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Police appear to be misusing rubber bullets, possibly on purpose. Rubber bullets are supposed to be fired at shin height, to achieve the appropriate mix of pai

Police appear to be misusing rubber bullets, possibly on purpose. Rubber bullets are supposed to be fired at shin height, to achieve the appropriate mix of pain and risk reduction. They’re not zero risk because of ricochets, but flat, low trajectories help. It should go without saying that they should only be used when necessary, but if they must be used there is a way it should be done. The number of people being struck in the chest and head by rubber bullets implies that the cops are aiming for the head, a gross abuse of force if true.

brenden2 6y ago
There are multiple videos of cops aiming and firing directly at the face and head, sometimes only a few feet away. It's terrifying and disheartening.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  I feel like rubber bullets should be serialized, so you can know who fired it. It shouldn’t be too hard, they’re both extremely large and consumed in relatively small quantities.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    It seems like the last point is sadly becoming less and less true.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      In theory, cops aren’t supposed to use a lot of lethal ammunition either, but here we are.
  - milkytron 6y ago
    I agree, although I have a feeling police unions would be adamantly opposed to this. Similar to their opposition to body cameras.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      Given the behavior of the police this week, we can no longer afford to tailor our reforms to the whims of the police unions.
      - klmadfejno 6y ago
        Great. All you need to do is disentangle one of the most powerful labor unions in the country.
        ashtonkem 6y ago
        Alas, I am not under the impression it will be easy.
        craftinator 6y ago
        Maybe our glorious leader should declare them a "domestic terrorist organization"...
  - brenden2 6y ago
    That's an interesting idea, but I think the police are too powerful for that to happen at this point.
    - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
      So the police are being anti-democratic. I'd agree that traceable rubber bullets is for much further down the line. First you need prosecution of any officer shown using a gun at a person's head or upper-torso when they're not responding to a situation of immediate threat of loss of life. Seems the evidence should be there for that. Swift prosecution, and where appropriate conviction, of police abuses would help to quell the current unrest IMO. Like on Reddit yesterday I saw video of an officer placing a stick in an already subdued persons hand, then beating them in the head and retrieving the stick ... is there any reason that person isn't already in jail? They should fast track prosecutions, have them in prison - of found guilty - by the end of the week. Swift, open and impeccable justice is called for. You can't entirely blame individual officers IMO, watching riot footage knee-on-neck is clearly a widely adopted technique, presumably it's taught. And putting someone in a riot with a weapon, we should expect aggressive actions, it's a natural human response that can't easily be trained out. Mandatory gun cameras for riot police might be useful as this point though?
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    How would you find a specific bullet, though? It doesn't usually get lodged.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      Lots of rubber bullets are big, roughly the size of a soda can. They aren’t too hard to locate and keep. It’s only the less effective shot shells that are more likely to bounce around and be hard to track.
      - StavrosK 6y ago
        Oh, huh, I thought they were paintball-sized.
        ashtonkem 6y ago
        Some are, usually they’re packed into 12ga shot shells, but those are limited in their velocity due to their tendency to penetrate rather than bounce off the victims. The bigger ones are able to strike further and harder with a reduced risk of penetration. At the paintball size it’s now more common to see CS filled paintballs. Those don’t require a huge amount of kinetic energy to work, although exposure to CS gas has its own long term side effects.
        herewulf 6y ago
