Introduction
By the very nature of police work, sometimes critical incidents occur in extremely short periods of times. Police officers can be confronted with potentially life- threatening dangers seemingly without warning and these threats can fully evolve within fractions of a second. These dangers can challenge police officers during all types of the work that they perform, and the research clearly shows that there is no duty that police officers engage in that is completely safe from the potential for a lethal confrontation.
Several attacks on police officers, particularly those that would be categorized as ‘ambush’ attacks; those that occur extremely rapidly, without prior warning and minimal time to respond, are occurring with increasing frequency. The Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) report for 2019 found that of the 48 officers feloniously killed, only 10 were able to draw their firearm and return fire, 6 officers attempted to draw their gun but were unsuccessful and 32 (that is 67%) were unable to even attempt to draw their weapon. In several cases, officers were ambushed while still seated inside their vehicle, most typically while conducting traffic stops. A startling example of this type of attack took place in Surrey, B.C. in September of this year when an officer was attempting a traffic stop and the offending driver suddenly pointed a gun out the driver’s window and began firing at the lone RCMP officer.
Research studies (Lewinski, Dysterheft, Seefeldt & Pettitt; 2013) that have been conducted on various biomechanics of assaults inform us that the average offender can point a handgun and fire the first round in an average of 0.53 seconds (fastest in the study was 0.23 seconds) while seated in the driver’s seat. An offender that suddenly exits the suspect vehicle after it is stopped is able to produce a handgun, point and fire it at the officer, in approximately 0.25 seconds.
Therefore, given these dramatically fast assault times, it is easy to see how an officer may be caught by surprise during an ambush attack while still seated in the police vehicle and suddenly find themselves in a lethal force situation. This high-risk situation may evolve because of an offender who is either on foot outside of the police vehicle or from an offender who is occupying another vehicle in close proximity to the officer. Due to the speed with which such attacks can evolve, officers may find themselves seriously behind the action / reaction curve and are thus scrambling to respond as quickly as possible to manage the threat that has confronted them. In these situations, it may require officers to draw their firearm as quickly as possible and shoot from inside the police vehicle. When these shootings occur, officers will be typically forced to fire their initial shots through either the side windows or the windshield of the police vehicle.
Another poignant example of how rapidly a life-threatening incident can evolve and force an officer’s need to respond by shooting through the windshield, was captured by the in-car dash camera of a police officer with the Solon (Ohio) police department on March 17, 2013. This incident began simply enough as a seemingly innocuous traffic stop. The offender subsequently pulled away from the police and a pursuit was initiated. At the conclusion of the pursuit, the primary police vehicle pulled up, in close proximity to the offender’s vehicle, at which point the offender rapidly exited his vehicle and began shooting at the officer. The officer drew his weapon while seated behind the steering wheel of his patrol vehicle and returned fire through his windshield. The officer’s rounds successfully struck the offender and ended the threat.
As a result of this potential threat, some police agencies have undertaken to address this risk by introducing firearms training that teaches their officers the important skill of being able to draw their sidearms while still seated in the police vehicle, and quickly returning fire through the windshield. Indeed, police firearms training has included the tactic of shooting through vehicle windshields (from both outside, shooting into the vehicle; and from inside shooting out of the vehicle) for many years. As a full-time training officer with a large municipal police service, the author was teaching officers to shoot through windshields in live-fire range exercises dating back to 1999. This training involved instructing officers to shoot both into vehicles through the windshield from outside a vehicle as well as shooting from a seating position inside the police vehicle firing out through the windshield. When firing from the inside vehicle position, targets would be placed at various distances from the vehicle so that officers could gain insight into the ballistic effects of shooting through windshield glass and the distances at which effective accuracy could be maintained. This training was an official component of the advanced pistol patrol tactics, (codified in the course training standard), and was taught during the entire time the author was assigned to the training section.
This is certainly a necessary skill to have should the need arise to for an officer to save their life by shooting through the windshield. However, there remains many contrary opinions and even controversy within law enforcement, as to whether or not this can be done accurately due to concerns over changes to bullet trajectory as it passes through the windshield (either being fired from the inside or fired from the outside into the vehicle). The purpose of this brief article is to examine what the ballistic research indicates with respect to the effectiveness and limitations of shooting through windshield glass.
Ballistic Implications of Shooting through Windshield Glass
Vehicle windshield glass is a laminated system. It is comprised of a thin polyvinyl plastic layer that is sandwiched between two panels of glass. Some windshields may also have numerous layers of alternating plastic and glass panels.
