Yes from 1981 to present. I listed my background on my introduction several years ago. I do not feel the need to list any of my life on my signature.
But, lets stick with this topic and my history, firearms range master/instructor at an SO 2 years. 6 years at another dept. firearms instructor, range master training service sidearms, shotguns and rifles until I had a promotion. The new job did not allow for the time to teach shooting any longer. It was a 4 weeks a year job, each quarter training about 120 officers, normally 5 straight days adding up to over a 50 hour week most times. Than annual ranger master school was another 4 or 5 days a year. When I went to recruit school to teach new cops than add another 2 to 4 weeks, depending how many other instructors were available. I never investigated a dept. shooting we have Dicks do that. But, I, we got copies of many of our dept and other dept. reports. The damage done by different calibers and bullets on the human body by the autopsies and a few I seen on the streets. We asked co workers to video tape there statements after all the investigation was done to help others and learn how to be better trained and reacting to deadly force. Some did others would not discuss it. Studied police shooting as much as possible to develop better training consisting of real life police shootings. Most PDs put together training videos and some have the real event shown, most do reenactments. Those get sent all around the country so other cops can learn also. Mostly never any of those are available to the public.
I do not have all the answers, as no one does. But, sometimes patterns develop. No 2 police or citizen shooting is actually the same. 3 shots, 3 seconds, 3 yards is or has been a national average that can vary year to year, but over time it is about the national police shooting average. Used to be less rounds when most had revolvers, I remember the number was 2.4 or 2.7 for years. Does not really matter that has changed anyway.
Think about this, police shootings normally happen as the police contact the BG. And at real close range. Range that one would normally talk to another person, maybe standing at the car window, handing documents to another person, handcuffing someone or during a hands on fight with someone and a gun gets introduced into the fight, either with the police officers own gun taken by the BG or a BG with a gun.
Many citizen shootings happen when BG approaches his possible next victim of a crime. No nation wide data on citizen average distance, rounds fired etc. I have read about a city, maybe St. louis had someone keep that type of data. The numbers are very limited and I chose not to attempt to remember that so much because the area and total numbers of shooting compared to police nation wide data.
Watch the video posted on this site of a foot chase by police and a by stranger stepped into it and shoots at the police. See the distance and time that whole gun battle happened. The unusual part of that shooting was the BG shooter placed himself into the fight unrelated to the police foot chase. The rest of the shooting fits many of the police shootings patterns. Yes there are police ambushes done with distance and a rifle but, most are fast, close and quick. Many times unexpected. As an example,
40 years ago here we trained service gun range shooting starting at 50 yards prone than 25 yards kneeling and standing. Half of the course shots were than fired at those distances.
That changed to 25 yards with 18 rounds fired at 25 yards. Only 6 shots fired of the 50 shot course is now done at 25 yards. All other shooting is done fast and close with forced reloads and one hand and weak hand shooting involved. Much is done with gun malfunctions introduced into the course because that is the real world here in the US.
The video I mentioned was posted by GunnyGene on 07-04 in the gun control heading. Watch it several times.
So take away what you want or not. We could look at many times that rule of 3 did not fit but remember that is a average. Some gun battles took 1 round at 15 yards, some took 17 at 5 yards, perhaps.