Author – George T. Williams
gtwilliams@cuttingedgetraining.org
Perhaps it starts as a call of a “man with a gun.”1 Or maybe a traffic stop.2 It could be in the midst of a running gun battle.3 You’re in a “position of cover,” using a wall, building, or your patrol car as protection against the suspect’s gunfire. You’re shooting at him when suddenly his bullets slam the edge of your cover, with some zipping past you, forcing you back.
There’s a slight pause in the suspect’s fire, and you’re just about to “pie around the corner” to get back into the fight when more rounds again slam into the corner. Your breath ragged, you thank goodness you didn’t stick your head around the corner as you strain to gain some control over the situation. Suddenly you sense movement at the corner. You gasp in surprise and fright at the realization you’re too late, just as you see and feel the muzzle of his weapon flash.
It has happened more than once: an officer at a corner is murdered by a suspect who maneuvered while shooting at the officer, moving obliquely, directly at the barricade, wall, or patrol car rather than directly at the officer. The suspect’s fire drives the officer behind cover. The officer remains rooted behind the obstacle, just like he’s been trained, waiting for the firing to abate to more safely locate and again engage the suspect. The suspect then either uses the same corner the officer backed away from or comes around a different corner to get a new angle of fire. The officer, who didn’t expect the suspect to suddenly appear, is shocked and is shot down.
Commonly, the surprise is complete and the officer is unable to fire back. This suspect is universally military trained, often with combat experience in infantry tactics. This is a basic fire suppression problem for the suspect through the use of angles and surprise to take possession of that cover and murder the officer.
Surviving this threat
How do you survive this aggressive threat? By using the same principles the suspect is employing against him.
Rather than making this a “technique” needing to be remembered during some distant life-or-death, adrenaline-hazed event, tactical principles can be habituated, or made habits, by routinely applying tactical principles when responding to every call for service. Those tactical principles which may be helpful in this case are:
Angles of fire
Every physical threat to an officer’s life or safety involves a beginning point, a direction of movement, and an end-point. In a shooting, the beginning point is the muzzle, the direction is determined by the bore-axis of the barrel, with the bullet moving in a straight line from the muzzle to the strike point.4
The angle of fire between the suspect and the officer determines where each may operate safely or be shot. If you can see the suspect, then both of you are vulnerable to being shot. Ask yourself, “From where can I be shot?” or, “Can I shoot him from this position?”
Fight to or from corners
In a tactical sense, an officer’s world comprises vertical corners (e.g., the edge of a building, a wall, or an open doorway) or horizontal corners (e.g., a window sill, solid deck railing, or a ditch). It’s binary: there are only cleared corners and uncleared corners (all corners are considered to contain threats until the corner as well as all the angles of fire threatening that corner are cleared). Corners may be cover, capable of protecting the officer from fire or the effects of fire, or concealment, hiding the officer from the suspect’s view yet having no ballistic protection value.5
Problematically, corners are psychologically comforting. We hide behind them because we believe they keep us safe, especially when rounds are impacting on the other side and we’re safely sucked up against it. It’s like being held in mom’s arms again and, while the situation is dangerous, it’s as if our brains are telling us, “I’m safe as long as I stay here.”
This psychological dependence on this belief of universal safety afforded by solid cover in this high-threat situation (being shot at) tends to root officers into place. All humans are reluctant to abandon cover when being shot at because “I’m not shot yet.” Stubbornly remaining attached to the obstacle allows the suspect to flank the cover and gain a new angle, exposing the surprised officer to the suspect’s fire.
- This is reinforced by training. Almost all firearms and scenario training involving the use of a barricade is static. Once the officer is at a corner, that is his or her final fighting position until the exercise is over.
- The mindset of the use of cover cannot be stressed enough: fight from cover, don’t hide behind cover.
- Cover is temporary: if the corner is no longer tenable from, then fight your way away from it.
Cover is useful only from a specific angle of fire. As that direction of threat changes, the value of that cover rapidly decreases. The higher the suspect’s firing angle (e.g., positioned in a fourth story apartment window) the greater the exposure of the officer’s head and upper body. Flanking creates a sharper lateral angle to the cover, making the officer vulnerable because there is nothing between the suspect’s muzzle and the officer’s body.
Failing to recognize the changing value of cover and evolving threat, and not moving in response, is what the suspect is betting his life on as he’s maneuvering to obtain that fatal angle of fire.
