21 Foot Rule - Or Not

[Ben]

I'm in my armchair, so I'm attempting to do no second guessing.

Guy charges cop with a hammer. The video makes it looks like it was well beyond 21 feet. It appears she got her pistol out, but no shots until he already had her down, or at least just as he swung the hammer. If I was gonna second guess, I would say it appears she could have started firing earlier, but again, I wasn't there.

I can't tell if she hit him multiple times or not, and the article implies she may have missed some shots, but the way he was crying out, it sounded like she made some hits and he still kept whacking her with the hammer.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/connecticut-man-seen-brutally-attacking-police-officer-hammer-body-camera

[K Frame]

POLICE BRUTALITY! BLACK HAMMERS MATTER! A HAMMER ISN'T A DEADLY WEAPON! WHY DIDN'T SHE JUST TAZE HIM? RIOTRIOTRIOTRIOTRIOTRIOT!!!!

[WLJ]

POLICE BRUTALITY! BLACK HAMMERS MATTER! A HAMMER ISN'T A DEADLY WEAPON! WHY DIDN'T SHE JUST TAZE HIM? RIOTRIOTRIOTRIOTRIOTRIOT!!!!

Say his name.

[K Frame]

HAMMERS UP! DON'T SHOOT!

[Tuco]

Say his name.

MC Hammer
Breakitdown

[dogmush]

That "clear the holster to first round hit" is a critical metric, but it's worth remembering that handgun rounds won't always stop someone DRT, and it looks like she was hoping she could pull the gun and point it and he would stop, so there was some time between presentation and the first shot.  All those little half seconds add up.  She was resonably lucky he didn't dome her with the hammer and end the fight on the first swing.

One of my CC pistol instructors talked about pistol hits being "switches" or "timers".  If you hit the brain or CNS, that's a switch.  You shut them off and win right there.  Anywhere else and you started a Timer.  They might die in a bit, but you have to survive until that timer runs out, and you don't always know how long it's going to run.


Also, obligitory: https://youtu.be/qdL3T3hY-kw?t=106

[MechAg94]

I agree on getting the first shot off.  Coming at her aggressively should have meant drawing the gun whether she saw the hammer or not. 


I get the impression that he wasn't as aggressive about killing her as he could have been once he had her down on the ground.  Maybe because he was shot. 

[WLJ]

That "clear the holster to first round hit" is a critical metric, but it's worth remembering that handgun rounds won't always stop someone DRT, and it looks like she was hoping she could pull the gun and point it and he would stop, so there was some time between presentation and the first shot.  All those little half seconds add up.  She was resonably lucky he didn't dome her with the hammer and end the fight on the first swing.

One of my CC pistol instructors talked about pistol hits being "switches" or "timers".  If you hit the brain or CNS, that's a switch.  You shut them off and win right there.  Anywhere else and you started a Timer.  They might die in a bit, but you have to survive until that timer runs out, and you don't always know how long it's going to run.


Also, obligitory: https://youtu.be/qdL3T3hY-kw?t=106

Why they shoot him 12 times? Well he kept coming.
Too many people have gotten their idea of how bullets effect people from Hollywood where the bad guy(s) got shot once and instantly falls dead.

[Ben]

Also, obligitory: https://youtu.be/qdL3T3hY-kw?t=106

Obligatory, Part 2:

https://youtu.be/naToChra2tc?t=25

[Ben]

Also, watching the video multiple times now, I think she got one, if not two, shots off before the first swing. They might have been low, at least from the video.

[K Frame]

Deputy Han shot first.

[AZRedhawk44]

Her voice sure lost all that bullshit coppish authoritah real quick.

She needs to go back to school.  All that shrieking is wasted energy that should be used while relying upon her pistol, taser, baton, or bare hands.

Shrieking is for getting the cops' attention and their help.  She is supposed to BE the help.

[Ben]

Her voice sure lost all that bullshit coppish authoritah real quick.

She needs to go back to school.  All that shrieking is wasted energy that should be used while relying upon her pistol, taser, baton, or bare hands.

