Richmond Police Department armament

[Runcible]

Not sure if everyone's following this, but there was a daytime gunfight in Richmond on Sunday morning between murder suspect Haywood Hendricks and a number of police officers. The entire battle was captured on video by a cameraman for WTVR, CBS-6. The most recent video release is here: http://www.wtvr.com/videobeta/4614b036- ... e-Shootout

(Keep in mind the focal length on the lens distorts the actual distance between the suspect and the police - I doubt they were closer than 50 feet at any point during the fight.)

I've gone over it a few times and the two things that really grab me are the substantial number of shots required to knock down the bad guy and the apparent absence of any long guns on the RPD side of the fight. (I probably don't need to tell readers here that it's a bad thing for lots of rounds to be flying around a residential neighborhood.) So my question is this: do Richmond Police officers have patrol rifles in their cars? I can't find anything online to indicate that they do, only that "tactical" officers have M-16s.

I appreciate your responses. Thanks!

[ProShooter]

How'd they miss?

[OakRidgeStars]

I guess that "once a year" qualification just doesn't cut it any more

[Runcible]

I asked the @RichmondPolice Twitter account:

Wondering if @RichmondPolice issue rifles or shotguns to car patrol officers. Anyone know? (Thx to @Mr_Sterling) http://tinyurl.com/29rb32q

http://twitter.com/richmondguns/status/13378869846

And got this reply:

@richmondguns We appreciate your interest, but we don't discuss tactics or tactical plans because of their sensitive nature

http://twitter.com/RichmondPolice/status/13381173774

So they don't want to talk about it. Still, I expect that if the cops had rifles they would have been using them, unless there was some kind of prohibition in place from the top.

[gunderwood]

I asked the @RichmondPolice Twitter account:

Wondering if @RichmondPolice issue rifles or shotguns to car patrol officers. Anyone know? (Thx to @Mr_Sterling) http://tinyurl.com/29rb32q

http://twitter.com/richmondguns/status/13378869846

And got this reply:

@richmondguns We appreciate your interest, but we don't discuss tactics or tactical plans because of their sensitive nature

http://twitter.com/RichmondPolice/status/13381173774

So they don't want to talk about it. Still, I expect that if the cops had rifles they would have been using them, unless there was some kind of prohibition in place from the top.

You're sooo on the watch list now.

[RocKor]

Honestly if I were those officers I'd be embarrassed about that accuracy. That was not a long distance, and that was DEFINITELY not a small target. I understand that stress is a major factor but it's one of those "can't take the heat get outta the kitchen" scenarios. There is little reason several officers could not have lit that dude up.

[Diomed]

Well, they may still have those couple dozen Thompsons they had as of a couple years ago...

[firstcavapache64]

Those guys were shooting from a rest, I mean come on. They had their gun arms braced on their vehicles and were preparing to shoot for at least 5-10 seconds. How in the world can you not make at least a center mass hit with your first shot on a man that large. 15 rounds let loose in a residential area, it's damn lucky nobody else got killed. I am glad they didn't have long guns, just think what think what damage they would have done with AR15's and 30 round magazines. There would have been 90 rounds fired with 4 hits to the bad guy and probably 3 civilians hit in their houses. I hope the department uses this as a lesson and improves it's officer training. If you carry a gun you need to be able to hit what your aiming at, at least that's what I was taught when I was a kid.

[SgtBill]

I just Love it when the Monday Morning Quarterback's put their 2 cent's into something. All of those people that have ever been in a face to face shoot out please raise their right hand. Just as I thought.
Bill

[Jericho01]

Can't fault those who are raisiing questions. Anyway, I'm sure RPD will have a Lessons Learned session following this incident. There's just too much risk to civilians when shootouts occur in residential areas. Just my 2 cents.

[ProShooter]

A few thoughts....

1) The bad guy was obviously attempting "suicide by cop". He was approaching hoping to be shot quick and easy. Looks like he had a change of heart at the last second and tried to run.

2) RPD had some serious set up time here. A long gun of some kind, even a shot gun should have been deployed. No need to allow a BG with a handgun to get within striking distance. This is Richmond PD and a murder suspect. Its not BFE PD and a jaywalker. This is what the heavier firepower is made for.

3) The officers had plenty of time to prepare, even the news report suggested 30 seconds of this man walking towards them with a gun. It was not a "2 second draw and fire with the suspect suddenly in your face" scenario. A handgun fired from the stable shooting platform of a vehicle, at a slow moving and advancing target, with that much set up time (and even with adrenelin flowing), should have resulted in center mass shots. No excuses. That is what you train for. When I was still in LE, I had to shoot 6 rounds standing and 6 rounds kneeling at 25 yards. The BG looks to be at about that distance from the video.

[mdinnie]

Are you guys sure the police missed ? I may have missed that reporting; if so, I'm sorry. It could be they hit him plenty but not in the brain or spine and thus no immediate take down. If they were aiming center mass, they could have scored several hits before he goes down. People often live long enough to fire back after being fatally shot.

