Unauthorized
In Denver, a police officer was fired for, well, a lot of things. Seems that he was not trained to use an AR-15 because the department didn’t trust his judgement. In a shooting, he used his personally owned AR-15. He managed to grab a magazine from a stack of magazines and used unauthorized ammunition. That ammo turned out to be tracers:
Fitzgibbons compounded his offense by loading the weapon with military-type magnesium-tipped tracer rounds that illuminate the path the bullet takes, in a hardened metal jacket, Rivera said. The rounds are fire hazards and have more penetrating power and are more likely to fragment than department-authorized hollow-point bullets, he added.
Weird. He’s appealing.
February 22nd, 2012 at 12:17 pm
“On his own accord and according to his own rules…” – that sounds about right.
February 22nd, 2012 at 12:37 pm
I’m wondering where he got 5.56 APIT? That’s not something you can pick up at Wally World.
February 22nd, 2012 at 12:45 pm
ROP.
IF you could get a look at his file, I’ll bet this incident would cease to be a surprise.
February 22nd, 2012 at 12:52 pm
Any word on him using the phrase: “I AM THE LAW!!!”?
February 22nd, 2012 at 12:53 pm
So which is it? Does it penetrate better or fragment better?
I’ve never heard of tracers being stellar penetrators, but they sure fragment well.
I’ve never heard of Armor Piercing Incendiary Tracer for 5.56 Nato. Or even just Armor Piercing Tracer for that matter.
Of coarse, it seems the cops are providing all the information concerning the rounds fired, so who knows.
February 22nd, 2012 at 12:58 pm
Question: If they didn’t trust his judgement enough to allow him to use an AR15, why did they trust his judgement enough to alloy him to carry his duty pistol?
February 22nd, 2012 at 1:13 pm
I have the same question as J…
Was allowing him to only carry a pistol intended to limit the effective range of his “lack of judgment” or something?
February 22nd, 2012 at 1:18 pm
Because it’s an evil assault weapon and it is eleventy billion times more deadly than just a weapon. Don’t you read the news?
February 22nd, 2012 at 1:33 pm
WTF? Crowd Control with a Paintball Gun and an AR outside a Night Club on Friday Night? And Denver PD still issues Revolvers? What kind of Dept. Policy is THAT?
February 22nd, 2012 at 1:36 pm
Was it a Glock AR 15 Police Special?
February 22nd, 2012 at 1:53 pm
Reads like a reasonable police response to a criminal shooter’s actions, with one officer shooting his rifle, “authorized” or not. More details here:
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/download/2010/0728/24424003.pdf
I note the ability of the press to write fiction is on display here, with a Glock in 45ACP turned into a revolver, and tracer rounds turned into uber-penetrating yet fragmenting rounds.
February 22nd, 2012 at 2:03 pm
Extrapolating from this example, Denver should lighten up on its homerule non-LEO handgun carry laws and double-down on open rifle carry.
February 22nd, 2012 at 2:43 pm
Magnesium tipped? That would be interesting.
February 22nd, 2012 at 2:57 pm
The article just says tracer, not APIT, so no worries there.
Probably commercial XM856 equivalent, and the part about “magnesium-tipped” is purest invention, since no tracer in the world works like that, as far as I know.
Also, what Tomcat said – it doesn’t get to both be more likely to overpenetrate and more likely to fragment unless it’s made of unicorn farts.
February 22nd, 2012 at 3:23 pm
Interesting to note that, when you look at the ranges and layout of the scene, the officers actually had pretty good fire discipline and groupings considering that they were under fire, completely exposed at the time, and firing at a suspect who was behind cover (a car door).
Cpl. Schledwitz: Unknown number of pepperball rounds fired before transitioning to his pistol. 3 pistol rounds fired. Of those, 2 stuck in the car door, and 1 went through the window but missed the suspect, lodging in the building across the street.
Officer Fitzgibbons: 5 rounds fired. One fragmented in the car door, one struck a utility box behind the suspect and fragmented, and 3 lodged in the building across the street. The two fragmented rounds were what injured the bystander.
Neither one emptied their magazines. They both apparently stopped firing when the suspect dropped his gun and ran. Given the layout of the scene and the positions of those involved, the shots that missed could have missed by millimeters or by feet – there’s no way for us to know. It’s even possible that they were on target, but the window glass was enough to cause them to miss. The only non-combatant injury was due not to a miss striking a bystander, but by fragmentation of the rifle rounds. The report mikee linked to does not indicate whether those two rounds were the hollowpoints (which would have been authorized) or the tracers (which were not).
Assuming the available facts are correct (and deferring to the DA’s report when it contradicts the media report), the officers were completely justified in shooting at the suspect.
The injured bystander stepped around the corner of a building and into the line of fire behind the suspect. There’s absolutely nothing the officers could have done to prevent or anticipate that. I lay the blame for the bystander’s injuries squarely at the feet of the guy who decided to start shooting at the cops.
As far as Officer Fitzgibbons’ firing, it sounds like there’s more going on with that than this one incident*, and I’ll echo J’s question: If they didn’t trust his judgement enough to allow him to use an AR15, why did they trust his judgement enough to allow him to carry his duty pistol?
* Alternatively, the department administration could be taking heat because of the bystander injury, and he’s simply a convenient scapegoat for this one incident because of the unauthorized rifle and ammunition. In which case it would be just this one incident.
February 22nd, 2012 at 3:37 pm
This is basically a city attorney trying to blame the cop for a bystander accidentally walking into the line of fire.
The cop’s only offenses were not being on the SWAT team ( so his trunk rifle was “unofficial” ), and having a magazine of milspec ammo mixed in with his magazines full of police issued (? so much for unofficial ) hollowpoint .223.
February 22nd, 2012 at 4:49 pm
Its not weird that he’s is appealing. The Denver city civil service board has reinstated for worse examples of Denver PD than this one.
It is really quite outrageous how bad Denver PD are.
February 22nd, 2012 at 4:50 pm
“far=for”
February 22nd, 2012 at 5:21 pm
Isn’t this the incident where the cops attacked a guy and destroyed his camera for taking pictures of them after all the shooting had stopped?
February 22nd, 2012 at 5:32 pm
Sadly not all LEO do exercise good judgment. They should be held to stricter standards than civilians and should have sufficient gun safety courses to enable them to handle any potential situation–not compound it by starting fires.
February 22nd, 2012 at 9:46 pm
Question If they didn’t trust his judgement enough to allow him to use an AR15. Why did he have a job?
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:15 pm
I don’t care what rifle he used, what ammo he used, what ‘stance’ he took.
But, DID HE WIN?
For in reality that is all that matters. Did he get the bad guy.
February 23rd, 2012 at 12:42 am
I don’t get it I don’t think there is anyway this officer could get that AR into his cruiser back at the shop without someone knowing he has it.And If the Ammo has to be Authorized for use then color the Damn Mags something different.The Department is just covering there ass and unfortunately a 13 year veteran is taking it up the @#$.