The above video shows a Las Vegas police officer engaged with a shootout with two murder suspects. Local news media has a more detailed report, but I will go through the basics. Police were responding to a shooting at a car wash where a man was killed. The officers involved spotted the SUV being driven by the suspect and an accomplice and began a high speed pursuit. The suspects opened fired at the officers during the pursuit and eventually the officer responded by firing his handgun through his windshield. The car then crashed into a school and the officer continued to fire on the driver while another cop shot and killed the other suspect with a shotgun. The driver, Rene Nunez, was wounded and taken to the hospital while the passenger, Fidel Miranda, was killed.
It's pretty compelling footage and is certainly not something we see everyday. The first question everyone has was if the shooting was justified. Considering that the suspects were firing at the cop for a couple of minutes at least I think he was totally justified in attacking the suspect. Not only was the cop's life at risk, the suspects were putting the lives of his fellow officers and the general public at risk as well. The fact that the rear window of the truck was shot out before the officer even opened fire it was very clear that he was justified in using force.
But was shooting through his windshield the right move? That's the great debate right now among the police and gun enthusiast communities. Everyone wants to engage in Monday morning quarterbacking, including me. As it stands right now it seemed to have turned out pretty ok. It seems pretty clear that the gunfire is what caused the suspects to crash. I don't know if the driver was hit or if he was just afraid of the gunfire and lost control but either way he crashed shortly after.
But through the windshield? I think I understand why the officer did it. It seemed very clear that he was right handed and didn't feel comfortable shooting with his off hand. It also seems clear that he couldn't use the sights if he had shot out of his open driver side window. The officer even uses both hands during the engagement to get more accurate fire. Doing so greatly increased his chances of hitting the suspect and not hitting any innocent bystanders. Wildly shooting out through his door window with his off hand would likely not have hit the suspects and might put innocent people at risk.
The downside for doing so is that hitting the glass probably changed the bullet's velocity and accuracy. I am guessing the initial bullets didn't hurt anything. As more of the window got shot away though it probably didn't effect as much. The other downside is the obvious danger of broken glass and bullet fragments potentially injuring the officer. That didn't happen in this case but it is possible. Plus the broken glass reduced visibility.
Still, I think it was more than worth the risk. The suspects were pretty out of control and had already killed one person and had tried to kill more. They needed to be stopped as soon as possible. The downsides of shooting through the glass more than mitigated by the fact that if those suspects escaped they probably would have killed someone. Plus the above mentioned accuracy boost that shooting down the sights gave him probably outweighed any of the downsides.
The rest of the engagement was pretty textbook. The cop had a little difficulty reloading, understandable under the circumstances, and then opened fire again. He called out the passenger to his fellow cop with the shotgun and ran to cover. Overall, it was a good engagement for this cop. Well as good as having to be in a shootout can go. If it had been me I would have been proud to have it go this way.
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