Shrieking is for getting the cops' attention and their help.  She is supposed to BE the help.

I actually thought she was pleasant and polite* on initial contact. I would hazard to guess though, that her panic might be an example of the "minimalist" style of initial and refresher training a lot of cops go through, especially in lower crime regions.

* I hate the whole "command voice yelling" thing, but in this case it might have helped, as long as the cop didn't do it a couple of octaves too high, which I have seen in some of the body cam videos where they want to use command voice, but are also scared.

[Hawkmoon]

I'm in my armchair, so I'm attempting to do no second guessing.

Guy charges cop with a hammer. The video makes it looks like it was well beyond 21 feet. It appears she got her pistol out, but no shots until he already had her down, or at least just as he swung the hammer. If I was gonna second guess, I would say it appears she could have started firing earlier, but again, I wasn't there.

I can't tell if she hit him multiple times or not, and the article implies she may have missed some shots, but the way he was crying out, it sounded like she made some hits and he still kept whacking her with the hammer.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/connecticut-man-seen-brutally-attacking-police-officer-hammer-body-camera

I don't know what kind of holster she had, and since she was a detective it likely wasn't a retention-type duty holster. Here's some background for you:

The so-called 21-foot "rule" is an over-simplification of the original Tueller Drill, which was devised by a then-police trainer named Dennis Tueller as a means of teaching rookie street cops that things can go south a lot faster than they might expect. When he had several of his officers run the drill, 21 feet was the average distance within which a [rubber] knife wielding "suspect" could close on an officer and stab him in the chest before the officer could draw from his duty holster and fire a shot.

BUT ... when Tueller devised the drill, departments (his, at least -- IIRC he was with the Salt lake City PD) didn't use level 3 retention holsters. Also, in the drill, the officers knew the subject was going to react at the signal and try to stab them. They weren't expecting "command voice" to win the day. After his retirement, Tueller gave talks around the country, and he stated flat out that the 21-foot distance was no longer viable, because it takes longer to draw from a level 3 retention holster.

This happened in Connecticut, and I know more than one retired police officer from Connecticut. (One of the local gun shops I check out periodically is run by two retired Connecticut cops). Their police academy puts a lot of emphasis on the use of command voice. I'll go out on a limb and hypothesize that this detective had been taught that command voice would always work, and even though she has made detective she hadn't encountered enough real world scenarios to have learned that t'ain't necessarily so.

So she learned the hard way.

What movie was it in which a character said, "When it's time to shoot, shoot -- don't talk"?

[Edit] Apparently she was working a uniformed patrol shift, so she was probably wearing a duty rig. She obviously was NOT expecting him to attack her, and she was not mentally prepared to shoot when he first charged at her.

[Hawkmoon]

One of my CC pistol instructors talked about pistol hits being "switches" or "timers".  If you hit the brain or CNS, that's a switch.  You shut them off and win right there.  Anywhere else and you started a Timer.  They might die in a bit, but you have to survive until that timer runs out, and you don't always know how long it's going to run.

I have a friend who is a retired police chief. During his time as a street cop he survived two shootouts, unscathed. His advice: "Put one in the snot locker."

In this case, the detective started a timer, but the perp didn't bleed out -- he survived.

[WLJ]

What movie was it in which a character said, "When it's time to shoot, shoot -- don't talk"?

Tuco in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

[dogmush]

To add on to Hawkmoon's context:

The Tueller drill was can be set up by time rather than the 21ft thing.  Tueller found that the attackers could cover the 21 ft in 1.5 secs, so that was kind of the benchmark for the cop getting the gun out and a shot off*

I generally train to get my CC gun out of concealment and a first round 7yd A-zone in sub 1.5 sec.  Normally, cold, I'm like 1.3-1.35 or so from concealment, so that 21ft is a decent guideline there.  I might have some leeway because the target will be closer than 7 yds by the time I get the gun out.