As a result of the windshield construction, the laminated glass can have significant effects on the ballistic behaviour of bullets passing through the glass. Two of the most common, and relevant, ballistic effects that officers need to be aware of are;
- The tendency for the bullet jacket to separate from the lead bullet core. This occurs when the bullet passes through the windshield and the outer (usually copper) covering or ‘jacket’ of the bullet is torn off of the main lead core to which it is bonded. The separation of the jacket results in ‘fragmentation’ which causes pieces of the bullet jacket to fracture into smaller pieces and travel in trajectories different than the main lead core projectile. Jacket separation is most common in hollow-point bullets which are typically issued to law enforcement officers. After the bullet passes through the windshield, the trajectories of fragmented jacket pieces may be substantially dissimilar to the original line of flight of the main bullet and may or may not strike the intended target, and may be capable of causing serious injury or death. This is a potential risk that officers need to be aware of and factor into their risk assessment.
Image 1 demonstrates an example of bullet fragmentation. The flight path of the main bullet core is depicted by the trajectory rod, before and after passing through the windshield. Below the point of impact on the witness panel, a second impact point can be observed. This second impact point is the result of a piece of bullet jacket that has been torn off the main bullet as a result of passing through the windshield.
Image 1. Bullet path and jacket fragmentation example. The point of impact of the separated jacket can be observed in the witness panel below and to the left of the main bullet core impact (in the circle).
Source: C. Butler image.
- The second ballistic effect is a change in bullet trajectory that will occur as a result of the relationship between the bullet flight path and the angle of the windshield glass. Automobile windshields are installed at an angle commonly called the ‘rake’ angle, or sometimes the ‘incident’ angle. Handgun bullets passing through windshield glass may experience a deflection from the original flight path ranging from 1 to 5 degrees. What this translates to, by way of example, is if the intended target is 5 meters distant from the windshield, the bullet trajectory change may vary from approximately 8 cm (1 degree deflection angle) to 43 cm (5-degree deflection angle) at the point of impact. Handgun bullets that pass into a windshield from the outside will typically experience a downward deflection angle. Bullets fired from inside the vehicle through the windshield will typically experience an upward deflection angle. The amount of vertical deflection the bullet will experience is dependent upon the angle of the windshield, the precise construction qualities of the windshield glass, the type of bullet being fired, and the relationship between the impact angle (both laterally and vertically) of bullet flight path and the angle of the windshield.
The writer conducted an analysis of bullet flight characteristics, including through windshield glass, during a five-day ballistic research session on a firing range in Everett Washington. During this course, I analyzed and recorded deflection angles of a variety of bullets (varying calibre and bullet weight) fired through windshield glass (from outside and inside the vehicle). Handgun rounds fired through the windshield (from outside to inside) deflected downward at an average angle of 3 degrees. Image 2 depicts the testing setup that the writer used to measure bullet deflection angles through windshield glass.
Image 2. Bullet deflection test setup used by the writer.
Source: C. Butler image.
The lead forensic ballistic instructor Gary Graff provided the writer his spreadsheet in which he has documented windshield deflection angles for handgun rounds for twenty-two shooting incident reconstruction courses conducted across North America. In analyzing the spreadsheet, the average deflection angle of handgun bullets fired through windshields is 2.3 degrees downward (fired from outside to inside; range 0 to 6 degrees).
At a firing distance of 5 meters, from windshield to intended target, with an average deflection angle of 2.3 degrees, a semi-automatic handgun bullet may be expected to deflect approximately 20 cm. (upward if fired from inside the vehicle).
Tactical Implications of Shooting through Windshields
As previously mentioned, police officers are trained that under certain circumstances it may be necessary to fire their weapon through the windshield of the police vehicle while they are sitting inside. Time and urgency of response may simply not afford the officer any other option.
An officer firing their handgun from inside the vehicle can expect the windshield to cause some degree of upward deflection to each bullet that has to pass through an undamaged portion of the windshield. Depending upon the distance the windshield is from the intended target, the amount of deflection from the original bullet flight path will vary. If an intended target is immediately in front of the police officer’s vehicle (for example near the bumper), the amount of deflection distance will be minimal, and officers can be taught to simply aim at the center of torso mass and fire. If the intended target if further away from the police vehicle windshield, for example, 5 meters away, then the total amount of deflection becomes a significant tactical firing consideration. In cases such as these, officers should be taught to hold their point of aim near the waist level of the intended target in order to account for the potential bullet rise that may occur.
In the final consideration, shooting through the police vehicle windshield is an important and necessary survival skill. Officers must always be mindful of the critical need to ensure they have ‘target isolation’ and are confident that they can hit what they are intending to shoot.
Chris Butler Bio: The author has specific expertise in the firearms and tactical training of police officers. I am certified as a firearms instructor and have conducted basic and advanced firearms training to police officers during the course of my career. This training includes tactics that are typically referred to as ‘close quarter battle’ with firearms, a component of which includes shooting into vehicles and shooting from the inside of vehicles. Conservatively, I have delivered approximately 5000 hours of police training relating to firearms, combatives and officer safety tactics.
In addition, the author has been certified as a shooting scene incident reconstructionist and has conducted live fire ballistic examinations and reconstructions of shooting scenes including the firing of bullets through windshield glass in a variety of configurations.
Chris can be reached at chris@raptorpublicsafety.com