50 Shots

By A.D Lelong
Dec. 02, 2006

This past weekend 5 NYPD officers emptied 50 shots into a car with unarmed men inside. One officer, by himself, emptied 31 shots......that's two clips worth. We had the situation 7 years ago of Amadou Diallo killed with 41 rounds. Last year 10 L.A. cops fired 120 rounds into a car within 18 seconds. And now we have NY Mayor Mike Bloomberg who (as Sir William S Gilbert said in PINAFORE .."... can not tell at sight a Mauser rifle from a javelin") is "disturbed" by this latest mêlée, and doesn't see how 50 shots were needed. He said that the force was excessive.

Once again our government has set up the components for an inevitable situation. And then when the totally foreseeable event occurs, they refuse to question the premise that brought it about in the first place, because that would crimp the government agenda. The agenda is to use cops as initiators of force under the excuse of "crime prevention."

We have a thing in Anglo-Saxon law of being innocent until proved guilty. This is incompatible with the concept of "crime prevention." Crime prevention, which is politically popular under democratic mob-moron rule, requires law enforcement to go after criminals before they have committed a crime. Which means innocent people will always be the target of law enforcement. Going after the guilty means one has to wait until after there has been a crime. Politicians, always pandering to the unthinking masses, are always quick to tout "crime prevention" because it sounds like it protects people.

The origin of cops goes back to the Middle Ages when a volunteer was elected to stay awake to guard against nocturnal invaders/criminals etc., and to sound an alarm to wake up the rest of the people. This has morphed into the professional constable, a peace officer such as the formerly unarmed Bobbies in London; but in recent years the cops have become totally militarised, presumably because the criminals have more guns etc. They have also become militarised because the government, again for reasons of political pandering, has launched various wars on ____________ (booze/drugs/harlotry/crime/terrorism – or any politically unpopular vice). This past year Mayor Bloomberg has been waging a war on guns, which is another excuse for militarisation.

Cops have been turning into SS/Gestapo Officers. Unlike the old days, when cops broke up bar fights or kicked bums off park benches and patrolled around the neighbourhood visibly armed in crisp blue uniforms with shiny brass buttons, or directed traffic, or hung out with the corner druggist smoking and eating free donuts, cops are now infiltrating the citizenry as undercover agents with military weapons. Often they are agents provocateurs.

In the recent Queens incident, the officers were "undercover" in a strip club, and then misunderstood a presumably boisterous situation, causing them to become involved in a conflict which ended up with the cops firing 50 rounds at a car killing one, wounding another, and putting 11 shots into another, who is now in hospital in critical condition.

In the first place, the NYPD sends these guys into a sleazy strip club to look for trouble, which, in this case means guns and prostitution. They pretend they are not cops, which means acting like typical strip bar patrons – which means ordering alcohol (BTW there was no breath test after the incident) and acting like frat boys. Then when they find something that "appears" to be trouble, they jump in, and the episode reaches critical mass. Because they were undercover, they were not recognisable to other cops, or to patrons who thought the agents might be criminals. Indeed the victims in the Queens case freaked out when a cop pulled his weapon out on the street. The driver hit the gas grazing the cop which prompted the first shots. The cop said he identified himself, but the driver was too busy worrying about the gun.

In the second place, cops all carry semi-automatic Glock or Beretta hand guns. When I was a kid, cops carried 6 shot revolvers, and 12 extra bullets in bullet loops on their belts. Anyone familiar with revolvers knows how cumbersome this can be to reload. Today they carry 5 or 10 extra magazines on their belts, each magazine carrying 15 or 16 rounds. The old double action revolvers had a fairly hard trigger pull, unlike the new autos. If you used them as single action, you had to cock the hammer back first. In both cases you had to think about each shot. A number of retired cops I have talked to said that was a factor in the Diallo case.

NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said that cops are taught to fire three bursts, then examine the situation before firing again. In reality, a cop pumped up with fear, rage, and adrenalin won't do this. I also question whether they really are trained to do this. I saw a clip on the news from a cop training film. The objective was to train officers how to empty a clip onto a target as fast as possible whilst keeping his hand steady. It almost sounded like full auto. Then the officer changed his clip with lightning speed and popped off another clip. The objective is to fire a lot of rounds quickly into a small target pattern.

So we have the PD recruiting bouncer types. They tell them that they are needed by society and that they are heroes. Then they drop them into a hyper macho culture fostered by a close-knit tradition and the cop unions. Then the PD and the unions tell them how dangerous their job is, and they might not see their family again. They say that they need to be over-gunned to be safe. The PD then gives them high-capacity firearms with easy trigger pulls. They tell them they are fighting a "war." They then tell them to go "in country" after telling them that the criminals may be armed, and to be careful. In other words they propagandise them with Marine Corps cant.

Then Bloomie wonders how there are 50 shots.

A.D Lelong [send him mail] grew up in the NYC area. He started in radio in North Carolina as a reporter. In 1994 he moved back to New York City where he has been working as a producer and newsroom sound editor for a news-talk radio station. He currently lives in Queens and enjoys skeet and sporting clays shooting, bird hunting, and sailing.