Well, they could start with not shooting the driver and thus not endanger the child even more than was already done. That would be partly the point of shooting the tires out…not to mention avoiding potentially firing more rounds higher up and potentially hitting other innocent victims, or risk having the vehicle run amok with a disabled driver at the wheel. See, that’s kind of the thing with hollow points. They’re slightly safer to use in urban areas because they’ll stop sooner - but still, only once they hit something - or somebody.
(I’m reasonably sure you wouldn’t actually be trying to justify shooting at a vehicle known to have a child in it just because the driver is a problem.)
But hey - just wait a couple of years. Then the NSA can backdoor the embedded systems on your car and make it stop any old time…
Then I should think the fact that you have been accustomed to being a pedestrian in that same place would point out to you that shooting there is pretty bad idea.
And yes - hindsight is 20/20. The only thing that can be done now is to stop and look at it hard, and see if something can be learned to avoid having this ever happen again.
The police had already issued a lock-down order for the Capitol and Twitter was full of reports of people being rushed inside by Capitol Police. There’s also not a lot of pedestrian traffic there, other than people getting in and out of cabs in front of the building entrances (and the Hart entrances are maybe 250’ from where the police box is.
Tinted windows, a small child, and the fact that they were probably focused on trying to control the driver in the brief moments where they were close enough to detect the child?
Is this oft-mentioned “shooting the tires” out really realistic option? Even forgetting that many luxury cars have run-flats, it seems to reflect unrealistically high marksmanship expectations under extremely trying and fast-moving circumstances. Also, if you think she might have an explosive device, a stopped or slow-moving car-bomb isn’t a lot safer to her child than a highly mobile one.
And I’m pretty sure that lots of societies (including the US) have already come to the conclusion that if you know or suspect that someone is a suicide bomber, you don’t let the presence of children prevent you from eliminating the threat.
Lots of car manufacturers already have this built in.
No, I’m not talking about the stuff presently used in American cars. I’m talking about the types being built into German cars - with auto-braking and such.
As to the other - if a cop can carry a gun on the street, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with demanding that they can use them effectively and aren’t prone to freaking out. That’s what they’re supposed to be trained for - just as people in the armed forces are. And it’s probably even more important when they’re dong this kind of work domestically.
Even if the tires can’t be shot out easily, radiators can be. Not that shooting at a car doesn’t risk turning it into a bomb even if it didn’t start out as one…
I doubt there’s a substitute for experience in these sorts of situations—adrenaline≠freaking out—and even for expert marksmen I think that shooting out tires is rather unrealistic. Furthermore, it appears that handgun bullets frequently fail to penetrate and instead simply bounce off, while hollow-points are the most likely to be ineffective. Maybe you could puncture a radiator if you’re shooting head-on, but cars can still run for a while before the loss of cooling becomes catastrophic.
Part of the problem, I think, is that we all have a moviegoer’s/TV-viewer’s exaggerated idea of how easy it should be to deal with complex problems of this sort. You can’t shoot at tires unless you can see the tires and have a reasonably steady bead on them.
Remember that police also have to be concerned with what’s behind the target, in case they miss – hitting a bystander either directly or by riccochet is not exactly desirable. And if shooting out a tire OR shooting the driver throws the car out of control (does it? I haven’t a clue) you have to worry about what it might hit… while trading that off against the risk of it hitting something while being pursued.
I really do think everyone would have preferred capture if they thought they could do so with reasonable safety.
To me, the very idea that a cop couldn’t it a tire on a vehicle at a relatively short distance like that is scarier than car bombs. (Though I do understand about angles and time involved in blowing out a radiator.)
And no, firing in a populated are just isn’t a good idea, ever. The example of her failing to overrun the barricades kind of left it at stopping the vehicle itself. Had they caused physical harm to the baby, there would be no end of hell to pay over it. And I pretty much hope every cop who did fire had to go change his pants when he realized what he came close to doing, because that’s a guy who will question those actions very, very carefully.
It seems like you expect life to be like a video game or a movie: handguns don’t have a very good effective range, and aiming at a relatively small target moving at considerable speed with a constantly changing profile isn’t a great recipe for success (and even if you do hit the tire, there’s a significant chance it won’t puncture it). I mean, there’s a reason why police officers are taught to shoot for the body and not try to wing people, and why they are often trained to completely empty their magazine into someone: accuracy is surprisingly low in real-life situations.
