LAPD accidentally killed a teenager in a Burlington Coat Factory dreessing room on December 23:

North Hollywood Burlington shooting: Teen was killed in a store after police officer's shot penetrates wall of dressing room, officials say - CNN

Updated article:
'''A horrible scene''' inside Burlington dressing room where LAPD fatally shot girl - Los Angeles Times

LAPD presumes that it was one and only shot from one of the cops. I know that LAPD uses 9mm hollow points and FN 590 MRD-LE pistols. I presume that the the dressing room was made of sheetrock. However, it's unclear whether the round hit the suspect, then hit the victim or directly hit the victim, or whether multiple shots hit the victim.

I have a Glock 17 with 9mm hollow point rounds in a detached house with sheetrock, one adult family member, and stucco walls. Neighbors are on two sides with stucco walls.

I didn't think that a 9mm round would over-penetrate in the LAPD's situation. Thoughts?

One of the reasons the US Army wanted to adopt the 9x19 cartridge back in the 1940s soon after the end of WW2 was the superior penetration ability of the nine compared to the .45 ACP. This was based on testing done in 1946. It didn't happen because the Army had lots of .45s and handguns are low on the totem pole of weapons acquisition.

I suspect that what happened in CA was many shots fired by the police, some of which missed. One of those misses penetrated the wall of the changing room and killed the girl.

Jhp would tend to fill with whatever they went thru and not expand, I believe. They don't behave the same as penetrating soft tissue. Very sad. As a father of four, that story makes my heart hurt ...

I’m wondering if the .38 service ammo we carried (FBI +P) would have done the same thing.

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Old Cop
LEO (Ret.)

No caliber or load can be considered safe when it comes to overpenetration. Why? Because if it's too puny to penetrate ANY wall under ALL circumstances, it will not be fit for self-defense use. People often think of "overpenetration" as passing through an individual, then having steam to pass thru a wall as well; but often it's a pure miss. In that case, there can be absolutely no certainty that the round will not penetrate a wall. After all, some "walls" (and likely this one) are nothing but one or two sheets of wallboard -- something a decent BB rifle can penetrate.

So if concern about overpenetration is the prime factor in your self-defense choice, stick to a baseball bat. To me it's akin to folks who worry about protecting their hearing in a self-defense shooting -- I value my hearing, but I will NOT be groping around for my earmuffs in the middle of the night before engaging the invader standing in my bedroom.

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Pisgah

The questions raised here all have to be answered before any conclusions can be drawn: was this a round that penetrated the intended target or a miss? What was the composition of the wall?

An even bigger question is whether the handgun was the appropriate tool for ending the attack the officers were called to stop, given the crowded setting. Prepare for State v. Potter 2.0. Among the questions that have to be answered in that microsecond are not only Can I shoot? But also Must I shoot? And What will happen when I shoot? I know this is the S&W forum, not the Taser forum or Monadnock forum or hand to hand combat forum, but sometimes caliber or ammo choice isn't even in the equation.

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I need ammo, not a ride.

Officers were told that it was a possible shooting . Tasers and PR-24's were probably nowhere on their radar .

First and foremost, as hinted above, any projectile capable of causing death or serious bodily injury is going to pass through drywall/sheet rock interior partitions like it wasn't there. The only thing I've found that stopped within the wall was a .177 pellet at about 300 f/s. There's virtually no projectile that turns into pixie dust if it misses it's primary target. Ranges inside houses are generally close: practice, practice, practice.

In addition to the radio message about "possible shooting", it's noted in the article that the perpetrator appears to have been carrying a bicycle cable/chain lock. This is a "harmless" apparently non threatening item frequently carried and used as a street weapon. Similar devices were used in medieval times, and far more recently. While not named in the "knives, dirks, daggers, etc" chant of deadly weapons in statute law, it is, in fact a deadly weapon-if used as one. Apparently, it was used in an attack on someone in the store.

As for judging the actions of responding officers, none of us were there. De-escalation may not have been on the actors/perpetrators/subjects hard drive.

Any bullet or shot load that will stop a thug will also penetrate wallboard.

The article is from CNN. Didn't read.

Not enough details to know what happened. LAPD primarily uses 9 mm but in a variety of platforms but also other calibers.

A tragic situation all around.