[mut617]

Looked to me that in the video the very first shot was a hit. Somewhere around center mass. It is no suprise to me any longer how ineffective pistol rounds can be. The BG almost always has time to run some distance before collapsing. Barring spine, head, or heart shots. After that the flinch and hasty retreat was when remaining rounds were fired so its no suprise they were misses. I think you are all being much too critical of the police in Richmond. What if they had deployed long guns on the BG? Definitely would have ended much faster but what a relations nightmare. Five cops with ar-15's blasting. May seem like the way to go for you and me but we are obviously not the majority.

[zephyp]

I just Love it when the Monday Morning Quarterback's put their 2 cent's into something. All of those people that have ever been in a face to face shoot out please raise their right hand. Just as I thought.
Bill

Hey Bill, you know what they say about buttholes...just like opinions - everyone has one...btw its Wednesday morning...

[Runcible]

@SgtBill - I hope you don't think I was criticizing the police officers on the scene. I'm just wondering whether RPD arms police sufficiently.

FWIW I actually have been shot at, at a distance of about 20 feet, from a moving vehicle:

• I didn't have a weapon.
• I threw myself to the ground.
• I had done nothing to provoke it & was taken completely by surprise.
• (The bad guy missed.)
• I was trembling when it was over.

That experience is a big part of the reason I carry concealed now.

I think cops should have patrol rifles available to them when the need arises. If RPD had Glocks, they could keep a Keltec SUB-2000 in the glove box and swap out magazines, but even a single-shot bolt action rifle would be a vast improvement over semi-automatic pistols at 20 yards.

It turns out Hendricks was carrying some variety of air pistol, but what if he'd walked out with a hunting rifle or an AR-15? We might have a bunch of dead cops, and that's not acceptable.

Maybe a street cop can't reasonably be prepared for a "killdozer" scenario, but the RPD ought to outfit its officers with long guns to kill armed crazies at a distance.

[SgtBill]

The only problem with Patrol Rifle's in most Dept's are that they are stored in the trunk and you have to be able to get to them.

The reffrence to a 20 yard shot has no real merit in my opinion as all law enforcement officer's now qualify or re-qualify with this distance as part of that procedure. If a LEO has problems from the 25 yard line then he better spend some of his own time doing some serious practice. I am not conciderd the everyday shooter because of my background, but I can tell you for a fact that on a FBI Q target at 25 yards I will put 90 % of my shot's on a 60 round course in the bottle without the use of SIGHT"S This all comes down to training and I did a hell of a lot of it over the year's so that I could be sure to go home at night when my shift was over.
Bill

[firstcavapache64]

I just Love it when the Monday Morning Quarterback's put their 2 cent's into something. All of those people that have ever been in a face to face shoot out please raise their right hand. Just as I thought.
Bill

Bill, you make a very good point. I thankfully have never been in that situation. I was in a very minor firefight but it was not up close and personal like this. My comments were strictly based on the video, which doesn't take the human factor into account, like adrenaline, stress and so on. I know you have a great deal more experience when it comes to police tactics and the expected performance of officers in the field so how do you think they did? As a former supervisor would you have been happy with the way they did? I had two uncles and an aunt that were police officers in DC and I respect how difficult the job truly is, it just seemed to me that they would have been able to take him down with fewer shots.

[SgtBill]

Sorry John, but I hate to be a Monday morning quarterback. I was not there and I cannot venture an opinion on their tactics. Two many questions come to mind - what type of ammunition were they issued, what cal. pistols were they issued. How much in-service training do they get each year and how much of it is with firearms. To tell you the truth John most Police Officers are lousey shots because they train with the thought in their head that it can't happen to me, and they would be wrong. You can NEVER tell how you are going to react untill the slug's start flying your way and that is when I hope that the training was good enough to keep them alive.
Bill

[Unkn0wN]

I just Love it when the Monday Morning Quarterback's put their 2 cent's into something. All of those people that have ever been in a face to face shoot out please raise their right hand. Just as I thought.
Bill

Bill, I think what everyone is complaining about is the fact that they didn't drop him right there and there was so much un-needed gun fire in the neighborhood. If you watch the video good enough, you can see that by the guy's body reaction on the first couple of shots, he was hit. But they weren't dropping shots.

I am assuming they were just trying to wound him to take him into custody, but with a man with that size, hitting him in the shoulder or whatnot is just going to p!ss him off and have him shooting back like he did.

[SgtBill]

Well Jerry, I don't know how the law reads for here in Va. but in N.J. where I did my career it clearly states in the 2-C stat's that a law enforcement officer has the right to shoot to KILL not to wound or maim. I don't know of any law enforcement agency around the world that trains their people to try and wound with a shoulder wound or leg wound to take a suspect down. As far as I know they all teach center mass with a possible follow up shot to the head depending on the distance and ability of the shooter.
Bill