I think everyone recognizes that firing in a populated area isn’t a good idea, but it may have been the least bad alternative at the time. What if she did have an explosive device, they didn’t shoot, and she ended up killing a lot of people, including her child? Because I think that was a legitimate fear, given the way she had attempted to enter the White House and then fled to the Capitol. If she had done something like that, and police officers had passed up the opportunity to shoot her, then there would also be a lot of questioning. Personally, I find it difficult to criticize the police too much given that it was the driver who put her child in harms way and declined multiple opportunities to de-escalate the situation despite the danger she must have known her child was in.
It’s also funny how you say that you expect police officers to be hyper calm, hyper efficient, and not prone to freaking out… but then say that you hope they had to change their pants after this episode. So are they supposed to be able to suppress their emotions or not?
p.s.
I think may be some confusion here regarding the barricades. She was already within the secure zone, and the barricade that stopped her would have prevented her from leaving the eastern side of the secure zone. She had already driven past the Capitol and the Dirksen and Hart Senate buildings, and near the Supreme Court, and was headed away from the Capitol area. Given what happened at the White House, it’s actually kind of shocking they didn’t have the barriers up by the time she arrived at the western side of the Capitol, and suggests communication between the different security agencies really isn’t very good.
And that communications problem may well be the best opportunity for improvement.
Although, I am unsure why you thought I had any desire to fight rather than merely discuss? I’m not an idiot. I’ve owned handguns, lived and worked in areas where I had to carry, done my share of shooting, etc.
There are people who can stay calm long enough to get the job done, then they have to change their pants later. There are people who stay SO calm, they end up with PTSD at a later date.
My worst fear with any LEO or security personnel has always been the ‘wannabe rambo’ with something to prove. I suspect some lack a sense of reality about what they are doing and lack both calm and caution, while others are merely immature and perhaps overloaded with testosterone. But regardless of the reasons behind it - this is why the older, more experienced people are supervising. even if the communications problem could have contributed, those involved STILL need to take a long hard look at how they handled this, and how it could be improved.
The very idea that the capitol is treated as a war zone or imminent potential war zone these days is the question the rest of us need to be looking at pretty hard. And we need to deal with the fact that it’s gotten bad enough now that a citizen in need cant readily be distinguished from a political enemy. It’s not ok. The worst idea I can think of is to become accustomed to it or try to justify it.
So, I’m out. You want to talk, cool. You want to fight, nuh-uh. I’d rather do something productive today.
In your opinon, how could these officers have known this was simply “a citizen in need,” and not another McVeigh, another Eric Robert Rudolph (Atlanta bombings), another Aaron Alexis (Navy Yard shooting), or another Jared Lee Loughner? I mean, from subsequent reports it appears that she did have some sort of agenda against Obama, and maybe it would have been nice if her mental issues had been adequately addressed before she decided to drive to the White House, but once she was there I’m not sure if the police actions were unreasonable.
The bottom line is that we interpret this incident very differently. You seem to believe that authorities should have been able to see that this woman wasn’t a threat and to neutralize her her in a non-lethal manner. I believe that given the available information, where the woman was located, and the way she acted, officers likely had a reasonable belief that she presented a real threat. Furthermore, given the institutional expertise that the Capitol Police and Secret Service have, and given that they didn’t have the benefit of hindsight, I think it’s reasonable to defer to their expertise and judgment. I also believe that the woman had multiple opportunities to back down, but chose not to, and I think the alternative forms of police you suggest are not realistic.
I’m also unsure why this incident has made you uncomfortable about security around the Capitol. Unless you are planning on a car rampage, I don’t think this incident in itself has a lot of implications on your freedom, nor do I think it demonstrates a corrosive law-enforcement mentality since the police appear to have simply been reacting to a threat. Do you think that the reaction 50 years ago, when the Capitol was not “treated as a war zone or imminent potential war zone” would have been much different? I very much doubt it. I’m pretty sure that driving through cops at the White House and/or Capitol would have provoked just as strong a response then as now, even without the threat of a car bomb. (It may also be interesting to note that you don’t see cops shooting out tires in old movies, though you do see them shooting a lot of people in circumstances that might not be acceptable today.)
