Multiple people shot outside Empire State Building

[rugersol]

he said there were officers on the force who had difficulty hitting a silhouette at 10 ft.

If you watched the video those 16 rounds must have been fired pretty damn quick.

Only one thing worse than not hittin' what yer aimin' at!!!

... doin' it really fast!!!

[Grayskies]

I worked in the feeding tent in 2001 at Ground Zero. Many of the NYPD would come eat there. One day an officer came through wearing a revolver. I asked him about it and he said he was old school. He told me he was an intructor and that he tried to talk the new guys into revolvers but most chose semi-autos. I would agree with him based on what I saw there that week. In our conversation, and perhaps this incident may be some confirmation of what he told me, he said there were officers on the force who had difficulty hitting a silhouette at 10 ft. I had no reason not to believe him then and just thought I would share our conversation.

I have heard similar things, though it was back awhile.

[plblark]

For me, my reaction has more to do with it being NYC and Mayor Bloomberg's usual vilification of guns combined with his "7th largest standing army" comment from earlier.

I think this says it well...

[...]my beef here really isn't with the police. This was a tough, tough situation - they're confronting someone they know to be armed who has already shot someone to death. They catch up to him, and he pulls out his gun - they have a second or two to react at best, and they need to stop this guy quick. While backstop and target should be in mind whenever there's a need to shoot, you don't always get the luxury of being able to choose the perfect shoot in the real world.
[...]
It's tempting and convenient to jump on the "ZOMG TEH POLICE SUCK AT SHOOTING" bandwagon. We've had plenty of stories where multiple shots were fired with minimal hits, sometimes at close distance, sometimes with long arms. We've seen stories of bad shoots, where wallets/cell phones/etc. were mistaken for guns. There's ample reason to suspect the worst in a case like this.

I think, though, that a good deal of it is misplaced anger - again, if a concealed carry holder had shot three people by accident in a defensive shooting, it defies credibility to think it would be treated in the same manner. There would be no commissioner claiming that the shoot was "handled well"; the very best the shooter could hope for would be a sharp defense attorney. We're expected to be better than that - the old saw that "you own every bullet" applies here - yet the same standards are not applies to the very people that are supposed to be the "only ones" trusted with firearms.