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Alan
SWCA LM 2023, SWHF 220

Knowing the backdrop in your own home is different than a law enforcement shooting in a public place. Everybody's home situation is different but a person usually knows what lies beyond in all directions in their own home.

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Just Say No - To Social Media

Did it appear on Fox?

Whatever became of the Glazer Safety Slug? It was basically a copper jacket filled with small shot encased in some type of gel. It was designed to splatter on impact.

Glaser Safety Slug - Wikipedia

The news reports I find are all from the LA sources. The press/TV there have a history of anti-gun, anti-police bias, so it may take some time for all the actual facts to surface.

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Kind regards, Heinz

Rounds that penetrate to a vital organ stop bad guys. Rounds that don't penetrate, don't.

It was designed to "splatter" on a hard surface and not ricochet. A close friend discovered it penetrated drywall with ease when they didn't verify unloaded status by sight and feel.

I used it quite a bit at one time to eliminate predators in pastures filled with very expensive critters. I wasn't impressed.

A decent air gun will penetrate thru one layer of sheet rock. It is not like they harden, or even insulate, changing rooms.

Constant reevaluation based on observation. Probably not all the facts are known at this time and they certainly haven't been made public.

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I need ammo, not a ride.

It still goes back to the basic rules of gun safety. In this case knowing your target and what is beyond it.

Know your house and know what is behind various interior and exterior walls. Choose your fields of fire appropriate in advance.

Also consider who is where in your house and make sure spouse, kids, etc know where they are supposed to go in a home invasion. As much as possible it should be low to the floor behind cover when possible. And, knowing where they are supposed to be further dictates your positioning and fields of fire.

You then call 911, keep the line open and position yourself according to your pre arranged fields of fire and assess and if needed shoot the threat when it appears in that field of fire.

—-

In short, assessment and pre planning are far more important than caliber selection.

Agreed. This is the piece that is often missing in those high profile shoots that don’t reflect well on a department.

Officers simply cannot roll up on a scene, assuming they know what is going on, and then try to control the scene and or start using force without taking at least a few seconds to assess what is happening - and then constantly re-assess and keep an open mind as they learn more as things evolve.

That guy trying to get a kid in his car may in fact be the custodial parent getting his kid back from the mom who kidnapped the kid. Yet more often than, not he’s likely to be shot or tased if the officers don’t slow things down and assess before taking decisive action.

Thin drywall will only provide concealment, not cover. This would have happened with powder puff .38 Special or even with .32 ACP.

Horrible thing for the victim and officer involved.

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GOA FL Dir. & Nat. Spokesman

The Glaser was intended to break up on hard surfaces, like marble walls in court houses or a little less. Individuals shot with a Glaser were a tough repair job for a skilled surgeon, if they could be fixed.

The occasional snake I've needed to shoot with a plastic .38 shot capsule usually died of the plastic hit to the head, more than the #12 shot. That plastic killed 'em dead right then.

Maybe one of those plastic snake capsules would not penetrate more than 1-2 standard sheets of drywall but haven't tested. The stopping power of one of those snake capsules on a two legged "snake" would be likely near non-existant.

if you were a cop would you want glaser safety slugs in your gun?
I hope enough said....

So sorry to learn about this shooting. 9mm or other popular rounds will retain killing power after penetrating a thin layer of the types of material separating dressing rooms. This is why responsible shooters must practice routinely. Hitting what you are shooting at is more important than any other factor in a gun fight.

Exactly. Armed citizens also need to be very aware of the differences between law enforcement officers and armed citizens.

1) Armed citizens should not be going into situations looking for bad guys. Instead, they need to use good situational awareness to avoid or worst case retreat from situations where they may have to shoot.

2) the average law enforcement officer isn’t a firearms expert and in fact is a pretty poor shot. Most do not shoot recreationally and instead only shoot the minimum required to qualify once or twice per year.

3) the average LEO however also has limited immunity, department liability insurance, department funded attorneys, and a fairly large latitude from the court when it comes to mistake of fact shootings (although that does seem to be getting a bit thin over the last couple years).

In contrast, an armed citizen fully owns 100% of the civil and criminal liability attached to each and every round and every person or thing it hits after leaving the muzzle.

