IFF (Identification - Friend or Foe)

[yerasimos]

I reckon that the greatest risk of good-on-good gunfire is immediately after weapons are drawn and shots are fired. That risk persists to some degree or another as long as the GG is out in the open with a handgun in hand. I reckon the risk is best mitigated by seeking cover/concealment, escape from the incident scene and/or holstering in the absence of an immediate threat---and one or more of these should be done whether or not one has a sash/cap/badge/vest.

Upon further consideration, that underlined part may not be wholly correct.

So I have to ask the question: Under what post-incident circumstances would one choose to stay in the open holding a weapon, and not seek cover/concealment, or remove himself from the incident scene, or holster his weapon?

Under those circumstances, whatever they would be, I could see how the sash may be helpful, and if I bought a sash I would want to practice/train to deploy the sash (like the vendor suggests) under those simulated circumstances. Otherwise, the sash seems secondary, at best.

Right now I am not sold on it, but I am not going to dismiss the idea completely as I did before.

[Excaliber]

I reckon that the greatest risk of good-on-good gunfire is immediately after weapons are drawn and shots are fired. That risk persists to some degree or another as long as the GG is out in the open with a handgun in hand. I reckon the risk is best mitigated by seeking cover/concealment, escape from the incident scene and/or holstering in the absence of an immediate threat---and one or more of these should be done whether or not one has a sash/cap/badge/vest.

Upon further consideration, that underlined part may not be wholly correct.

So I have to ask the question: Under what post-incident circumstances would one choose to stay in the open holding a weapon, and not seek cover/concealment, or remove himself from the incident scene, or holster his weapon?

Under those circumstances, whatever they would be, I could see how the sash may be helpful, and if I bought a sash I would want to practice/train to deploy the sash (like the vendor suggests) under those simulated circumstances. Otherwise, the sash seems secondary, at best.

Right now I am not sold on it, but I am not going to dismiss the idea completely as I did before.

I can see the wheels turning. The more serious thought you give to the issues involved, the more difficult the solution becomes.

There's nothing that says that the police will always approach you from behind. Depending on the location, that may not be an option. Even if they do, when they can't see your hands they're going to be on high alert until they're sure you're not holding a weapon. The close ready position isn't going to go a long way toward solving any of these problems.

To answer the question you posed, here's a pretty straightforward fer-instance of when you might find yourself unwilling or unable to either holster or to seek cover. (I suspect you've already figured out that leaving the scene would be a good way to ensure you'd be arrested for homicide.):

You were confronted by a two man robbery team on a street with mostly closed businesses, an apartment building across the street, and no parking signs up and down the block with no parked vehicles. One BG was armed with a handgun. You gave him your wallet, but he then said he was going to shoot you. You believed him.

You took advantage of the moment when he looked toward the street when he was was startled by the sound of a car horn. You drew your gun and fired, wounding the guy with the gun in the abdomen. He's now rolling around on the ground, bleeding profusely, coughing up blood and screaming for his momma. The gun is on the ground too. His buddy split for to the apartment building across the street, and in less than 30 seconds you see a clearly angry and rapidly growing crowd of chemically influenced citizens running your way.

The big guy up front is screaming at the top of his lungs that you shot down his brother for nothing. People are now pouring out of a bar at the end of the block and the apartment building. They surround you, shouting things that are not complimentary but they stay just outside touching distance because they see your gun is still in your hand.

You're starting to realize that:

a) You may be attacked and beaten, stabbed, shot, or killed (or all of the above) before police arrive
b) The BG's gun that provided the justification for your action might get picked up by one of the crowd and either used against you or it may just disappear, leaving you with a he-said she-said situation, and your word might not be all that impressive against that of 42 folks who will each swear on a Bible that they saw something much different.
c) You don't think you can pull out your phone and execute the process of making a 911 call without being instantly overwhelmed
d) Responding police probably won't assume that you're a good guy

Are we having fun yet?

Now with considerable relief you hear approaching sirens - until you realize that, since you didn't call and nobody who looks even halfway friendly is anywhere nearby, your viewpoint on the incident is probably not the one the cavalry has been provided with. It's much more likely that their adrenaline is pumping with the expectation of dealing with an armed insane guy who reportedly uttered several slurs and then shot a random innocent man of a race other than yours down in cold blood with no provocation whatsoever.

How would you manage not getting shot long enough to communication of your identity and the lawfulness of your actions to responding officers?

[mctowalot]

When I was a little kid my parents got me a fireman hat with a giant rotating light on the top. Perhaps a modern version could be inflatable - worn under a regular ball cap until you pull the cord.

But seriously folks, this is a real catch 22. If one follows the "keep shooting 'till the threat no longer exists" rule, the CHL holder can re-holster and wait for the police. But if they hold the badguy at gunpoint...