        Those paintballs are filled with oleoresin capsicum (OC) which is a far more persistent and "persuasive" substance. Getting hit with a CS paintball would be ineffectual due to the small amount and the fact that it wears off quickly. What "long term side effects" does CS have? The US Army (at least) routinely puts all soldiers through a CS filled gas chamber as part of chemical warfare training and has done so for decades.
        computerfriend 6y ago
        There are no longitudinal studies, because it is very difficult to find a sample of repeatedly tear-gassed subjects over relatively long timeframes. Hong Kong is a good example though, where estimates are that ~90% of the population have been exposed. In Hong Kong, long-term exposure has been connected with rashes, respiratory problems and chloracne.
  - sneak 6y ago
    Why would it matter who fired it? Police are not holding police accountable for violent assaults. Even if you were to ID the attacker, qualified immunity prevents you from suing them personally for violating your rights. You sue the police department, and then the taxpayer pays the settlement, and the cop suffers no negative consequences.
    - chillingeffect 6y ago
      yes but qualified immunity is only one part of the story. even if you can't sue them personally, they can be held accountable to their supervisors.
      - voganmother42 6y ago
        > A white Minneapolis police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck opened fire on two people during his 19-year career and had nearly 20 complaints and two letters of reprimand filed against him. “Held accountable”
    - squeaky-clean 6y ago
      One step at a time man, one step at a time.
  - klmadfejno 6y ago
    I think it would be relatively easy to build a facial recognition database of cops using publicly available data. A touch of irony to it.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      Cops faces are covered during these events, for anonymity, for intimidation, and nominally for protection.
      - klmadfejno 6y ago
        That's a good point. You do however have height, width, maybe skin tone, voice, etc.
  - eloisius 6y ago
    Why in the world? You'll have no trouble finding videos of police blatantly misusing them in broad daylight. There are no consequences because... there are no consequences. Why would serializing rubber bullets help? Are we going to collect handfuls of them off the ground and then conjecture as to which officer fired which bullet?
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      You’re right, much to my continued sadness and rage. Just trying to come up with some idea to help, but clearly legislative change is required.
    - squeaky-clean 6y ago
      ? The serial numbers would prevent conjecture. Unless officers are just trading guns with each other in the middle of the event.
      - cosmie 6y ago
        They're not penetration rounds, so will likely ricochet off the individual. After which, they'll co-mingle with the rounds scattered around by all of the officers. Except in isolated cases that don't involve multiple officers, but then the serial number is a moot point. So while a serial number can prove that a particular round came from a specific officer, proving a direct connection between any specific damage and a specific round would be an area of uncertainty and conjecture. And even if you do keep track of an individual round, the above argument itself would allow for officers/lawyers to argue that case anyway, introducing enough reasonable doubt to weasel out of repercussions.
  - BurningFrog 6y ago
    As long as cops have immunity from prosecution, what purpose would tracing the bullets serve?
  - anigbrowl 6y ago
    "Oops, looks like our records have been destroyed. What a shame."
  - komali2 6y ago
    That's extremely optimistic and I admire you for thinking of it. Surely though simply requiring all police officers to have their cameras on 24/7, with instant firing for switching them off while on-duty, or taping them. I've seen both during the protests. When the cops killed the BBQ guy, it was like 50 officers on site. All had their cameras off.
  - GloriousKoji 6y ago
    I don't think that would help as the bullets would eventually end up on the group with no accountability of who it hit or was aimed at. I think it would be better to have a camera that takes a picture every-time a trigger is pulled. Then again nothing stops them from finding a way to disable it like the body cameras.
kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