Yet surprisingly I still see and hear from armed citizens who carry hard to master handguns like a lightweight J frame that they shoot very infrequently and very poorly. At best under extreme stress they’ll point it in the general direction of the threat and start jerking the trigger. Lord help anyone in that general direction, and Lord help that armed citizen when the butcher’s bill comes due.

The saving grace here is that vast majority of defensive handgun uses don’t actually proceed far enough for the gun to be fired.

There will be a state law wrongful death claim, and it will be paid. But:

LAPD used to be a leader in training their folks with firearms. Marksmanship under stress was a big deal, and they had a high standard. Such training has been cut a lot according to sources - even for the SWAT folks. Not a good situation.

Penetration is necessary in order to reliably stop bad guys. A pistol is generally not a good choice, but used because it is present. It has been pretty well known in the terminal ballistics community that duty rounds from a pistol will penetrate most residential walls; the FBI folks did some research and found that duty ammo from an AR (5.56X45) is less likely to penetrate such walls.

This is tragic. The facts will take a while to determine, but the odds of this being misconduct are very slight. Contrary to the popular disinformation, hesitancy is far too risky most of the time, and the use of less than lethal options is neither wise nor ethical. American LE kills a very small percentage of the offenders it would be justified in killing, and unlike the fabricated discourse and the insanity from the Balko-Wexler axis of evil, the offender is the one responsible for that use of force. Immediate compliance is a mandate of both constitutional and statutory law. Period. Resistance is both unlawful and an indictor of violence toward cops and others. Overcoming it as rapidly as possible is not optional.

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NHI, 10-8.

Back to the tech issue, it is really hard to make valid predictions on bullet penetration and effect.

Our Silver City office was shot up by a dimwit with a 9mm who emptied a magazine through a heavy glass window, then rode his motorcycle away, giggling (until caught). While the 124 grain FMJ bullets all went through the window, some stopped on office furniture, file cabinets, and one in the VCR we used to review patrol video. Three stopped most of the way through a drywall office wall, and one made it through that office wall, struck the opposite wall, bounced off and fell on the hallway carpet. There was no one in the office, but unless they had just walked into a bullet, no one in normal workstations would have been hit.

Then there was 'Tony,' envirowhacko who humped over 10 miles across desert to shoot 25 or 26 cows he thought were destroying desert riparian areas (not clear how empty arroyos have 'riparian areas'). A Livestock Board officer and a sheriff's deputy tracked him from the dead cows to his house; they questioned him until he refused to talk, then came back with a warrant. They found him dead on the floor - he put a 9mm in his mouth - the 115 grain HP (I think it was Federal) made it through his hard palate, through his brain, but did not fully penetrate his skull (from the inside).

What I'm saying is what might or could happen often won't or doesn't. Accurately predicting what will happen is for people using firearms for research in controlled conditions.

Don't judge any bullet by a shooting or two! You need to look at it over a long term history, in multiple scenarios, environments and weather conditions. There literally is no "magic bullet" and even so called excellent bullets might act weirdly in some environments when shot at certain angles and depending on what they strike.

I am no ballistics statistician but for over 100 years the 9mm has worked pretty well IMHO. Again, there is no absolute magic bullet!

I don’t think you get to say, “ you weren’t there, so you can’t judge “when there is a dead inoccent child on the scene
Obviously , someone screwed up big time !

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the rules? there are no rules

A New Jersey State Rangemaster named John Zamrock once did a study on Sheetrock penetration by commonly used law enforcement ammunition. If I remember correctly he focused on 5.56 ammo. I can’t find a copy at this time. Bullets react unpredictability in sheetrock. High velocity rounds commonly fragment, limiting penetration. Some 5.56 ammo penetrates less than handgun ammo. I remember firing a 9mm silvertip into Sheetrock; it fragmented at 2 sheets but the 147 grain black talon punched thru everything. Moral of the lesson: Sheetrock can’t be depended on to stop anything.

I don't know if anyone besides the dirtbag screwed up badly. I haven't invested any time into learning more about the incident.

I will share my outlier opinion on ammunition for civilian EDC. I don't think civilians need ammo that achieves the barrier penetration desired by the FBI, or penetration in general. I won't be shooting through vehicles, etc. I'm more concerned about over penetration and I'm willing to accept the risk that comes with quick expanding ammo that dumps it's energy early.

On the LAPD incident that left the 14 year old dead....

