Gunfight Analysis: The Murder of Officer Scotty Richardson

Stephon Carter

“Let me see your hands!” or some variation of this phrase is one of the most frequently repeated commands in law enforcement. Although police officers have been yelling it for years, it may not always be the best approach.

One of the first things police officers learn is that a suspect's "hands" pose the greatest threat—indeed they do. When dealing with a suspect, an officer should be acutely aware of the ability, or inability, to see the person's hands to ensure he or she is not clutching or reaching for a weapon. This is a proper concern and when officers encounter someone with their hands in their pockets the officers should immediately assume an elevated level of awareness.

Such was the case with Stephon Carter, the night of December 20, 2011. 

Aiken, South Carolina Public Safety Officer Travis Griffin responded to a drive-by shooting about 9:30 p.m. and a short time later saw a black Chevrolet Impala similar to the car witnesses said was involved in the shooting. Griffin followed the vehicle and initiated a traffic stop in the parking lot of a near-by apartment complex. Four other officers arrived as backup at the scene including Officer Edward Scott (Scotty) Richardson, who parked his patrol vehicle behind Griffin. 

Griffin asked the front-seat passenger Stephon Carter to exit the vehicle and walk to the rear of the car. Initially Carter had both hands out of his pocket; however, as he came around to the rear of the Impala Carter placed his right hand in his pocket. Griffin asked Carter to remove his hand from his pocket, at which point Carter pulled out a revolver and began firing at the officers.

Carter’s first shot struck Griffin in the chest; however, his bullet resistant vest stopped the round. Carter continued to fire as he turned to his left firing a second shot which missed Griffin’s head and at least one more shot before fleeing the scene. Two of Carter’s shots fatally struck Officer Richardson—one in his left side and one in the head. 

The video of this incident demonstrates the danger in telling a suspect to remove his hands from his pocket in an uncontrolled manner. The suspect’s hand movement is not going to be an indicator of trouble—Officer Griffin initiated the movement when he requested Carter to take his hand out of his pocket. The first opportunity for Griffin to see that Carter had a firearm was when it was too late. . . when Carter fired his first shot into Griffin’s chest. 

From the moment Griffin could have seen Carter's revolver until he fired was 0.33 seconds. 

Video analysis shows that from the moment Griffin could have seen that Carter had a revolver in his hand until Carter fired the first shot was 0.33 seconds. Figure 1 shows the first moment that Griffin could see that Carter had something in his hand. Although you can see Griffin is looking at Carter’s hand, Griffin did not react until after Carter fired (figure 2). In truth, he could not have reacted in time—it was not humanly possible.
 
The Force Science Institute conducted several experiments in a 2014 study to measure police officer reaction time to start and stop shooting. In experiment one the officers were positioned in a firing stance with a training pistol and were instructed to fire the pistol when a green light came on for 0.5 sec. On average, it took officers .25 sec to begin the trigger pull (i.e. react to the stimulus) and .06 sec to complete the trigger pull (defined as the actual travel time of the trigger from a position of rest to a position back against the frame) for a total reaction time of .31 sec.1 So even if Griffin was in a firing stance, finger off the trigger, with his pistol aimed at Carter, it would have been almost impossible for Griffin to have reacted to Carter’s movement in time. 

Carter fired his second shot .57 sec later as he was spinning to his left and at least one more shot which the video did not capture. The first officer to draw and fire at Carter does so at 2.7 seconds into the incident; given the circumstances, a credible reaction time. 

Is there a more effective tactic to effectively replace the command, one which improves the officer’s position of advantage while placing the suspect at a disadvantage? I believe so. First, issue the command: “DO NOT take your hands out of your pockets.” Followed immediately with a repeat of the command “DO NOT” to emphasize that you do not want the individual to remove his hands. Many suspects with prior police encounters will automatically begin removing their hands the instant they hear “hands” and “pockets.” 

Command the individual to face away from you and to not look back. After the individual turns facing away, leave your original position and move several steps to the right (or left as the situation dictates). If the suspect was to suddenly turn with a weapon, he would do so anticipating that you would be where he last saw you. 

Command the individual to slowly take his right hand out of his pocket and hold it away from his body, spreading his fingers and turning his palm toward you. Once you see an empty right hand, quietly move again so the next time the individual hears your voice you are in a different position. Instruct the individual to slowly remove his left hand from his pocket and hold it in the same position as the right hand. You may now take additional steps to ensure the individual does not possess a weapon.

