Beer guzzling hillbillies versus NYPD

Last Sunday the Lewiston Pistol Club ran a USPSA stage which mimicked the NYPD shooting at the Empire State Building. Here are the results:

Stage No:

4

Police at Empire State Building

Place

Name

No.

Class

Division

Points

Penalties

Time

Hit Factor

Stage Pts

Stage %

1

Adam

13

M

Limited

80

0

7.09

11.2835

80.0000

100.00%

R2

Mark

22

U

Production

78

0

8.32

9.3750

66.4687

83.09%

3

Robert

20

U

Open

79

0

9.46

8.3510

59.2086

74.01%

4

Mark

12

U

Limited

78

0

9.53

8.1847

58.0295

72.54%

5

Joe Huffman

5

B

Limited

80

0

10.05

7.9602

56.4378

70.55%

6

Velle

8

U

Production

78

0

10.27

7.5949

53.8478

67.31%

7

Jon

9

U

Limited 10

78

0

10.40

7.5000

53.1750

66.47%

8

John

4

C

Limited

78

0

10.89

7.1625

50.7821

63.48%

9

Brian

17

U

Open

76

10

9.62

6.8607

48.6424

60.80%

10

Don

19

A

Limited

80

10

10.32

6.7829

48.0908

60.11%

11

KW

3

C

Limited

80

0

11.88

6.7340

47.7441

59.68%

12

Tim

11

U

Limited

79

0

12.09

6.5343

46.3282

57.91%

13

Bill

14

C

Limited

79

0

12.39

6.3761

45.2065

56.51%

R14

Roger

21

C

Production

80

0

12.61

6.3442

44.9804

56.23%

15

Kevin

7

B

Limited

74

10

10.66

6.0038

42.5669

53.21%

16

Barron Barnett

1

D

Limited

79

0

13.48

5.8605

41.5509

51.94%

17

Erik

15

C

Single Stack

79

0

15.24

5.1837

36.7524

45.94%

18

Kami

10

U

Limited

80

0

16.48

4.8544

34.4177

43.02%

19

Roger

18

C

Revolver

80

0

18.16

4.4053

31.2336

39.04%

20

Ben

2

U

Limited

68

20

12.71

3.7766

26.7761

33.47%

21

Jodi

6

D

Limited

75

20

15.83

3.4744

24.6335

30.79%

22

Donald

16

U

Limited 10

80

0

50.31

1.5901

11.2738

14.09%

The bottom line is that a bunch of beer guzzling, uneducated hillbillies fired 352 shots hitting no-shoot (innocent bystanders) targets twice and had three misses. This compares to NYPD firing16 shots with nine innocent people injured and six or more misses.

There is at least one important difference. The police were facing a guy pointing a .45 at them. We were not.

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11 thoughts on “Beer guzzling hillbillies versus NYPD

  1. Joe,

    If you haven’t already thought of it, there may be an FOIA law you could use to get actual results from NYPD qualification attempts for comparison purposes.

  2. TriggerFinger, if there’s any way you can use FOIA to get past the requirement that shields LEO/MIL training activities, I’d love to hear it, as I could use details on VCU police qualifications in our argument for campus carry.

  3. How about they give up the results with the names and any other identifying information redacted? There’s an important public interest in having the information, but in this case not for also correlating the information to any particular police.
    This sort of redaction is done all the time in lawsuit discovery, both in cases against government entities and against private persons.

  4. The other important difference is that the beer guzzling, uneducated hillbillies would be prosecuted (and probably convicted of manslaughter or 2nd degree murder) for hitting innocent bystanders in the same situation.

  5. This makes me laugh in a very disturbing and cynical way. I cannot believe the lack of scrutiny the NYPD has received over this failure of marksmanship. They should’ve spent that micro stamping money on training simulators or something.

  6. @tjbbpgobIII, As to the having a gun pointed at you versus actually being shot at the point is that the people in our simulation of the event did not have the same stress at the cops did in the real life event. We knew the paper target in front of us was not going to shoot at us. The cops had a reasonable expectation that the man with the real .45 pointed at them would shoot at them. The adrenaline dump from the buzzer on our shot timer isn’t going to compare to the adrenaline dump from looking down the barrel of .45 being held by a man suspected of murdering someone a couple minutes earlier.

    Hence, our simulation was lacking an important component that could contribute to misses of the bad guy and hits on innocent people. I did attempt to compensate some by putting the no-shoot targets tight up against the bad guy such that, except for very wild misses, a miss on the bad guy would result in a hit on a no-shoot target. This aspect of our simulation was more difficult than real life but I doubt it compensates for the difference of adrenaline levels.

    @kbiel, The last I heard none of the innocent people hit by the NYPD had life threatening injuries. Also, in Washington State a hit on an innocent when you were legitimately shooting a bad guy is not a legal liability. I don’t know about other states.

    @Matt in AZ, I’m inclined to be very suspect of the NYPD firearms training. But until I know what their qualification standard really are I’m not going to say they are bad. The LAPD requirements, which we tested on the same day as the Empire State Building shooting, are laughable.

    If someone can get me the NYPD firearms test I’ll test them with the same group of “hillbillies”.

  7. Another very important difference is that of the element of surprise, and the subsequent, requisite satiation assessment. As a defender or responder you almost always begin outside the decision loop. The only exception would be if you’d seen it coming, or if you were an outside observer so to speak (not among those directly under attack). The aggressor tends to have the advantage initially.

    All of your shooters went there knowing for sure they were going to shoot. Further, in the organized matches I’ve seen, the shooters were able, not only to see the stage in advance of shooting it, but were able to do a run-through, some mentally rehearsing every shot prior to actually shooting the stage.

    These points I think are important ones for IPSC/IDPA in general. In real life you don’t get to know the layout of the shooting in advance. The “stage” develops dynamically and with no advance notice.

    The adrenaline pump is but another factor– it may or may not be the most important one, depending on the individual. In training other shooters, I’ve had them run 200 yards and then immediately shoot a target or targets I placed without their knowing exactly where it would be in the bay. That’s nowhere near a realistic life-or-death situation, but it’s better than sitting comfortably, chatting, watching the other shooters run the stage, then rehearsing the stage, then shooting it.

    Set up your stage and make sure no shooter can see it until the buzzer sounds, and make sure their heart rate and wind are to their disadvantage, throw in some whacky distractions during the shooting, and Bob’s your uncle. In short, create mayhem and confusion (and especially failure) or it’s little more than a night out with the boys playing billiards with guns instead of pool cues.

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