Current training for two or more officers and a lightly armed (no gun or knife) suspect would be one officer using a less-lethal option (tazer, OC, maybe baton) while the other officer(s) covered with a deadly force option at the ready. In the real world it's hard to coordinate that well at high speed, high stress, and with large agency (or multiple agency) officers who may not know each other well.

I agree with most of your analysis.
However, I would opine that the average citizen who practices infrequently
and carries a high-cap semi-automatic handgun and employs a “spray and pray”
tactic is a whole lot more dangerous than the j-frame guy.

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Georgia On My Mind

I would not base my decision on something like that on a single incident.
Bullets go thru walls.
Any bullet at any time, depending on how the wall is built. Very likely the wall in question was built with a minimum of materials.
It’s a chance some of us may have to take someday.

Ballistic personal defense weapons work by penetration.

If penetration gives you concerns, don't use a gun. Attempts to manage penetration will fail.

"Know your target and what is beyond." - NRA

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I've still got it made.

Hornady Critical Defense ammo wasn't designed to meet the FBI penetration tests, penetrating sheet metal, windshields, drywall, etc. It will penetrate soft targets and not over-penetrate per the designer, Dave Emary. That's what I use for the welcoming committee in my apartment. That could be an option. (Hornady Critical Duty ammo is designed to meet FBI penetration tests.)

Well, forget all of the 9mm drama. Two of the 4 LAPD officers who killed the perp (and accidentally, the girl), had AR-15 rifles. The video starts at 1:11 on this link. LAPD releases bodycam video in fatal shooting at Burlington store

Thanks. I wonder what type of ammo they use in that AR-15 that over-penetrated?

I'm not aware of much 5.56 ammo that does not completely penetrate human beings, particularly when fired from within a few yards.

Remember the reliability problem for the rifle as well. When the NMSP first issued us patrol rifles, Colt HBARs, in the early '90s, the dimwit sycophant who had the Chief's ear convinced him to get Federal 68 grain match hollowpoint. Stupid, stupid, stupid - that ammo was not crimped, and the hollowpoint would very often catch on the sharp locking lug recess points and get shoved back deeply into the case. That caused 1) a malfunction, or 2) a round that continued into the chamber and fired at MUCH higher pressure. We occasionally found ruptured cases and blown primers on the range after qualification. It was so bad the Chief finally allowed the one-third of us or so whose weapons wouldn't fire that ammo reliably to use the training ammo, M193 ball - we had to write a letter endorsed by the rangemaster to get permission to use ball on duty.

We tried 40 grain SP in the late 90s/early 2000s for SRT use in another agency, but the one shooting I saw with that ammo was also a passthrough.

Gamecock speaks a great truth.

That's why Univibe uses 124 grain NATO ball in all his self defense weapons. Because it WILL penetrate.

The total lack of awareness and cluelessness of so many of those "shoppers" who are wandering around and walking right into/up to the assailant is mind boggling.

What a terrible tragedy for the family of the 14 year old and the officers involved.

I believe the round that killed the girl was a miss that did not hit the suspect.

Sheet rock and penetration

Years ago I bought some of those 38 cal. Speer plastic bullets and plastic cases that snapped together and you pressed a primer into the case for power. Those light plastic bullets with flat tips went through a cardboard target and stuck in a 5/8" sheet rock wall much to my surprise. Thinking any kind of real round wouldn't go through a sheet rock wall is folly.

I agree.

It’s just different ends of the continuum. Mr. Airweight J-frame doesn’t shoot enough to ever shoot that gun accurately and sprays 5 rounds down range.

If Mr. High Capacity Semi-auto also doesn’t practice, he’s probably banking on more rounds making up for the lack of marksmanship. But I’m not sure he’ll really get many more rounds off before he’s shot and killed or the assailant leaves. It’s extremely rare for more than 5 shots to be fired even in a multiple officers involved law enforcement shoot.

It's not directly relevant, but do know that 'RCL-09' is very precisely the US-funded Philippine National Police Regional Crime Lab in Zamboanga City.

Please go to 0:38 on the video...

Where in the world did you find that??

It's a scene out of one of my favorite WWII movies "They Were Expendable" When you mentioned Zamboanga I recalled the scene.

One concern, among many, relating to this incident is how it might affect the issuance and use of patrol rifles by LEOs. I can see the fact that it was an "assault rifle" frightening and upsetting some.