Target Malpractice?

Police shootings on the rise, but watchdogs go unheeded.

by Tom Namako

BAD AIM: When Steven Miller waved a gun around at Taney and Tasker, police responded with 85 shots. At least 65 of them missed. Photo By: Michael T. Regan (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Follow-up

A woman flagged down a police officer near Fifth Street and Allegheny Avenue while she and her boyfriend were arguing in a car last weekend. The boyfriend allegedly shot once at the responding officer and missed. The cop didn't, pumping one of two bullets into the man's chest and killing him.

In May, police spotted a bulge in a man's waistband around Sixth and Dudley streets, and stopped him. The man pulled an Uzi from the waistband, ran into a nearby house and, as police tried to knock the door down, burst out. He pointed the gun at the officers, witnesses said, but didn't get a shot off. Two officers fired 14 total rounds, killing the man.

Now consider Steven "Butter" Miller, who was high on "wet" and staggering around the intersection at Taney and Tasker streets with a semi-automatic gun on July 8 [Cover Story, "85 Shots," Doron Taussig and Tom Namako, July 26, 2007]. Seven officers tried to talk Miller down and, when one thought he saw Miller raise his gun, they unloaded a hailstorm of bullets that left Commissioner Sylvester Johnson "concerned" and Miller deceased.

After the first two incidents, there wasn't much of an uproar from neighbors and family members; when someone aims or fires at an officer, the police are going to fire back. Miller's shooting, however, wasn't as clear-cut. It raises a simple question: While police know how to handle obvious threats with their guns, are they trained well enough to handle murkier situations, like Miller's, that call for split-second judgments?

The city's lead police watchdog, the Integrity and Accountability Office, doesn't think so. In 2005, the group released a report examining nearly 600 officer-related shootings, including 35 fatal incidents, between 1998 and 2003. (Last year, police shot and killed 22 people, the highest count since 1980; so far this year, police have killed 10.) The report issued some sharp criticism of the department's firearm training, calling its programs and facilities obsolete, decrepit and barely able to meet routine training needs.

But more than two years later, says Edwin Pace, IAO deputy director, the Police Department hasn't taken up any of the firearm training recommendations. "Truthfully, since [former IAO director Ellen Green-Ceisler] left to run for judge, I haven't even heard from the department other than the daily routine inquiries I make," Pace says. "It's as if, after she left, the department just doesn't think we're there any more. That's not the case." Pace said that "as far as he knows" the city will replace Ceisler; it's been two years.

Today, Pace says he's trying to get the department to update the simulator, a training program that features moving figures on a video screen, and makes officers decide which targets to shoot and which should go free. Two of the devices were bought in the late 80s and updated in 1997, the report said, but significant technological advances have rendered them "obsolete and generally ineffective as training tools for officers who have experienced the simulator one time."

It's crucial that officers stay sharp, Pace says, especially as potential criminals become increasingly armed with guns and, if the rising murder count shows anything, the desire to use them.

Another concern was the annual training officers receive after passing the initial three weeks of firearms tests at the police academy. While the department meets, and in some cases, exceeds, the state's minimal standards for firearm training, the IAO thought they should do more: "The New York Police Department, whose force exceeds 33,000 officers, voluntary supplements state requirement with three full days of firearms tactical training annually." In Philadelphia, police shoot 120 rounds at a stationary target during their yearly recertification.

Capt. Benjamin Naish said that he wasn't familiar enough with the 2005 report to comment, but noted that officers "meet or exceed the state requirements" for firearms training. "We are trying to provide the best level of training for sworn officers," said Naish, declining further comment.

The IAO will soon start working on another report that will re-examine how police use their guns, with a focus on the spike in fatal shootings. Pace doesn't think this is an exercise in futility, even though the words in his last report, which involved months of research and writing, went practically unheeded. He's convinced it will be different next time.

"We'll have a new administration coming in and I think they will be much more cognizant of the city's needs," he says. "When the new police commissioner comes in, that will also be the case. I don't know if the changes will come as quickly as I would like, but I think they will come this time — which is why I keep writing these reports."

(tom.namako@citypaper.net)