The phrase, “shots fired”, lacks so much information. Yet every so often I hear those two words blurted out on the radio by an excited officer without any other explanation. Then every officer who heard it gets worked up and most start running code to the location of the officer who said it.
Ideally, in these situations no one else gets on the radio so the officer in trouble has free airtime to give everyone more information. But if that officer doesn’t provide that information, eventually someone has to ask him, “What is going on?”
And then we find out what he really should have said. It is always one of these four things:
- Someone is shooting at me.
- I am shooting at someone.
- I heard shots in my general vicinity.
- I saw someone shoot a gun in the air.
If it is the first two and the guy is new, I can live with it. But more often it is one of the last two and I get mad because everyone is driving like a maniac to get to something that doesn’t merit that response. (Yes, I know you should drive to arrive but I also know many officers overestimate how fast they can really go. See this video for proof.)
Solutions
The solution is to be a little more descriptive with your initial transmission and say one of the four phrases above.
Ideally officers should anticipate this problem and practice on it ahead of time. If you have been guilty of it, just practice and you won’t do it again.
Think of each of these scenarios in your head and practice how you would respond. By practice I mean actually go through the motions and say out loud what you would say on the radio. Besides just notifying officers of what is happening, tell them what they need to do to assist. Have another officer there to give you a few critiques. Then do it again to improve.
Do it again the next day, again focusing on improvement. If you ride with a partner, agree to spring the scenario on each other at an unexpected moment in the next week to practice.
If you are performing pretty smoothly during these practice reps, then do them again about three months later. If you are still smooth you should be prepared.
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