Move in angles or circles
Movement is life. Train to move with a firearm in your hand rather than rooting in place and being a good target. Moving makes you harder to hit. Train to move then hit with your weapon. Train until “Move!” is a reflexive response to threat. Moving changes the fight and it disrupts the suspect’s expectations, slowing him down and giving you time.
Rather than moving directly forward or back, angular movement creates a more difficult target. Moving at an oblique angle (e.g., 45 degrees at the suspect) while firing creates more difficulty than hitting lateral movement (e.g., 90 degree angle).
For our purposes, the use of a corner disrupts the suspect’s angles of fire by making the officer a smaller target. Problematically, the corner also prevents observation of the suspect once the suspect moves out of the officer’s field of fire. This occurs because:
- The officer is driven back by fire from the corner, losing sight of the suspect.
- The suspect’s angular movement masks the officer’s view of the suspect.
- The suspect continues to fire, preventing the officer from fighting from the corner.
The same angular, oblique movement the suspect is using can also be employed in defending the corner against a suspect. Upon realizing the suspect is maneuvering against the corner, moving away from the barricade at an angle provides a lack of predictable positioning and the beginning of turning the tables when the suspect enters the officer’s new field of fire.
Target-specific cover fire
Normally, officers fire directly at suspects they reasonably believe represent imminent deadly threats to their safety. There is an exception to this, however. When an officer has probable cause to believe the armed suspect remains an imminent deadly threat and is tactically maneuvering or hiding (i.e., a reasonable belief the gunfight is on pause but not over), then the officer may employ target-specific fire at the suspected location of the suspect to prevent him from firing.6
Surprise
Surprise in a combat situation is jarring when suddenly under unexpected threat. There’s a sudden disbelief of what’s happening combined with a frantic, desperate mental effort to contextualize this change. Humans optimally function when their expectations match their environment and anticipated scenarios. Change disrupts expectations, forcing the attempt to orient to the new reality and put a suddenly different situation into context.
It takes time to determine what just changed. If surprised in a gunfight, the perception of time is often experienced as compressed, without enough time to put the changes into context and respond in time. Time in any fight is a luxury that, if lost, cannot be recovered.7 Causing mental processes to pause and recalibrate the change in circumstances—the time it costs—is why surprise is fundamental to successful tactics.
The Practical Application of the Principles
Orienting to the threat. You’re at a corner, firearm in hand, perhaps pointing it at an armed suspect while ordering him to drop the weapon. Suddenly he simultaneously begins moving obliquely while shooting directly toward the wall (or the other side of the patrol car) rather than at you. He quickly disappears, the edge of your cover masking him—yet he’s still firing at the corner.
You need to make a choice: stay in the gunfight by stepping out into his line of fire to locate and shoot him, or remain behind the false safety of the barricade and see what happens next.
Rapid orientation to change is fundamental to survival. He’s not just statically staying in position and shooting at you. His movement combined with fire is not away from you in an attempt to escape. Instead, he’s moving very aggressively, coming toward your cover at an angle oblique to you. Even though he can’t hit you through the cover, he’s continuing to fire at and past the corner where you were just positioned. This guy is going to take your corner from you and kill you from it if you stay where you are.
Responding to the change in threat: change the fight
Your desired end-state in every gunfight is to obtain an angle of fire and hit the suspect without your being harmed. If you are able to surprise him, you earn a few more tenths of a second before he is able to orient to the change and return fire. In this circumstance, this is achieved by taking the cover back from him and shooting him.
Sometimes cover is not your friend in a gunfight. As long as the obstacle can contain the round without danger of spall8 striking you and the suspect remains in a static position, there’s nothing wrong with remaining behind cover.
This changes when the suspect is maneuvering on you by moving toward your cover and past your line of sight. This is essentially a flanking move to rob you of the corner. The fight has now changed: whoever controls that corner and obtains an angle of fire on the other by surprise will likely survive.
When cover is no longer viable, change the fight: MOVE AWAY FROM COVER! Some solutions officers have discovered in unscripted force-on-force exercises using marking cartridges are:9
- At a barricade with two corners, such as a wide column, if the suspect is firing at the left-side corner, move to the right-side corner, rapidly pie out and fire upon locating him.
- At a wide column, if the suspect is firing and apparently maneuvering to the right-side corner, aggressively blow past the left-side corner into the open, flanking and shooting the suspect.
- At the end of a wall, such as a rock or block wall, as the suspect is firing and moving on the corner, rapidly move away from the corner out of the suspect’s sight to a nearby car, tree, power pole, etc. Quickly set up and ambush the suspect as he turns the corner hunting for you.
