Shoot to wound mentality

[Correction]

It's a more rational explanation than 'The NYPD is full of cops who are incompetent, dangerously inaccurate shooters." 2006 was a big recruitment year for that department and it's likely the cause of the skewed accuracy numbers. I'd put good money on speculating that a new cop is more likely to resort to his firearm than a more experienced one.

[Infiltrator]

there's a huge distance between shooting on the range, and having to shoot when your life depends on it with adrenaline pumping heart and breathing rate up. It's not a fucking video game.

I realize this as both my uncle who is a cop, as well as my father a former Staff Sergeant, I know that the stress seen in the field accounts for alot of missed shots (Mind you, i'm not trashing 21-40+ feet as much). What i'm saying that even with situation taken in stride, at 6 feet (point blank) you should never have a 50% accuracy rating with any weapon period, and with your adrenaline pumping, you should have nearly half a clip emptied in a suspect before they move more than 10 feet.

My thanks to the people putting their lives on the line for us, but I can also criticize those stats for how amazingly god awful they are.

Assuming at that range they weren't taken by surprise. I think at that range, point shooting would be instinctive. My reaction at that range would be point shooting while falling back for cover. I would never approach a suspect at that distance if being called up into a possible high risk situation. Combined factors like stress and the feeling of being in a tense life and death situation, lighting and a target that is mobile. Plus they don't take in to account the accuracy of individual officers. 1 might fire 4 times and hit twice while another fired twice and hit once. The percentage is the same, but the raw figures throws you off.

For comparison, what are the stats in other cities, big or small? Like.. Topeka or Napa.

"In Los Angeles, where there are far fewer shots discharged, the police fired 67 times in 2006 and had 27 hits, a 40 percent hit rate, which, while better than New York’s, still shows that they miss targets more often they hit them."