At night you can use a similar tactic; however, modern high intensity flashlights help. After you issue the command “DO NOT take your hands out of your pockets” and repeat “DO NOT,” shine your light in the individual’s eyes using the FBI technique (see figure 3) and command him to face away from you and to not look back. After the individual turns facing away, leave your light on him and move several steps to the right (or left as the situation dictates). If the suspect was to suddenly turn with a weapon, he will likely shoot where the light is located. Continue to issue commands and take additional steps to ensure the individual does not possess a weapon as discussed above.

During the course of a career, a police officer will interact with a countless number of individuals who have their hands in their pockets. On the street, simply commanding the individual to remove his hands makes it almost impossible to tell whether he is drawing a weapon or complying with your command until it is too late to react. Controlling the manner in which they remove their hands will give you an advantage and position you to react if they do present a weapon. 

The video of the incident is available at the following link: Officer Richardson's Shooting

1 Lewinski, Hudson, & Dysterheft (2014). Police Officer Reaction Time to Start and Stop Shooting: The Influence of Decision-Making and Pattern Recognition. Law Enforcement Executive Forum 14(2), 1-16

2 Although the picture shows a drawn handgun, you can do this technique with your hand on a holstered or ready pistol as well. Photo credit: Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission, Level I Handgun Instructor Course, 2008

 

Thug Burglars: Tunnel Vision and Stress

Sometimes during a dangerous or life-threatening situation it simply becomes impossible for you to attend to all the stimuli coming at you simultaneously. A temporary blindness or deafness effect can take place as a result. A variety of factors that include high levels of adrenaline in the body from stress or anger cause inattentional blindness--a temporary loss of peripheral vision, also referred to as temporary tunnel vision. Inattentional blindness is a psychological lack of visual perception that is not associated with any vision defects or deficits. Inattentional deafness is a similar phenomenon that affects hearing and is not associated with any hearing defects or deficits.

Everyone’s reaction to a life-threatening situation will be somewhat unpredictable. Although many accounts of a traumatic incident have similarities, no two are the same. People working in the military, police, fire, or medical fields have experienced numerous sensory distortions including tunnel vision while under stress. If you are not aware that you could experience the world in such a bizarre way, it could add to your stress levels.

“I told the SWAT team that the suspect was firing at me from down a long dark hallway about 40 feet long. When I went back to the scene the next day, I was shocked to discover that he had actually been only about 5 feet in front of me in an open room. There was no dark hallway.” 1

In this article, I focus on these sensory distortions--tunnel vision and tunnel hearing.

Tunnel vision can result from the combination of a fear-induced adrenaline dump associated with a specific, dangerous threat. Because kind of danger you have to be in to experience a fear-induced adrenaline rush isn’t something we can practice in a safe training environment, it is important to study the symptoms so we can recognize them when they occur.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University ran a series of tests on human subjects with a goal of measuring the loss of visual acuity while engaging them in activities designed to narrow attention. The experiment was designed to cause tunnel vision—and it did. However, while the subjects experienced tunneled vision, they also experienced decreased auditory attention (tunnel hearing?). 

Researchers discovered that visually focusing on something intently led the audio cortex to turn down the volume as well. According to Drs. Yantis and Shomstein: "Our findings support several conclusions. First attention affects early visual and auditory  sensory responses. The “push-pull” effect of switching attention between vision and hearing suggests that focusing attention on auditory input (e.g., a cellular telephone conversation) can impair the ability to detect important visual events (e.g., driving an automobile). When attention is directed to the visual system the strength of audial attention is compromised (and vice versa) leading to potentially significant behavioral impairments." In other words, a person intently focused on something visual could have diminished hearing. 2 Conversely, a person intently listening to audible cues such as a radio or cell phone could have diminished visual performance. 

Look at the sequence of pictures below. In this incident, 3 armed individuals invade a home. As they are searching through the house, they awaken a woman who steps into a doorway. One of the home invaders notices the woman (white hat & jacket), points his pistol at her, and begins moving toward her. She opens fire with her pistol. Surprise! 

Invaders #1 & #2 immediately begin scrambling to escape through the door they kicked in to gain entry. The woman advances toward the escaping home invaders and fires another shot. As she does this, home invader #3 comes running out of a hallway to the woman’s left with his pistol pointed toward her (see movement 1). As he careens past, at one point his pistol is pointed toward her head while her pistol is simultaneously pointed at him (movement 2). Their arms collide as invader #3 continues running—deflecting both pistols—neither fire (movement 3).  

