Evaluating NYPD's Firearms Training and Discharge Cases
New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers are taught that they should use their firearms as a "last resort" to protect themselves or others from imminent death or serious injury. In New York City—as is true nationally—the use of lethal force is rare. Still, when a NYPD officer discharges a firearm, it is a significant event, with the department undertaking an extensive investigation of the incident. To ensure the department was doing everything it could to minimize the unnecessary discharge of firearms, New York City Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly asked the RAND Corporation to examine the issue.
Based on discussions with NYPD leadership and officers, the review of NYPD policy documents, firearm-discharge cases and department data, and the relevant general literature on policing, use of force, and reflexive and contagious shooting, the study team assessed a number of issues, including training, discharge investigations and reporting, factors associated with officers who discharge their firearms, the need for improved less-than-lethal standoff weapons and other innovative technologies, and reflexive shooting.
The study found that there were no real issues with basic policing-skills training but that training in complex policing skills—those that integrate law and policy, effective communication, decisionmaking, and tactics—could be improved. The study team also found that based on a review of national best practices, the NYPD's firearms discharge review process has a number of exemplary features but that it too could be improved.
Also, by matching shooting officers with those non-shooting officers at or near the scene of a shooting incident, the authors were able to statistically determine certain characteristics associated with a higher risk of being involved in a shooting—characteristics that describe more assertive officers, ones who can both perform heroic actions and garner medals and simultaneously act in ways that warrant negative marks in their files.
The study also examined the need for improved less-than-lethal weapons and other technologies. One of the findings, based on an analysis of the NYPD firearm-discharge cases and the experience of other police departments, is that, if the NYPD had a broader deployment of a more robust less-than-lethal standoff weapon, such as TASER® devices, it not only might prevent some incidents from escalating to deadly force but might also reduce injuries to officers and citizens alike, as has been the case in other departments.
Finally, the study team examined the issue of reflexive discharges—what are referred to as contagious shootings—and found data are not readily available, either within NYPD or across other departments, to determine the extent of reflexive shootings or whether they are increasing or decreasing over time.
For each set of findings, the study offered detailed recommendations for improvement. For example, the authors recommended that the NYPD training devote more time to hands-on practice and that the discharge review include a formal process for drawing lessons from shootings to be disseminated to officers. As another example, the study, building off the findings on the potential utility of TASER devices, recommended that the NYPD implement a pilot program that expands the current availability of TASER devices to all patrol officers in selected precincts.
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