As a police officer I would be the first to say that the vast majority of cops in the US have poor police shooting skill. A casual perusal of Youtube will generate numerous body-cam videos of police shootings, where dozens of rounds are fired, with very little accuracy. In this article we will examine some unique data that shows just how skilled officers are at hitting their targets. You might be surprised to know that there is a group of officers that have very high skills, rarely missing their targets. Keep reading for more.
Readers of this website will know that I prefer to base my opinions off of research and data. This article will be no different. I was originally inspired to write this article by some interesting data gathered, and published, by Bobby Martin, on this Instagram post. I’ll give you some key takeaways from it below.
Police Shooting Skill: Key Points
- Data from 100 LEOs, 60 matches, 4 States
- On average they shot 24 misses, 18 no-shoot targets (hostages)
- Only Master and Grandmaster class USPSA Officers didn’t miss
- 80% of misses and no shoot hits came from the bottom 50% of officers
I found this original data very interesting, but I had a few more questions. If you’ve read any of my other articles on shooting, you’ll know that I’m a United States Practical Pistol Shooting Association (USPSA) competitor myself. I’m currently ranked as a Master, which is roughly the top 5% of USPSA shooters in my division.
I’ve shot tons of matches, with shooters from all backgrounds and skill levels, and I felt that there was a little more to be found by doing my own examination of match performance data for police ffficers. Here’s what I found.
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Police Shooting Skill: Local LEO Match Results
I restricted my analysis to larger local and state level matches in Virginia. Furthermore, I only looked at two divisions: Carry Optics and Limited Optics. These are by far the most popular and competitive divisions. Moreover, they closely mimic police duty pistols.
The original post from Bobby Martin indicated the average finish for LE shooters at those USPSA matches was 57th place. I think that is correct if you don’t sort them by division, which is required to make it fair. Otherwise you would have someone shooting a revolver against someone shooting a compensated, custom pistol.
As the infographic indicates, these officers actually finished fairly well. For the Carry Optics division these officers finished on average 18th out of 52 shooters. For limited, they averaged 12th out of 28. Because this data includes larger level II matches, I wanted to drill down on local matches, which are more likely to have newer, less competitive LE shooters.
Local Match Police Shooting Skill
As we restrict our examination to local matches only, we see that there really isn’t a big difference. Carry Optics continues to be the most popular division for law enforcement personnel. This makes sense as most duty pistols with a dot will fall into this division. It also happens to be the most competitive class in USPSA.
This infographic combines data from Carry Optics and Limited Optics to give us composite performance data. In these local matches, cops are finishing around 28th place, out of 46 competitors. They’re missing between 4-5 targets, and hitting no shoots less than once per match.
Now, let’s ask ourselves, how does this data compare with Bobby’s original post? Below you’ll find some screen grabs with his conclusions.
I like his break down of misses and no shoots by skill level. This really demonstrates the significant differences in shooting skill that occur as you become a good shooter. The novice shooter classes really do account for the most misses. However, I think there are some big ticket items we need to discuss to properly interpret this data.
Discussion
Unless you’ve shot USPSA matches, you won’t know some of the finer points of the rules, which are going to skew this data. The first thing we need to discuss is that misses in USPSA scoring are only captured when you completely fail to hit the target, or you don’t even shoot at the target.
Commonly, this happens when you simply forget to engage a target that is hidden from easy view. This would normally give you two misses. The other way these misses get captured is by failing to hit it within the scoring zones.
What is not captured are make up shots. In the vast majority of USPSA stages there are no penalties for make up shots. Once the shot timer goes off, the best two hits on paper will score. Anecdotally, I find most officers shooting at a match actually don’t miss a whole lot. They tend to over aim, and shoot too slowly.
No Shoot Target Accuracy
I think the no shoot hit rate is actually more telling. As that is always a penalty, and there’s no way to circumvent failing to hit the intended target here. Looking at my data, across 6 large local matches, it seems like less than one no shoot is hit per match. This data includes the best shooters, all the way to the worst LE shooters.
Given the constraints of the match, and the time duress associated, I think this is pretty good performance. It is unrealistic to expect perfect performance when your shooting ability is degraded under game time pressure.
Notice I’m not saying that it’s ok for my fellow officers to avoid accountability for their shots. I’m saying it is ok, when training shooting skills, to miss occasionally. In the next section we’ll discuss how to use competition to improve pistol shooting skill for law enforcement professionals.
How to Improve Police Shooting Skill with Competition
There is no faster way, or more efficient way, to increase shooting skill than competition shooting. I specifically recommend two organizations, USPSA and PCSL. They both attract highly talented competitors and the rule set (hit factor) is the best to increase shooting performance. Most importantly, they do not pretend to be tactical or build tactical skills. This is crucial.
You must understand that matches have nothing, and I do mean nothing, to do with police tactics. You don’t want them to. If you’re shooting a match and they’re telling you to reload behind cover (IDPA) or they give you a scenario to start with then you should run far away. Save that for in-service training.
Competition training is only meant to increase your shooting performance. That is it. It is not tactical training. Nor does it substitute for use of force training, just because there are no shoots. Any mixing of the two will degrade the efficacy of both types of training.
Realistic force-on-force training, or scenario based training, is designed to pose a problem that must be solved using your tactics, techniques, and procedures. Shooting competitions stresses your shooting skill development. Don’t confuse the two.
Competitive Shooting Defines Your 100%
Police officers must engage in both types of training to become truly effective. Shooting competition builds raw shooting talent, and scenario based training builds tactical decision making and team efficiency under realistic high-stress situations.
Competitive shooting will define your current level of skill. In effect, you’re finding your limit in a similar manner to when you learned to run code on the driving track. You find the limits of your skill and your car, so you can safely stay below them on the street.
I certainly rely on these hard skills I’ve built in competition for training and on the street. I’ve built a precise understanding of the time frames, and shot difficulty, I’m able to make in stressful environments.
Having a large reserve of shooting skill also allows that portion of a training scenario to run more or less on auto pilot. I don’t have to think about trigger control, sight alignment, or grip. I just do it automatically during the scenario.
It frees up my conscious mind to pay attention to my team mates, suspects, and the environment I’m moving through. Its a massive benefit to situational awareness.
Final Thoughts
I’m incredibly thankful that Bobby posted this. These are great data sets for law enforcement officers, and they show that even a relatively low level of skill, (B Class) in the competition world, provides a measurable benefit to police officers. High performance shooters should aim for A class or better.
The biggest hurdle cops face at competitions is their ego. Officers who go to matches will rapidly discover that they are getting crushed by civilians, no matter how good of a “tactical shooter” they are. If you can swallow your pride and learn what competition teaches, you can get better.
You should aim to build your handgun skills to B class as an initial goal. This skill development will transfer over to rifle shooting much better than the reverse. Incorporate some dry fire training, and seek the guidance of reputable competition firearms instructors. You’ll be surprised how fast you improve your marksmanship performance. Now get out there and get training! Don’t forget to join the email list below.
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