She didn’t hit the barrier. As the media have marvelously reported, when she encountered the barriers she tried to do a U-turn over the median and hit the guard house next to the barriers.
Yes, they DO have the benefit of hindsight. And ‘nicer’ isn’t exactly how I’d describe being a living human as opposed to a dead bloody corpse with an orphan left behind. I don’t go near those places BECAUSE of all the additional security measures which do in fact oppose my right to not be poked, prodded, or shot through with x-rays.
I get that they believed what they believed, and acted according to that belief. I didn’t vilify them - I question the system of thought and organization that led them to that belief and those acts. You seem more bent on defending them at this point than in looking for any better answers. If you’re out of juice, ok - but there is no need to accuse me of things I didn’t say or beliefs I don’t hold. This thing went terribly, terribly wrong. And if you don’t get that, then we should probably drop it, because I’m not here to defend it. I question. Questioning is not a lack of patriotism, or reason, or anything else - it’s just that - questions.
A car chase that began when a driver struck a White House security barrier…
and
A black Infiniti with Connecticut plates strikes a security post
and
Witnesses said officers pull a metal barrier into the driver’s path, but the driver accelerates, knocking down the barricade and striking a uniformed…
How do you interpret that as “she didn’t hit the barrier”? I still want to see this barrier. And the “post” she struck before that. Because the vehicle is amazingly undamaged in the pictures I see.
Would your response to this situation, arguing that they should not have shot at her, been different if she had car bomb? You search for better answers seems to be more based on information that we know now rather than what was actually happening.
Also, do you actually have any evidence that shooting a person’s tires out is the proper and practical response during a car chase? I tried searching for such information, but have not been able to find it. Some sites point out that a blown tire can result in a car flipping over (depending on the type of car).
Have you watched the video in the Washington Post article? The second video shows that the police have her blocked in with police cars and surrounded by people on foot with their guns drawn. The cops do not appear to be shooting at her. She then backs into the police car behind her and nearly runs some people over. Then the cops start shooting.
No, I wasn’t suggesting that was the only possible answer at all. Although, in many jurisdictions, they use spies to blow out the tires. So, blowing the tires is definitely one possible answer. The effects of doing that hen the vehicle is moving at a high speed compared to a low speed would necessarily be very different. And I am not familiar with that area, though doubt spikes could be employed unless the communications problem didn’t exist.
See, to me, the entire proposition is just freaky. You see in one article that private contractors are being paid to track our vehicles’ locations through their toll passes (and apparently, far more extensively in Brazil these days). We can build drones. We can literally watch high-speed chases remotely as they occur. We can spend billions for the NSA to track all KINDS of information they have exactly no business with. IR sensors and night vision equipment. Many. many more devices based on other technologies. The government can see nearly right through me, should I wish to travel by plane or by train. And yet, we couldn’t find a child in a car that had been through multiple encounters with law enforcement, nor determine whether it was just a car or a bomb.
There IS something wrong there, in that we have all of this and somehow haven’t employed it in a way that might have prevented a tragedy. According to other posts here, it’s not easy to get around in that particular area unless you are already familiar with it. And yet, it’s an area considered so important that it’s also crawling with LEO’s and such. There’s a…mismatch there, between what we are actually capable of, and what we have done so far.
Oddly, one has to wonder what ‘if it saves even one life’ Obama would say to this thing? I’m kinda thinking he’d be stuck agreeing that guns probably shouldn’t be the best possible answer.
So - there ya go. Take some of that NSA largesse and have them go spend it to fix this. At least this one is a demonstrated problem, and they could claim to have saved ‘one life’.
So you have difficulty believing that her car didn’t hit a post or a small, portable metal barrier (described elsewhere as a “little metal fence sectio[n]” typically used for pedestrian control)? The things she hit are unlikely to do much damage, at least from the sounds of it. You’ll also note that there is video of her car hitting police cars, which are much more massive and will do more damage than a portable barrier: do you see the damage from that?
And you also find it difficult to find she hit a post? Again, do you think the post should do more damage than running into police cars? Do you think the Secret Service is just making everything up about what happened at the White House, or what?