*Edit: was typing as above was posted. The sash/inflatable hat with light is starting to look like a good idea.

[Hoi Polloi]

*Edit: was typing as above was posted. The sash/inflatable hat with light is starting to look like a good idea.

When you're ready to commit, let me know and I'll hook you up!

[yerasimos]

There's nothing that says that the police will always approach you from behind. Depending on the location, that may not be an option. Even if they do, when they can't see your hands they're going to be on high alert until they're sure you're not holding a weapon. The close ready position isn't going to go a long way toward solving any of these problems.

In the event of being approached from behind while scanning and if my body twists more than it should, the closer the gun is to my body, the less likely it is they will see the gun and open fire. I am aware of the risk (small, but real) that the police may fire upon me without warning just because they cannot see my hands, but I figure it would be even riskier to have my hands/gun far in front of me, as it would be more likely for them to notice the gun, believe I am turning on them, and decide to shoot me because they perceived a threat.

If they approach me from behind and ask/command me to show them my hands, I can verbally tell them that I am holding a threat at gunpoint and there is a handgun in my hands, and I can drop it or place it on the ground where they can see it and otherwise follow their instructions.

I suspect you've already figured out that leaving the scene would be a good way to ensure you'd be arrested for homicide.

There is a big difference between calling 911 while hustling to take cover behind a concrete divider in front of a vacant lot across the street or one city block away, telling 911 who you are, that you are armed with a holstered handgun and waiting behind the concrete divider to meet first responders, away from the scene of the incident, the gathering crowd, etc---and jumping in your car and driving to the next county, not calling 911, then turning yourself in the next day. I never advocated the latter or any semblance thereof. And I figure one could be involved in a legitimate use of deadly force, be found standing over a dead, recently stopped VCA, and still get arrested for homicide and spend the night in jail before the facts become known.

[jester]

a) You may be attacked and beaten, stabbed, shot, or killed (or all of the above) before police arrive

OK. And a lime green sash helps... how?

[yerasimos]

You were confronted by a two man robbery team on a street with mostly closed businesses, an apartment building across the street, and no parking signs up and down the block with no parked vehicles. One BG was armed with a handgun. You gave him your wallet, but he then said he was going to shoot you. You believed him.

You took advantage of the moment when he looked toward the street when he was was startled by the sound of a car horn. You drew your gun and fired, wounding the guy with the gun in the abdomen. He's now rolling around on the ground, bleeding profusely, coughing up blood and screaming for his momma. The gun is on the ground too. His buddy split for to the apartment building across the street, and in less than 30 seconds you see a clearly angry and rapidly growing crowd of chemically influenced citizens running your way.

The big guy up front is screaming at the top of his lungs that you shot down his brother for nothing. People are now pouring out of a bar at the end of the block and the apartment building. They surround you, shouting things that are not complimentary but they stay just outside touching distance because they see your gun is still in your hand.

You're starting to realize that:

a) You may be attacked and beaten, stabbed, shot, or killed (or all of the above) before police arrive
b) The BG's gun that provided the justification for your action might get picked up by one of the crowd and either used against you or it may just disappear, leaving you with a he-said she-said situation, and your word might not be all that impressive against that of 42 folks who will each swear on a Bible that they saw something much different.
c) You don't think you can pull out your phone and execute the process of making a 911 call without being instantly overwhelmed
d) Responding police probably won't assume that you're a good guy

Are we having fun yet?

Now with considerable relief you hear approaching sirens - until you realize that, since you didn't call and nobody who looks even halfway friendly is anywhere nearby, your viewpoint on the incident is probably not the one the cavalry has been provided with. It's much more likely that their adrenaline is pumping with the expectation of dealing with an armed insane guy who reportedly uttered several slurs and then shot a random innocent man of a race other than yours down in cold blood with no provocation whatsoever.

How would you manage not getting shot long enough to communication of your identity and the lawfulness of your actions to responding officers?

That is truly a worst-case scenario you wrote above. No fun at all; very devoid of win.

The CCW sash might buy some extra hesitation on the part of the responding police officers---which is pretty much exactly what it is intended for and may accomplish. Nothing more. To answer jester's question, I believe the lime green sash's utility lies solely in this exact period of time in the incident, and is functionally useless before the police or other armed good guys arrive.

CCW sash or not, the best one could do is to drop the handgun as soon as the crowd disperses/parts to allow the police officers to approach, comply with the officers' orders (which should be done anyway), and expect to defend oneself all night long in jail or however long it takes to get the attorney or in front of a judge and bonded out.