They bounce up so even with proper technique someone in the wrong place can take one to the eye.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  And that’s why they should only be applied once de-escalation and containment have failed. There is no such thing as a non-lethal round, the correct term is “less-lethal”, and as such should only be applied when justified.
Razengan 6y ago
I just learned that "rubber" bullets have a steel core: https://old.reddit.com/r/ThingsCutInHalfPorn/comments/guy6ln/steel_core_inside_a_rubber_bullet_620413/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ThingsCutInHalfPorn/comments/guy6ln...
- craftinator 6y ago
  I learned that at combat training; up until then I assumed they were basically rubber paint balls with a higher velocity. We asked why we had to use chalk rounds for training (basically a 9mm pistol powder charge with a chalk bullet in front of it) instead of rubber bullets, and our combat instructor laughed and said he didn't want to see anyone blinded, unconscious, or permanently damaged, so they were a no go, even when we were wearing ballistic vests, helmets and face shields. Those chalk rounds still hurt like crazy, and would break skin through military camo uniforms; can't imagine being unloaded on with rubber bullets without protection.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    So, basically these cops don't actually know how to use the weapons they are wielding? If they used those rubber bullets against realistic targets they would learn how to use them properly.
rmrfstar 6y ago
This [1] from a group that usually investigates Russia's security services. [1] https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2020/05/31/us-law-enforcement-are-deliberately-targeting-journalists-during-george-floyd-protests/ https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2020/05/31/us-law-e...
celticninja 6y ago
In the UK (N.Ireland) rubber baton rounds used to (not sure about currently) have to be shot to ricochet off something, so you would fire it a few feet infront of the protestors with the round deflecting up to the legs/lower body and losing some of its velocity during the ricochet.
- dmurray 6y ago
  That might have been the official doctrine, but the British Army absolutely used them to kill people, often firing directly at the head or chest at close range.
  - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
    wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_bullet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_bullet When I was at school they[0] brought round a rubber bullet (I presume it was a plastic bullet actually but they called it rubber). It was a light grey, featureless cylinder, flat at both ends, at least as my memory has it. It was surprisingly light, seemed to have barely any heft at all. We were told it was the very bullet that killed a protester in northen ireland. [0] I can't remember who 'they' were, an ant-violence group I guess.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    The official count is 17, if you trust that.
  - celticninja 6y ago
    Oh I agree, that was how they were supposed to be used but rarely were.
LiquidSky 6y ago
>Police appear to be misusing rubber bullets, possibly on purpose. They don't care how they're using rubber bullets because there are zero consequences for misusing them, or anything else they do.
reaperducer 6y ago
Police appear to be misusing rubber bullets, possibly on purpose. It used to be batons. Then beanbag guns. Then it was tasers. Then rubber bullets. Every time the police are given a new tool, it is used to its maximum force, which is scary considering so many departments are now getting military equipment without military training in how to use it right. The politicians who authorize these purchases don't seem to understand that police are not trained to use minimum force in a life-threatening situation. The cop shooting a guy in the foot to get him to drop a weapon is just Hollywood. In real life, cops are trained to shoot for the chest to kill because in real life when they draw their guns, it's almost always a life-or-death situation. Give a cop a "less lethal" weapon, and he still uses it with his shoot-to-kill training. Police officers aren't soldiers, but we're turning them into soldiers.
- anamexis 6y ago
  Cops might be trained to only draw their guns in life-or-death situations, but that certainly isn't the case in real life.
  - sky_rw 6y ago
    Important distinction lies between "life-or-death" and "perceived life-or-death". The leeway given to police over civilians in this matter seems at the root of a lot of these issues.