Invader #3 continues running toward the back door (movement 4) while she continues advancing and shooting at invaders #1 & #2 who are firing back at her without even glancing at invader #3 (movement 5). 

Based on the video, I believe the woman and invader #3 were both experiencing tunnel vision. I doubt they even noticed each other at all.  She was focusing on the two invaders to her front who were also shooting at her and invader #3 was fixated on escaping (he ran through the glass door at the rear of the kitchen). The video is available here: Home Invasion

These psychological and physiological reactions to dangerous events have worked very well to ensure the survival of our species. Maintaining an intense and narrow visual focus on a cave lion spotted in the brush may have been a very good survival mechanism for the early modern human. Individuals with these traits survived encounters with wild animals and their families benefited from the increased safety in the immediate environment and more protein available in their diet. This increased their chance of passing their genes onto modern humans. 

So, are we are stuck with a genetic predisposition that prevents us from dealing with dangerous modern emergencies? No, because we can learn, remember, adopt and practice a plan to deal with emergencies. As a young paratrooper with the 82^nd Airborne Division, I once had a double inversion malfunction during a jump. That basically means you have very little canopy to slow your fall. I remember looking up and seeing other jumpers with small parachute canopies in a line on either side high above me. Without hesitation, I immediately deployed my reserve parachute. Good Army training.

Training and practice pay benefits. Going through any simple series of motions causes the neurons in your brain that control that movement to fire in a particular sequence. The Army pounded emergency malfunction drills into our pea brains through repeated training and repetition. The more often you repeat a physical sequence, the more “automatic” the sequence becomes. Just thinking about making those movements stimulates both the neurons in the brain that control those movements as well as the neural pathways in the muscles that command the muscles to move. Research has shown that visualizing emergency procedures is almost as good as actually performing them. 

The first step in dealing with narrowing attention is understanding that it can happen as your stress level rises and your body does an adrenaline dump in response. Being able to control your stress is one of the best ways to combat the ill-effects of the hormonal chemical dump that changes your psychological, cognitive, and physical performance. Breathing techniques are very effective if you have time. If you find you are fixating on one sound or one task, make a conscious effort to unlock your senses from it and force yourself to scan your environment. It may also help combat the effects of tunneled senses if you ask yourself: What am I missing?

Look at the video at the link below. The gentleman in the black shirt with a white stripe on the shoulder is an off-duty police officer who chooses to engage a robbery team at a supermarket. The wisdom of engaging in a gunfight with numerous children in the vicinity notwithstanding, the officer does not become so fixated on the bad guys to his front that he fails to notice shots coming from behind him. In other words, he does not succumb to tunnel vision nor tunnel hearing. He immediately moves to a cover position and confronts the threat behind him in response to the unexpected sound of shots to his rear (at the 24 second mark in the video). Another example of good training. Supermarket video: Supermarket

Practicing reactions to emergencies increases our confidence and increased confidence lowers the stress response of our bodies when we actually face dangerous situations. Our field of vision is not as narrow as it might be otherwise and our tendency to fixate on a “fear object” diminishes. Because our brain is in a more relaxed state, it is more able to dedicate resources to creatively addressing new challenges (for example, incoming gunfire from an unexpected direction). If we practice the right thing instead of simply allowing our natural reactions to rule the situation we are better able to successfully manage our behavior. 

If you enjoyed this article and would like to read more like it, you can subscribe at the link in the upper right. For more information about firearms training in South Central Texas go to the 
Sensible Self Defense website: SSD

1 Anecdotal statement from a Law Enforcement Officer. Perceptual and Memory Distortion During Officer-Involved Shootings by Alexis Artwohl, Ph.D. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, October 2002/18 

2 Control of Attention Shifts between Vision and Audition in Human Cortex, Sarah Shomstein and Steven Yantis Journal of Neuroscience 24 November 2004, 24 (47) 10702-10706

The proper draw with a cheap holster

For reasons I’ve never understood, I often see a student arriving for a class or a competitor for a match with an acceptable pistol they plan to carry in a cheap holster, on a flimsy belt. I once had a student show up with a high-end, $2000+ Wilson 1911 and proceed to put in it a cheap generic nylon holster on an old dress belt less than an inch wide.