CCW sash or not, I hope the police officers would have the restraint to desist from shooting someone with a background of unknown threat. The officers are not in a good spot either; misses could be very costly from an agency liability perspective, and the angry crowd could decide to turn on CCW and police officers alike on a whim.

Alternatively, if one takes the initiative to do some rapid, pre-emptive E&E before the crowd surrounds him, and calls 911 and connects with first responders at a safer position away from the incident scene, one might avoid the dangerous and unpredictable situation you describe, and has a better chance of surviving to the next phase of the fight.

[yerasimos]

CCW sash or not, I hope the police officers would have the restraint to desist from shooting someone with a background of unknown threat.

I did not write this very well. Let me try again.

CCW sash or not, I hope the police officers would have the restraint to desist from shooting an individual with unknowns/non-threats immediately behind the individual. (Background awareness, target discrimination, etc.)

Hope that is more clear for the purpose of discussion.

[Hoi Polloi]

CCW sash or not, I hope the police officers would have the restraint to desist from shooting an individual with unknowns/non-threats immediately behind the individual. (Background awareness, target discrimination, etc.)

And Summerlin Las Vegas PD dashes all your hopes.

[Excaliber]

You were confronted by a two man robbery team on a street with mostly closed businesses, an apartment building across the street, and no parking signs up and down the block with no parked vehicles. One BG was armed with a handgun. You gave him your wallet, but he then said he was going to shoot you. You believed him.

You took advantage of the moment when he looked toward the street when he was was startled by the sound of a car horn. You drew your gun and fired, wounding the guy with the gun in the abdomen. He's now rolling around on the ground, bleeding profusely, coughing up blood and screaming for his momma. The gun is on the ground too. His buddy split for to the apartment building across the street, and in less than 30 seconds you see a clearly angry and rapidly growing crowd of chemically influenced citizens running your way.

The big guy up front is screaming at the top of his lungs that you shot down his brother for nothing. People are now pouring out of a bar at the end of the block and the apartment building. They surround you, shouting things that are not complimentary but they stay just outside touching distance because they see your gun is still in your hand.

You're starting to realize that:

a) You may be attacked and beaten, stabbed, shot, or killed (or all of the above) before police arrive
b) The BG's gun that provided the justification for your action might get picked up by one of the crowd and either used against you or it may just disappear, leaving you with a he-said she-said situation, and your word might not be all that impressive against that of 42 folks who will each swear on a Bible that they saw something much different.
c) You don't think you can pull out your phone and execute the process of making a 911 call without being instantly overwhelmed
d) Responding police probably won't assume that you're a good guy

Are we having fun yet?

Now with considerable relief you hear approaching sirens - until you realize that, since you didn't call and nobody who looks even halfway friendly is anywhere nearby, your viewpoint on the incident is probably not the one the cavalry has been provided with. It's much more likely that their adrenaline is pumping with the expectation of dealing with an armed insane guy who reportedly uttered several slurs and then shot a random innocent man of a race other than yours down in cold blood with no provocation whatsoever.

How would you manage not getting shot long enough to communication of your identity and the lawfulness of your actions to responding officers?

That is truly a worst-case scenario you wrote above. No fun at all; very devoid of win.

The CCW sash might buy some extra hesitation on the part of the responding police officers---which is pretty much exactly what it is intended for and may accomplish. Nothing more. To answer jester's question, I believe the lime green sash's utility lies solely in this exact period of time in the incident, and is functionally useless before the police or other armed good guys arrive.

CCW sash or not, the best one could do is to drop the handgun as soon as the crowd disperses/parts to allow the police officers to approach, comply with the officers' orders (which should be done anyway), and expect to defend oneself all night long in jail or however long it takes to get the attorney or in front of a judge and bonded out.

CCW sash or not, I hope the police officers would have the restraint to desist from shooting someone with a background of unknown threat. The officers are not in a good spot either; misses could be very costly from an agency liability perspective, and the angry crowd could decide to turn on CCW and police officers alike on a whim.

Alternatively, if one takes the initiative to do some rapid, pre-emptive E&E before the crowd surrounds him, and calls 911 and connects with first responders at a safer position away from the incident scene, one might avoid the dangerous and unpredictable situation you describe, and has a better chance of surviving to the next phase of the fight.

A visual identifier may cause either a police officer (or another armed civilian) to give you an opportunity to identify and explain rather than presuming you're a threat to them. It's a limited but vital role that could save your life. As I've said before, the sash is just one approach that I think has some merit for some folks in some situations. The more important point is that everyone's incident management plan should have some viable way of dealing with this issue.

