In response to a tragic "blue on blue" shooting, the NYPD is looking into technology that would cause officers' guns in close proximity to one another to signal, warning the shooter that his target may be a "friendly." I think this is one of those ideas where a high-tech solution is being applied to a situation that cries out for a human solution.
"Blue on blue" refers to training or real-life scenarios where cops are on both sides of a confrontation. In training, the cops on the bad guy side are role players, and (hopefully) non-lethal weapons and measures are employed to ensure everyone's safety. Even these go wrong, as when live ammunition is introduced into the equation and a cop gets shot.
In the real life scenario, the shooter either misidentifies his target or aims badly and hits another cop. In the latest incident, a plainclothes cop who was not familiar to other cops in that precinct was off duty and chasing a burglary suspect. The cop doing the chasing had his weapon drawn, and the on-duty cops took him for the suspect. The off duty cop, Omar Edwards, was shot and killed.
This is a nightmare scenario. I can't begin to imagine the grief that the shooter in this incident must feel. It produced two victims: Edwards, and the cop who shot him. Even if the officer is cleared on the shooting, I'll be surprised to see him return to work. That would be too much baggage for me to carry around.
The tech solution under consideration is some combination of radio frequency ID (RFID) tags and/or infrared (IR) emitters that would alert officers to the presence of other drawn police guns in the immediate vicinity. They would produce a visual and/or audible signal when activated.
Unless you have a one-on-one confrontation, this system would be, at best, confusing. Many deadly force confrontations involve multiple police weapons. Having alerts go off in these very tense scenarios will distract officers from the situation that demands every bit of their attention. There is also the hazard that the technology will be reverse-engineered and the bad guys (who usually don't care who they shoot) will have the same systems available. They would not only be able to confuse a shooting situation, but be alerted to the presence of police at the scene.
Recent years have produced an ever-expanding volume of technology applied to police firearms. Lasers are added to Picatinny rails, grips, and internal parts to aid in target acquisition and aiming. These seem like a good idea at first. But situations ending in shootings, more often than not, evolve so rapidly that a laser would be of marginal use. Further, many firearms instructors have observed that officers with laser-equipped guns shift their focus from the gun sights to where the laser is pointing, extending the time required to get on target.
Another well-intended application was the fingerprint reader-controlled holster that would release the gun only after the finger of a pre-enrolled user had been inserted into a reader port. Moreover, each time the gun was drawn and re-holstered, the precise time and date was recorded on an internal memory chip. When I saw that, it occurred to me that I would not want to be the first cop in America to wear that, hoping that it would work when I needed it to. I also didn't like the idea of someone second-guessing me as to when I needed my gun to be in my hand. Where some people have the notion that a cop shouldn't take his gun out of the holster unless he has already identified something that needs to get shot, I adhere to the philosophy that you should have your gun in your hand anytime you think you might need to. That practice saved my life on at least one occasion.
There is also at least one manufacturer offering a video recording system installed on the gun itself. It begins recording as soon as the gun is removed from the holster. I found that one especially disturbing. In order to record anything of probative value, an officer would have to draw his weapon and point it at whatever he felt was of interest. That is an action that could precipitate a shooting when the situation might still be resolved by less violent means. It also adds a complex system to the gun, which means there is more to go wrong.
Simple is better
Police guns need to be as simple as possible. Revolvers were the standard for over a hundred years because they were and are very close to foolproof. No external safety, no having to check to see if a round was in the chamber—just point and shoot. A revolver would have to be very, very dirty and abused before it would malfunction. This was an extremely good thing, as many cops neglected the maintenance of their guns to the point the cylinder was corroded shut (this qualified as "very, very dirty and abused," by the way).
The semi-autos carried by most cops today are less forgiving of poor maintenance. Fortunately, the officers who carry them seem to be more attentive to taking care of them. But the more stuff that is added to the gun, the more that has to be cleaned, adjusted, replaced and so on, and the more there is to go wrong. In the film U.S. Marshals, Tommy Lee Jones said of Glock pistols, "These things are so cool. They can shoot underwater, pour sand in them and they'll shoot. They shoot every time." The same might be said of other makes, but the message is the same. We want something that will shoot every time.
Instead of trying to solve these problems with expensive technology that is unproven in this battleground, how about having everyone talk to each other? Before plainclothes officers begin work in an area, bring them around to patrol and detective briefings and introduce them. This is more difficult in large agencies like NYPD, but it's worth the trouble. When a new crop of officers come on board, post their photos in a common area where people can get used to what they look like. Drop the "secret squirrel" mentality that some investigative units seem to have, and let the regular cops know what's going on and who's doing it. Instead of saying, "But that's the way we do things," consider whether there might be a better way of doing it, even if this disregards tradition.