brenden2 6y ago

There are multiple videos of cops aiming and firing directly at the face and head, sometimes only a few feet away. It's terrifying and disheartening.

ashtonkem 6y ago
I feel like rubber bullets should be serialized, so you can know who fired it. It shouldn’t be too hard, they’re both extremely large and consumed in relatively small quantities.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  It seems like the last point is sadly becoming less and less true.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    In theory, cops aren’t supposed to use a lot of lethal ammunition either, but here we are.
- milkytron 6y ago
  I agree, although I have a feeling police unions would be adamantly opposed to this. Similar to their opposition to body cameras.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    Given the behavior of the police this week, we can no longer afford to tailor our reforms to the whims of the police unions.
    - klmadfejno 6y ago
      Great. All you need to do is disentangle one of the most powerful labor unions in the country.
      - ashtonkem 6y ago
        Alas, I am not under the impression it will be easy.
      - craftinator 6y ago
        Maybe our glorious leader should declare them a "domestic terrorist organization"...
- brenden2 6y ago
  That's an interesting idea, but I think the police are too powerful for that to happen at this point.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    So the police are being anti-democratic. I'd agree that traceable rubber bullets is for much further down the line. First you need prosecution of any officer shown using a gun at a person's head or upper-torso when they're not responding to a situation of immediate threat of loss of life. Seems the evidence should be there for that. Swift prosecution, and where appropriate conviction, of police abuses would help to quell the current unrest IMO. Like on Reddit yesterday I saw video of an officer placing a stick in an already subdued persons hand, then beating them in the head and retrieving the stick ... is there any reason that person isn't already in jail? They should fast track prosecutions, have them in prison - of found guilty - by the end of the week. Swift, open and impeccable justice is called for. You can't entirely blame individual officers IMO, watching riot footage knee-on-neck is clearly a widely adopted technique, presumably it's taught. And putting someone in a riot with a weapon, we should expect aggressive actions, it's a natural human response that can't easily be trained out. Mandatory gun cameras for riot police might be useful as this point though?
- StavrosK 6y ago
  How would you find a specific bullet, though? It doesn't usually get lodged.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    Lots of rubber bullets are big, roughly the size of a soda can. They aren’t too hard to locate and keep. It’s only the less effective shot shells that are more likely to bounce around and be hard to track.
    - StavrosK 6y ago
      Oh, huh, I thought they were paintball-sized.
      - ashtonkem 6y ago
        Some are, usually they’re packed into 12ga shot shells, but those are limited in their velocity due to their tendency to penetrate rather than bounce off the victims. The bigger ones are able to strike further and harder with a reduced risk of penetration. At the paintball size it’s now more common to see CS filled paintballs. Those don’t require a huge amount of kinetic energy to work, although exposure to CS gas has its own long term side effects.
        herewulf 6y ago
        Those paintballs are filled with oleoresin capsicum (OC) which is a far more persistent and "persuasive" substance. Getting hit with a CS paintball would be ineffectual due to the small amount and the fact that it wears off quickly. What "long term side effects" does CS have? The US Army (at least) routinely puts all soldiers through a CS filled gas chamber as part of chemical warfare training and has done so for decades.
        computerfriend 6y ago
        There are no longitudinal studies, because it is very difficult to find a sample of repeatedly tear-gassed subjects over relatively long timeframes. Hong Kong is a good example though, where estimates are that ~90% of the population have been exposed. In Hong Kong, long-term exposure has been connected with rashes, respiratory problems and chloracne.
- sneak 6y ago
  Why would it matter who fired it? Police are not holding police accountable for violent assaults. Even if you were to ID the attacker, qualified immunity prevents you from suing them personally for violating your rights. You sue the police department, and then the taxpayer pays the settlement, and the cop suffers no negative consequences.
  - chillingeffect 6y ago
    yes but qualified immunity is only one part of the story. even if you can't sue them personally, they can be held accountable to their supervisors.
    - voganmother42 6y ago
      > A white Minneapolis police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck opened fire on two people during his 19-year career and had nearly 20 complaints and two letters of reprimand filed against him. “Held accountable”
  - squeaky-clean 6y ago
    One step at a time man, one step at a time.
- klmadfejno 6y ago
  I think it would be relatively easy to build a facial recognition database of cops using publicly available data. A touch of irony to it.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    Cops faces are covered during these events, for anonymity, for intimidation, and nominally for protection.
    - klmadfejno 6y ago
      That's a good point. You do however have height, width, maybe skin tone, voice, etc.
- eloisius 6y ago
  Why in the world? You'll have no trouble finding videos of police blatantly misusing them in broad daylight. There are no consequences because... there are no consequences. Why would serializing rubber bullets help? Are we going to collect handfuls of them off the ground and then conjecture as to which officer fired which bullet?
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    You’re right, much to my continued sadness and rage. Just trying to come up with some idea to help, but clearly legislative change is required.
  - squeaky-clean 6y ago
    ? The serial numbers would prevent conjecture. Unless officers are just trading guns with each other in the middle of the event.
    - cosmie 6y ago
      They're not penetration rounds, so will likely ricochet off the individual. After which, they'll co-mingle with the rounds scattered around by all of the officers. Except in isolated cases that don't involve multiple officers, but then the serial number is a moot point. So while a serial number can prove that a particular round came from a specific officer, proving a direct connection between any specific damage and a specific round would be an area of uncertainty and conjecture. And even if you do keep track of an individual round, the above argument itself would allow for officers/lawyers to argue that case anyway, introducing enough reasonable doubt to weasel out of repercussions.
- BurningFrog 6y ago
  As long as cops have immunity from prosecution, what purpose would tracing the bullets serve?
- anigbrowl 6y ago
  "Oops, looks like our records have been destroyed. What a shame."
- komali2 6y ago
  That's extremely optimistic and I admire you for thinking of it. Surely though simply requiring all police officers to have their cameras on 24/7, with instant firing for switching them off while on-duty, or taping them. I've seen both during the protests. When the cops killed the BBQ guy, it was like 50 officers on site. All had their cameras off.
- GloriousKoji 6y ago
  I don't think that would help as the bullets would eventually end up on the group with no accountability of who it hit or was aimed at. I think it would be better to have a camera that takes a picture every-time a trigger is pulled. Then again nothing stops them from finding a way to disable it like the body cameras.