A tactical withdrawal to a safer location while communicating with law enforcement dispatch as you suggested is something to consider. One of the better solutions to the situation I posed would have been to pick up the BG's dropped weapon to prevent misuse and preserve it as evidence, and withdraw to a better position as close to the scene as possible but out of immediate danger before you could be surrounded by the approaching crowd. Once outside the immediate threat zone you'd be in a position to safely contacting 911 and establish yourself as the complainant victim and good guy before officers arrived on the scene - a much more advantageous situation.

Keep in mind that violent situations are ugly events that take place under poor observation conditions (low light, crummy weather, unidentified actors, lots of movement, etc) and in very short time frames. LEO's get them more or less right about 95 percent of the time, but even they sometimes make mistakes based on the initial interpretation they place on what they're seeing. There may well be multiple ways of looking at a given event sequence, but it's hard to consider them all in the .25 second time frame they've got to make a call on whether to use deadly force to stop what appears to be a deadly threat. The incident that occurred recently at a COSTCO in Nevada may well turn out to be a case in point. In these situations, "Oops" is not what you want to hear if you're the guy they're dealing with.

Recognizing this reality and planning for it in case one finds himself involved in an incident is a major step forward for anyone who carries a weapon of any type for self defense.

[drjoker]

I know some of y'all are saying, "shoot the threat until it is no longer a threat," BUT if at all possible, I'd prefer NOT to shoot someone, especially if the perp is just an armed drunk who'll be a different guy when he sobers up. Or an armed teen who may one day grow up to be an upstanding adult (but is going through a "phase"). Or, you get the idea.

I rarely ever carry, but when I do, I have a pair of plastic handcuffs for keeping a perp subdued while I reholster and wait for the police. That way the cops won't see me armed and possibly "dangerous". However, cuffs are dangerous and difficult to put on a perp. A taser or stun gun may be better, but since they're "less than lethal" but NOT non-lethal, then it kinda defeats the purpose of not shooting the perp and holding him for police.

Anyways, plastic cuffs are not that good and the sash will only make you look silly without really identifying you as the "good guy". I mean, will the cops really stop and read "CHL" on your sash before shooting you in a high stress adrenalin soaked situation? The cops will probably see a gun and shoot you as a knee-jerk response. Witness the guy who was shot by LE in Las Vegas.

Which leads us back to the original question at hand, "What's the best way to identify you as friend and not foe to the police?"

Anybody got an answer?

Thanks.

[Aggiedad]

I haven't seen this stated yet... If you have time to "deploy" a sash, wouldn't that time be better spent calling 911? Instead of holding a BG at gunpoint, putting on your sash, and waiting for the police to show, why not use that time to tell a 911 operator that you've been robbed/assaulted/whatever and that you are holding the BG at gunpoint, and PROVIDE THEM WITH A DESCRIPTION OF WHAT YOU ARE WEARING so the responding officers know what/who you are before they arrive?

[baldeagle]

I haven't seen this stated yet... If you have time to "deploy" a sash, wouldn't that time be better spent calling 911? Instead of holding a BG at gunpoint, putting on your sash, and waiting for the police to show, why not use that time to tell a 911 operator that you've been robbed/assaulted/whatever and that you are holding the BG at gunpoint, and PROVIDE THEM WITH A DESCRIPTION OF WHAT YOU ARE WEARING so the responding officers know what/who you are before they arrive?

Go to the website and watch the demos. It takes about one second to deploy the sash. That's a non-issue.

[mctowalot]

I'm the one with the green sash and a gun.

[Excaliber]

I haven't seen this stated yet... If you have time to "deploy" a sash, wouldn't that time be better spent calling 911? Instead of holding a BG at gunpoint, putting on your sash, and waiting for the police to show, why not use that time to tell a 911 operator that you've been robbed/assaulted/whatever and that you are holding the BG at gunpoint, and PROVIDE THEM WITH A DESCRIPTION OF WHAT YOU ARE WEARING so the responding officers know what/who you are before they arrive?

These tasks should not be viewed as either/or alternatives. Both need to be taken care of, but planning is in order for the when and how.

I would suggest that giving consideration to addressing IFF should be the first priority in view of the fact that off duty officers, armed security officers, or CHL's may already be positioning themselves to take action.

The sash takes a couple of seconds to deploy.

How long will it take you to dial your phone, wait for an answer, give your situation, location, and description, and answer all the dispatcher's questions?

How will that work to identify you to a nearby off duty LEO (who isn't carrying a police radio), a security guard, or a CHL closing in on your location from behind?

How long do you think it might take for the dispatcher to relay all that to the responding units?

Would you like to take bets that every officer responding will have been in a position to hear and note all the details above the sounds of his siren while managing a code 3 response?

Theory is interesting - reality is harsh.

I'd suggest trying the various alternatives in a simulation with a couple of friends. It's a worthwhile learning experience.