Do police agencies keep numerical range scores or is it just pass/fail? Some agencies are going away from the actual numerical scoring, supposedly because training records fall under the open records act and they are afraid that if an officer with a higher qualification score kills someone in an otherwise legitimate shooting that the prosecuting attorneys will ask the officer didn’t shoot to disarm, etc. How are police agencies handling this?
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I believe many departments only keep pass/no pass records, but not because of the reasons stated.
It is very easy to establish in court that shooting a gun out of someones hand or shoot to disarm, etc., is not only impractical but also nearly impossible under the stress of a violent encounter. These feats are myths. What is more likely is that the departments do not want the scores of those who barely pass to be available.
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For liability purposes, Pass/Fail scoring is becoming the norm. When the use of force is questioned, it is normal for the training records of the officer to come into play, and needless to say, this includes officer involved shootings.
The problem is, on paper, it makes all officers appear to have even ability. When I first started, % scores were common, and I was always PROUD to be able to consistently score 100%. However, there are always those officers who will struggle to meet the minimum (75% in our case). I’ve seen officers with poor firearm skills. Unfortunately, with a pass or fail system, the officer who struggles to pass the qualification with a minimum score (and needs several attempts to pass it), is EQUAL to the officer who passes it consistently with 100%.
When we picked our competition team, we would take the top shooters in the department and place them on the pistol team. Under a pass/fail system, there are no top shooters, everyone is equal! It used to be that exceptional ability on the range was recognized, but under the pass/fail system, you can’t do that. Pass/Fail works for liability reasons, but other than that, I think it sucks.
http://forums.officer.com/t18207/
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If you score a perfect weapons qual, and you are out on the street, a gun fight errupts, one of your bullets doesnt hit the intended target, huge law suit because of that perfect score on paper. Lawyers love that kind of case.
https://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=436486
Some have advanced the notion that public sector firearms courses (for police and private citizens) should not keep scores, allowing pass/fail only, due to issues with liability problems. The problem, we’re told, is that assessing skill numerically could jeopardize the legal defense of an otherwise legit shooting. If the qualification records indicate the person was more skillful, the prosecution may claim the shooter should have tried other shot(s) or shoot to disarm because of their higher skill. If the qualification records indicate the person was less skillful or marginally qualified, it might be shown that the person was reckless due to a lack of skill. Thus, best not keep scores because high or low results could be used against you in court.
Wrong. As with many issues in the firearms world, much of what is taken as “truth” is merely garbage repeated endlessly. Keeping a numerical assessment of skill is necessary if skill is ever to be improved. There is no liability problem with doing this.
By definition, this sort of liability is something whose presence is likely to put one at a legal disadvantage. Such a liability needs to be based on a precedent established in a previous legal case that is either binding on or persuasive for a court when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts.
Such a precedent requires a preceding incident to have actually occurred. In this instance, there must be a legal case where a person’s qualification scores were successfully used in court to secure a verdict against them.
If one still believes that keeping qualification scores creates a legal liability provide the docket number of the case where this happened. Case law is based on actual filed court actions from actual events. If such a thing never occurred there is no legal precedent and any “liability” is pure conjecture and unsubstantiated opinion. A nice way of saying, “it’s bullshit.”
The lack of qualification scores will have a negative impact on training success. Avoiding this due to imaginary liability is poor practice.
http://www.policemag.com/blog/training/story/2007/05/keep-your-officers-firearms-scores-1.aspx
http://www.policemag.com/channel/weapons/articles/2010/04/running-up-the-score.aspx
Firearm User Network 
Mar 25, 2016 @ 10:42:37
I agree that there would seem to be little liability in retaining copies of shooting performance (unless, I suppose, that performance were truly horrific–people who can’t hit the broad side of a barn arguably shouldn’t walk around in public with guns).
It’s also true that garbage and derp repeated about these kinds of issues, which is unfortunate.