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago

They bounce up so even with proper technique someone in the wrong place can take one to the eye.

ashtonkem 6y ago
And that’s why they should only be applied once de-escalation and containment have failed. There is no such thing as a non-lethal round, the correct term is “less-lethal”, and as such should only be applied when justified.

Razengan 6y ago

I just learned that "rubber" bullets have a steel core: https://old.reddit.com/r/ThingsCutInHalfPorn/comments/guy6ln/steel_core_inside_a_rubber_bullet_620413/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ThingsCutInHalfPorn/comments/guy6ln...

craftinator 6y ago
I learned that at combat training; up until then I assumed they were basically rubber paint balls with a higher velocity. We asked why we had to use chalk rounds for training (basically a 9mm pistol powder charge with a chalk bullet in front of it) instead of rubber bullets, and our combat instructor laughed and said he didn't want to see anyone blinded, unconscious, or permanently damaged, so they were a no go, even when we were wearing ballistic vests, helmets and face shields. Those chalk rounds still hurt like crazy, and would break skin through military camo uniforms; can't imagine being unloaded on with rubber bullets without protection.
- imtringued 6y ago
  So, basically these cops don't actually know how to use the weapons they are wielding? If they used those rubber bullets against realistic targets they would learn how to use them properly.

rmrfstar 6y ago

This [1] from a group that usually investigates Russia's security services. [1] https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2020/05/31/us-law-enforcement-are-deliberately-targeting-journalists-during-george-floyd-protests/ https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2020/05/31/us-law-e...

celticninja 6y ago

In the UK (N.Ireland) rubber baton rounds used to (not sure about currently) have to be shot to ricochet off something, so you would fire it a few feet infront of the protestors with the round deflecting up to the legs/lower body and losing some of its velocity during the ricochet.

dmurray 6y ago
That might have been the official doctrine, but the British Army absolutely used them to kill people, often firing directly at the head or chest at close range.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
  wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_bullet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_bullet When I was at school they[0] brought round a rubber bullet (I presume it was a plastic bullet actually but they called it rubber). It was a light grey, featureless cylinder, flat at both ends, at least as my memory has it. It was surprisingly light, seemed to have barely any heft at all. We were told it was the very bullet that killed a protester in northen ireland. [0] I can't remember who 'they' were, an ant-violence group I guess.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  The official count is 17, if you trust that.
- celticninja 6y ago
  Oh I agree, that was how they were supposed to be used but rarely were.

LiquidSky 6y ago

>Police appear to be misusing rubber bullets, possibly on purpose. They don't care how they're using rubber bullets because there are zero consequences for misusing them, or anything else they do.

reaperducer 6y ago

Police appear to be misusing rubber bullets, possibly on purpose. It used to be batons. Then beanbag guns. Then it was tasers. Then rubber bullets. Every time the police are given a new tool, it is used to its maximum force, which is scary considering so many departments are now getting military equipment without military training in how to use it right. The politicians who authorize these purchases don't seem to understand that police are not trained to use minimum force in a life-threatening situation. The cop shooting a guy in the foot to get him to drop a weapon is just Hollywood. In real life, cops are trained to shoot for the chest to kill because in real life when they draw their guns, it's almost always a life-or-death situation. Give a cop a "less lethal" weapon, and he still uses it with his shoot-to-kill training. Police officers aren't soldiers, but we're turning them into soldiers.

anamexis 6y ago
Cops might be trained to only draw their guns in life-or-death situations, but that certainly isn't the case in real life.
- sky_rw 6y ago
  Important distinction lies between "life-or-death" and "perceived life-or-death". The leeway given to police over civilians in this matter seems at the root of a lot of these issues.