I do have to disagree with Hawk on the retention holster being too slow though.  I can get mu G19x out of an ALS holster and a shot off in right around a sec consistently, and in the 0,85 range on a good day.  The SLS level three adds slighty less than a tenth of a sec.  So a preficient user should 100% be able to get out of a level 3 holster and in the fight in less than the 1.5sec/21ft of Tueller's drill.  They should in fact get multiple shots off.  The draw stroke is something you can practice daily with no rounds used, just dry at home, so cops have no excuse for a slow draw.  Do 10 or 20 dry draw's and presentations per day.

*Considering the  other part of this discussion on pistol round effectiveness, maybe we should be benchmarking the draw and Bill Drill time.

[BobR]

She is really lucky IMO, I have seen more than one depressed skull fracture from someone getting whacked with the nail driving part of a hammer. They usually consider that more than minor injuries.

bob

[Ben]

I do have to disagree with Hawk on the retention holster being too slow though.

Hey, you gotta remember that the Hawk is like a million years old. "Retention" probably means one of those leather string loop thingies that go over the SSA revolver hammer. 

[WLJ]

Hey, you gotta remember that the Hawk is like a million years old. "Retention" probably means one of those leather string loop thingies that go over the SSA revolver hammer. 

https://youtu.be/aJCSNIl2Pls?t=238

[MechAg94]

I was thinking the Tueller Drill was also a way to show juries and the public that a knife wielding suspect was dangerous even when well out of reach of the officer as some departments were catching grief over some shootings of knife wielding suspects. 

[JN01]

I think the point of the drill was to teach cops to move away from the line of attack as they are drawing in order to give them more time and distance to respond.

[Hawkmoon]

Her voice sure lost all that bullshit coppish authoritah real quick.

She needs to go back to school.  All that shrieking is wasted energy that should be used while relying upon her pistol, taser, baton, or bare hands.

Shrieking is for getting the cops' attention and their help.  She is supposed to BE the help.

Agreed.

[Hawkmoon]

To add on to Hawkmoon's context:

...

I do have to disagree with Hawk on the retention holster being too slow though.  I can get mu G19x out of an ALS holster and a shot off in right around a sec consistently, and in the 0,85 range on a good day.  The SLS level three adds slighty less than a tenth of a sec.  So a preficient user should 100% be able to get out of a level 3 holster and in the fight in less than the 1.5sec/21ft of Tueller's drill.  They should in fact get multiple shots off.  The draw stroke is something you can practice daily with no rounds used, just dry at home, so cops have no excuse for a slow draw.  Do 10 or 20 dry draw's and presentations per day.

You're not disagreeing with me, you're disagreeing with Dennis Tueller. I just reported what he said. When he devised the drill, his department wasn't using retention holsters. You are correct on time -- the average time it took their officers to draw and fire was 1.5 seconds. From that, they went on to setting up the drill, which consisted of a "perp" armed with a rubber knife, and a cop with his/her duty weapon holstered. IIRC, the perp was facing away from the cop. On the signal, the perp would spin around, rush the cop, and stab him/her in the chest. On average, repeated runs of the exercise showed that IN GENERAL the perp could stab the cop before the first shot if he started from 21 feet or less.

Tueller has always been VERY clear that this was never intended to be a "rule." Other people have taken it and portrayed it as a hard-and-fast "rule" that 21 feet is the magic distance within which it's okay to shoot someone. Not so. The SOLE purpose of the drill was to demonstrate to rookie cops that a person standing 21 feet away (that's more than a car length can still be a lethal threat, so they need to be alert.

And the last point is the one I mentioned above: It was Dennis Tueller himself who said that 21 feet is no longer valid, because the 1.5 seconds is no longer the average time to draw -- because retention holsters are slower than whatever they were using when he created the drill. As far as I know he has never assigned a new number to the distance, and that's probably because he never intended for 21 feet to be portrayed as a "rule." Why update to a new number that will also be mis-portrayed as a "rule"?

[Hawkmoon]

I think the point of the drill was to teach cops to move away from the line of attack as they are drawing in order to give them more time and distance to respond.

Not according to what Tueller himself has said and written. That's certainly a benefit to the drill, but it was not the reason for creating it.