- At the end of a wall, as the suspect is firing and moving on the corner, time a pause in the fire at the corner, then move hard at an angle into the open on the same side of the wall as the suspect, turning it into a gunfight where you depend on your mobility and accurate fire to survive.
- At a wall, as the suspect is firing and moving on the corner, back away and begin firing at the corner of the wall, preventing his freely moving past the corner to locate you (if the background permits it, shoot just past the corner so there is no question that moving into that space will be deadly). Do not run out of ammunition and don’t trip moving backward.
- At a vehicle, upon the suspect disappearing to the other side of the vehicle, pop up, locate the suspect, and shoot through the windows.
- At a vehicle, upon the suspect disappearing to the other side of the vehicle, drop down, fire on his feet, then transition to more effective targets after he falls.
Conclusion
Whether the threat is a terrorist with foreign combat experience, a US military-trained-now-criminal suspect, or a suspect who plays a lot of first-person shooter video games and is now going live, you need to change the fight and take the initiative away from him to prevent his murdering you.
Upon recognizing aggressive movement toward your position of cover combined with accurate fire that drives you behind your corner, then continuing to fire even though you’re no longer visible, you may have only seconds to live unless you defend your corner.
Cover is temporary. The cover that was protecting you is no longer your friend…move now!
Change the fight: do something the suspect is not counting on. Quickly moving to another position, whether it has ballistic properties or not, may surprise him. It may include moving hard past the corner at an angle into the open and shooting on the move. It may mean going around a different, unexpected corner to take him by surprise. Or shooting him from under the patrol car or through its windows.
While not an everyday occurrence, this tactical assault by suspects has been tragically successful and used often enough that officers require training to recognize and respond, successfully defending their corner. This training, if principle-based, permits them to work their own individual solutions as they will be compelled to do under fire.
Only after being prepared tactically, through mental and physical rehearsal, and having learned what works and what doesn’t in unscripted force-on-force exercises, can officers recognize the unfolding attack in time to change the fight and prevail in this deadly situation.
Footnotes
(1) Ceres, CA, 2005: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SPl4uIjUP8
(2) Rural Georgia, 1998: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mssNOhv1UMc
(3) Dallas, TX, 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpb-mtjN9q8
(4) For purposes of defending a corner, we disregard trajectory and other factors that may affect a projectile in flight, the
angle of fire is a straight line of sight from the muzzle of a weapon to the strike point of the projectile and may not
necessarily be the terminal resting point of the bullet. It may also involve penetrating fire through a material that cannot
contain the energy of the bullet.
(5) For this article, the terms “corner” and “cover” are used synonymously and for convenience, and may or may not have
any ballistic protective value. The ballistic value of “cover” is contextual and can only be determined by the specific
material and its thickness the officer is employing at that moment, and the weapon, ammunition, and the distance from
which the suspect is firing. The tactical value of “cover” is dependent upon the angle of the suspect’s fire.
(6) This is not military-style “suppression fire.” Rather than firing at a possible suspect position and laying down
overwhelming, non-specific targeted fire, this is target-specific fire based on the officer’s reasonable belief of probable
cause that, 1) the suspect is an imminent deadly threat based on the totality of the facts at the time; 2) the reasonable
belief the suspect’s is a continuing public safety threat (per Tennessee v. Garner (1985) requirements). The officer will
be required to articulate that any officer with similar training and experience, given a similar circumstance, would have
reasonably believed the suspect was continuing the gunfight.
(7) Napoleon Bonaparte
(8) When a projectile strikes the face of material that is sufficiently thick to contain the bullet but insufficient to contain the
energy of the round, the back face of the cover breaks, or spalls. The material that breaks off (spall) flies out at the
same speed as the bullet hitting the face of the cover. This spall can seriously injure or even kill up to four feet behind
cover.
(9) These solutions are not suggested as techniques to “learn.” Each is an application of the principles discussed in this
article and a result of the creativity employed by the individual officer solving this problem.
George T. Williams is happily retired. For 42 years he was a national and international police trainer in police tactics, force skills and tools, force laws, and policy and procedures. He has authored more than 350 published police related articles on all areas of force response, tactics, and policies, as well as two books. He also served as a police expert witness, primarily defending officers, nationally in federal, state, municipal courts as well as arbitrations for 34 years. Happy to be no longer doing real work, it seems he just can’t let go of the writing bug, as he is currently occasionally published by National Rifle Association publications and posts to a Substack.com account, “George Williams Unsupervised.”
