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The officer’s primary pistol was the most common weapon used for every duty assignment. SWAT officers used patrol rifles 38% of the time while patrol officers used rifles for 16% of the incidents in the data set.
Although no shotguns, revolvers, precision rifles, or other weapons were used in the data set, the data base is setup to capture this information.
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The charts on the right break down weapon accessories by duty assignment.
40% of tactical officers had red dot sights on their handguns while only 8% of patrol officers did. It is worth noting, the current data set involved incidents spanning from 2020 to 2023. As the sample size of the data increases, the Officer Performance Project will be able track trends in red dot use and correlations between use and accuracy.
Weapon mounted lights and red dots on rifles were common for all duty assignments. The use of weapon mounted lights during incidents will be analyzed later.
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The table to the right breaks down the average accuracy by weapon and duty assignment. Consumers of this data should be cautious due to the small sample size at this point in the study.
Accuracy was generally determined “by incident” and not “by officer.” In cases where multiple officers fired the same type of weapon it was not possible to determine who’s round hit where.
Avoid overusing accuracy as the sole measure of performance. There are multiple reasons why an incident may have a lower accuracy percentage that are not related to the officer’s performance. Because the data primarily involved fatal shooting investigative reports, overall OIS accuracy is probably lower.For more information on this refer to the Methodology and Misc. section.
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Another way to look at accuracy is by incident. The chart on the right counts the accuracy for each incident by duty assignment and weapon type. If an officer fired and hit with one round, and another officer fired five rounds and all five struck the suspect, both incidents would count as 100% accuracy.
When viewed this way, in a third of the incidents when patrol officers used their handguns they had zero misses.
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The following bullet points provide additional information to the graphic concerning the 32 officers (80% of the overall dataset) who used their handguns.
In 80% of the OIS’s where an officer used their handgun, the officer already had their weapon unholstered prior to the shooting. The officer’s weapon was usually already pointed at the subject, but may have also been a “carry” position such as low ready or sul. For 17% of the experiences, the officers had to draw and immediately shoot. For 1 incident (3%), the officer’s had to pick-up their weapon from the ground during a struggle with a combative subject.
The median distance of the handgun OIS’s was 15 ft. 75% of the shootings were withing 22 ft. The furthest handgun rounds were fired when the subject was approximately 135 ft. away. OIS’s are dynamic events and for many of the incidents the subject and/or the officer were moving during the shooting. The above information used the average min/max for each officer. Please refer to “Methodology & Misc.” for more information on how distance was determined for each incident.
12.5% of officers transitioned to or from a Taser and used their handgun during the incident. For this dataset, no officers transitioned to or from a rifle.
For 34% of the officers, a pursuit was also somehow involved in the incident. This usually means the officer was also running but not always. For more details on what the individual officer was doing prior to shooting see “Pre-shooting activities.”
One officer (3%) had a malfunction with their handgun that they were able to clear during the incident.
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The following bullet points provide additional information to the graphic concerning the 8 officers (20% of the overall dataset) who used their handguns. Viewers should use caution drawing conclusions from this small dataset.
The median rifle distance was 75 ft. The furthest rifle shot was 314 ft.
No one using a rifle transitioned to a handgun or other, less-lethal weapon in the dataset.
Officers using a rifle were almost twice as likely to also use cover.
For 38% of the officers, a pursuit was also somehow involved in the incident. This usually means the officer was also running but not always. For more details on what the individual officer was doing prior to shooting see “Pre-shooting activities.”
No officers in the dataset had a malfunction with their rifle.
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“Pre-shooting activities” covers what the officer was doing immediately before they fired shots. This is one of the most important data and goes right to the core of providing realistic training. The database broke “pre-shooting activities” into several categories based on training relevance. For example, clearing buildings is a very different skill than physically controlling a resisting subject, which is also very different than verbal de-escalation. However, all three of those skills could be tested during a single OIS. And an officer’s competence with those skills could affect the outcome of the shooting, or even if a shooting occurred at all.
For data analysis, it is always easier if you are looking at a single variable. Dynamic incidents such as OIS’s are rarely so easy. For this study the two most relevant pre-shooting activities were chosen for the officer who fired shots. The charts shows the pre-shooting activities for the 40 officers in the dataset broken down by duty assignment and weapon. Because more than one pre-shooting activity could be used in the study, the percentages do not add up to 100%.
“Verbal commands” was the most common pre-shooting activity for Patrol and SWAT officers, while Patrol officer ran prior to shooting in over a third of the experiences.
It is worth noting, the “pre-shooting” activity covers up to two of the most relevant activities of the officer who fired shots. Another officer who did not fire shots during an incident may have attempted de-escalation or been physically fighting for with the subject prior to the shooting. The database did not capture this information. For more information on how the activities were defined and how the data was collected please refer to “Methodology & Misc.”
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The shooting position for each officer who fired shots was recorded. In three instances the shooting position was either unknown or too dynamic to put into one category.
The majority of officers fired from the standing position. Patrol officers showed more variety in their shooting positions than Tactical officers. Patrol officers were the only officers to shoot from the ground in this dataset. All of the shots fired from the ground were either because the officers fell or were involved in subject control.
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The OIS study looked at if the officer fired shots while moving or if they were stationary. This is frequently taught as “shooting on the move,” which is different than moving to a position, stopping, and then shooting.
There were 33 Patrol experiences where the study was able to determine if the officer shot stationary, or while moving forward, backwards, or laterally. The study did not differentiate between left and right.
There were an additional 3 patrol experiences where the movement was listed as “other,” indicating there was movement but it was too dynamic to classify. All three of these incidents also involved subject control. For 3 incidents the movement direction was not able to be determined based on the investigative documents.
It is worth noting, when Patrol officers shoot on the move it is usually moving backwards (71% of movement).
For all 8 of the SWAT experiences in the dataset there was no movement.
For half of the SWAT experiences there was video to determine the officer’s movement. For the other half the determination was based on the investigative documents to include interviews with the officers. As the dataset grows larger, this is likely to change.
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28% of the incidents involved the use of less-lethal weapons by officers. The officer using less-lethal may or may not have also fired shots.
10% of officers transitioned to or from a Taser during the OIS. These officers did fire shots during the OIS.
35% of the officers who fired rounds were also in a foot and/or vehicle pursuit.
30% of officers who fired shots used cover.
3% of the officers conducted an emergency reload with their handgun.
3% of the officers had malfunction with their pistol, which they were able to clear.
As the sample size of the study get’s larger, the above percentages will likely change.