It is not, however, true that some precedent must exist in order for a trial judge to admit any particular type of evidence. Trial judges have enormous discretion in their decisions about what evidence to allow or exclude from a trial, and these evidentiary decisions are almost never overturned on appeal.
So long as evidence is relevant, probative, and not overly prejudicial, it’s arguably admissible–and all those things are evaluated solely by the trial judge using his own personal, well, judgment.
Bottom line, a trial judge can admit (or exclude) pretty much anything he wants. Indeed, if anything, he will have the broadest discretion on evidence when there is NOT much precedence on the matter.
Many legal concerns discussed in blogs and gun forums and gun magazines are indeed the result of an overactive imagination, and I expect shooting scores fall into that category. But just because something might not have been deemed admissible as evidence by some prior judge doesn’t mean it will be deemed inadmissible by a later judge. After all, for EVERY type of evidence, there had to have been a FIRST time. :-)
–Andrew, @LawSelfDefense
http://lawofselfdefense.com/
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Mar 25, 2016 @ 11:17:05
>> I agree that there would seem to be little liability in retaining copies of shooting performance (unless, I suppose, that performance were truly horrific–people who can’t hit the broad side of a barn arguably shouldn’t walk around in public with guns).
If they’re that bad, then deciding to keep or not keep records is the least worry…
>> It is not, however, true that some precedent must exist in order for a trial judge to admit any particular type of evidence. … So long as evidence is relevant, probative, and not overly prejudicial, it’s arguably admissible–and all those things are evaluated solely by the trial judge using his own personal, well, judgment.
True and good points. I’m not a lawyer, but I’m certain a prosecuting attorney will use anything they can to secure a verdict.
My point is that if range/qualification scores demonstrating heightened skill were likely to be successfully used against someone they would have been, given that formal, scored qualification courses have been the norm in police and military circles since the late 1800s.
Further, I’d argue that scores alone won’t be the deciding factor. If the shooting was otherwise legal, proper, and justified, how would records showing good qualification or competition scores damage the case? A prosecuting attorney is going to somehow successfully argue to judge and jury that the good shooting was tainted because the person bothered to train and has proof of heightened ability? And if the point is to bury low scores instead of improving them, the concern is misdirected.
I think we’re better off focusing on ways to help people improve skills rather than worry about a “problem” that has never happened.
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Mar 27, 2016 @ 16:02:55
IMHO, discussions about qualification scores, errant rounds and related liability issues, are just tail chasing exercises.
They are red herrings that keep shooting discussions from focusing on and dealing with the method of shooting taught to police for use in armed encounters that results in the obviously acceptable CQB miss rate of more than 80%.
That miss rate was alluded to in the FBI’s 1989 paper on Handgun Wounding Factors And Effectiveness in a part of the paper that deals with the issue of over penetration.
“The concern that a bullet would pass through the body of a subject and injure an innocent bystander is clearly exaggerated. Any review of law enforcement shootings will reveal that the great majority of shots fired by Officers do not hit any subjects at all. It should be obvious that the relatively few shots that do hit a subject are not somehow more dangerous to bystanders than the shots that miss the subject entirely.”.
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Mar 27, 2016 @ 16:21:39
>> They are red herrings that keep shooting discussions from focusing on and dealing with the method of shooting taught to police for use in armed encounters that results in the obviously acceptable CQB miss rate of more than 80%.
Which goes back to the standard of performance expected and how to achieve better results. Failing to measure performance due to a liability issue that does not exist helps nobody.
The only “red herring” here is discussing how to improve skill. Hit rates were even worse when point shooting approaches were the norm. The problem is the low level of skill common outside of competitive circles. Avoiding score keeping on more challenging courses due to “liability” that doesn’t exist ignores this problem.
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Mar 28, 2016 @ 08:19:15
More here:
Why Measure Performance?
https://firearmusernetwork.com/measure-performance-canipe/
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