which kills the other (allegedly); there's cops shooting every which way - and injuring each other with "friendly" fire; there's allegations of police overreaction and even falsifying evidence - the police version is that one of the men shot the other, but witness testimony - and evidence at the scene - contradicts that. Of course, this is the New York Times reporting, so the facts of the case are really anyone's guess.

What has been found so far that's interesting:

1. Four cops fired 46 rounds;
2. One of the combatants was shot 20 or more times and is expected to survive;
3. Two police officers were shot, one of which was determined to be by another cop;
4. Three other people were shot; it is unclear whether they participated in the original melee or not but they were most likely shot by the police.

My opinions:

1. 46 shots fired, 20 on target is pretty decent when the target is shooting back;
2. Rule Four has obviously been broken here, but it's really hard to comment not having been there - if someone's shooting at me, I'm going to be more concerned about incoming fire than what's behind the guy I'm trying to shoot.
3. This observation from witnesses:

“Never once did you hear, ‘Freeze,’ ” he said. “Never once did you hear, ‘Stop.’ Never once did you hear, ‘N.Y.P.D.’ ”

jibes with "training" I've observed at public ranges (watched a small city's PD train in much this manner: "Stop, Police!" [half-second pause] [BLAM][BLAM][BLAM]). However, "eyewitnesses" who may or may not know and/or be related to one of the combatants are about as reliable as PD "investigations" that show officers blameless before all the brass is even collected.

Bottom line: Too many variables IMHO. This could literally be anything. The cops may have shown up, witnessed a fight, and started blasting away, killing one of the combatants and blaming the other for the shooting. Or they could have arrived immediately after the fatal shooting, ordered the shooter to drop his weapon, taken incoming fire, and returned fire accordingly. Bullets do funny things on real-life structures - it's equally possible that the officers who were shot were hit by ricochets and such. There's simply no way of knowing exactly what happened based on the NYT report.

Four cops firing 46 rounds - while certainly sensational - is not surprising; quite frankly, it's a little low. That's 10-12 rounds per cop, roughly, assuming that they're armed with a .40 or .45 ACP and not a 9mm. Adrenaline kicks in because someone's trying to kill you, I don't think it's unreasonable at all to fire until the slide locks back. Hitting 20/46 shots, under fire? Heck, pdb linked a video of a guy who had a MUCH lower hit rate than that on static bowling pins... Now, whether those 46 rounds were justified or not is a completely different story, and one we may never truly know...

In any case, I'm certain we'll hear more about this as more comes to light...

That is all.