The video link below (click on the picture title) shows a competitor in a Short Range Match demonstrating the proper draw with a cheap holster. Clearing the holster attached to the muzzle of his pistol cost Mike 1.28 seconds. A long time in a match and perhaps a lifetime in a violent encounter. We occasionally beat our competitors in the Short Range Match to provide a little distraction which probably did not help.

Mike Demonstrating the proper draw with a cheap holster

Many who are new to the shooting sports or concealed carry want to go cheap when buying a holster; however, a solid holster and semi-rigid belt are just as important as the pistol. Although an acceptable pistol can provide you the ability to defend yourself or compete, the holster enables you to have the pistol when and where you need it. 

Without a good holster, you either will not carry the pistol or you won’t be able to draw it effectively. Further, cheap holsters can cause more problems than they solve. A generic holster may not properly retain the pistol creating the possibility that it will fall out at the most inopportune moment. An improperly fitting holster can pose another challenge if the user attempts to force the pistol into it and thereby causes an accidental discharge. Stray straps and accouterments can find their way into the trigger guard and create the same outcome if the user is not careful.

In addition to the holster, a proper, purpose-designed gun belt is absolutely essential for carrying a holstered handgun effectively. A proper belt must be stiff enough to support the pistol’s weight and provide the rigidity necessary to keep it from flopping and shifting about while at the same time being comfortable enough to actually wear all day. You must mate your holster and belt carefully. A proper pistol belt should fit the width of the slots or loops on your holster. Blade Tech, Comp-Tac and other brands often have adjustable belt loops depending upon the holster design that make this easier. 

A holster is not a fashion accessory, it is a critical piece of life saving equipment. The traditional strong-side hip holster (either outside or inside the waistband) is most often the holster of choice for a reason. It’s comfortable, can be easily concealed, and provides a natural draw stroke. Specialized holsters such as shoulder and ankle holsters and other esoteric designs have their place for well-trained people who know what they’re doing; however, they are not suitable for normal concealed carry. 

Choose your holster based on its safety, usefulness, and comfort. The strong-side hip holster is a good choice for those new to the shooting sports or concealed carry. As you gain experience and competence you can try another style as appropriate. Regardless of the style you chose, always train with the holster you carry. Chest rigs, drop-down leg holsters, etc. look cool to some; however, it provides no benefit to train with a holster if the only time you use it is on the range.

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Oafish, illiterate, gun-nut buffoons? Ummm. . . . No.

A friend of mine recently made a comment about the demographics of the people participating in our monthly Short Range matches. His comment prompted me to write this note concerning the career focus of our Short Range match participants.

1 Retired Army General Officer

1 Active duty Army Colonel

1 Active duty Marine Captain

1 Active duty Air Force 2nd Lieutenant

4 Retired Army Colonels

1 Retired Army Chief Warrant Officer

1 Retired Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant

1 Cardiologist/Heart Surgeon

1 Radiologist

1 Retired University Professor

1 Lawyer

3 Senior Business Executives

1 Freelance photographer

1 Pharmacist

1 Dentist

1 Geologist

2 Retired Commercial Pilots

1 Freelance writer

1 Police Officer

1 Nurse

2 Information Technology professionals

In addition, there were several adult children of the individuals listed above and several individuals whose career fields I have yet to learn. As you can see, San Antonio is a military city so it is not surprising to see a number of military and retired military participating in the shooting sports. However, when I actually began considering the professional demographics of our Short Range match I was struck by the contrast between reality and how the mainstream media often portrays people who enjoy the shooting sports. Are the individuals I have described above a bunch of illiterate, oafish, gun-nut buffoons? Ummm. . . . No. They are the people defending this country, creating jobs, providing medical care, educating our children, and generally being productive, professional citizens.

For more information go to: www.sensibleselfdefense.com

The Short Range Match is a monthly event at Cedar Ridge Range in San Antonio Texas. The short-range course of fire match follows IDPA-style safety principles and generally will have all targets at no more than 10 yards. Most stages are based upon real-life events that were recorded on video and adapted for a square range. Otherwise, it is a regular course of fire, with many stages requiring a reload. A short-range course of fire match makes carry-suitable handguns more competitive. Ideally, shooters will use a pistol they carry to shoot the match. All pistols may be loaded to capacity and the match may have reloads on the clock.