How many bullets is police officer trained to shoot when he is attacked? ?

Question

When a police officer finds a suspect trying to shoot him/her, how many bullets is he/she supposed to shoot? Is he trained to empty enitre cartridge (20-40 bullets?). or only a few shots?

Answer 1

asked my son that one he is a veteran officer,he said as many as it takes to drop them

Answer 2

"to the extent of force neccesary" to protect himself or the lives of others within reason, but some are also trained to do 2 to the chest and one to the head. really when it comes to the end of the day, the training only gives you the rough feel to an eacutal situation.

Answer 3

What ever it takes to neutralize the threat..be it one shot or an entire clip.

Answer 4

I agree with the majority of answers here.  Enough to stop the threat, depends on the situation.

Depending on what the threat is it could take just one shot, or the officer might have to empty his magazine.  The officer might even have to empty two magazines in some cases.

There is no "magic number" of rounds an officer is trained to use.  They stop shooting when the threat is neutralized (perpetrator in custody, too injured to continue threatening behavior, or dead).

Might not be the answer you were shopping for, but it is a true answer.

Answer 5

In contrast to the other answer, my experience is that if they pull the trigger, they are aiming to stop you permanently.  As many slugs as it takes.

Answer 6

What kind of gun do you have that carries 20-40 rounds in a mag? I carry a Glock 17 and it has 17+1

We are trained to fire until the threat is gone. So if it takes one shot and there is no threat, then we stop. If it takes us firing all of our mags and going to our car to get more ammo from our bag and hand load more mags (I have seen a video of this happen to an officer) then we will.  

Answer 7

As many as it takes to stop the threat.

Answer 8

Until the threat is stopped.  One bullet too many is better than one too few.  We do not shoot to wound and we do not fire warning shots.

Answer 9

In EVERY jurisdiction, the answer is until you KNOW the threat is neutralized.  the problem is, in an actual shootout, it is often difficult to tell when the threat is neutralized.

Answer 10

As many as it takes.  No more, no less.

Answer 11

As many as he or she needs.  Hopefully he or she gets him on the first shot.  It would be a shame to waste a lot of ammo on some idiot.

Answer 12

Under the pressure of having a gun aimed at you no officer is the same some will shoot five some wil unload a whole clip. They arent trained to fire any certain amount

Answer 13

enough to stop the threat...but we usually empty the gun !!

Answer 14

Some departments, notably NYPD, train cops to empty a full magazine (Usually 18 shots for a Glock).

But many more, like LAPD, train cops to doubletap (two rapid shots) and then reevaluate.  

Answer 15

6-7 with 9mm. 1-2 with .357 SIG.

2-3 with .40 s&w.

Seriously, different departments have different calibers, and, therefore, different training applications.

Answer 16

i agree with Patrick G as many as it takes  

Answer 17

As many bullets as it takes to stop the suspect.  It could be 1 bullet, it could be 15.

Usually, when you read stories about a suspect being shot 40+ times, it is the result of 5-6 officers shooting 4-5 times, not one officer shooting the suspect, reloading and shooting the suspect again.

Answer 18

If he is justified in the shooting, he or she can shoot until the threat is over or the deadly action on the part of the criminal has ended. probably about the most rounds of ammunition in a Policeman's gun would be 15 but there would also be one or two more magazines available.

I don't know if the information has been updated, but the average amount of shots per attack and police fighting back, used to be in the neighborhood of 6 shots. This may have changed due to higher capacity magazines. When I started, it was pretty much all revolvers. Average shooting was done at under 21 feet, in low light or dark conditions, in under 2 seconds and the total amount of shots between 4-6 rounds.

May be different today.