Cops Try to Blow Holes in UCI Marksmanship Study : Criminology: Ex-deputy’s research shows the odds of police hitting the bad guy haven’t improved in a century.

They aren’t exactly ready to challenge UC Irvine criminologist Bryan Vila to a duel, but law enforcement officials think his cops-can’t-shoot-straight theory is a little off target.

Vila, a one-time Los Angeles County deputy sheriff, and UCI graduate student Gregory Morrison have completed an intriguing, if curious, study they say indicates police officers today don’t perform any better in gunfights than lawmen did 100 years ago.

Polling major law enforcement agencies across the country, Vila and Morrison found that a shot fired during a gun battle by today’s officer struck its intended target, on average, 15% to 30% of the time--the same degree of accuracy New Orleans police officers reported in the late 1800s.

In other words, Wyatt Earps and Dirty Harries they ain’t.

And while today’s police officers enjoy the benefits of semiautomatic weapons, souped-up bullets and hundreds of hours of training, New Orleans officers of that period toted cock-and-pull six-shooters, and received little or no training.

“It appears as if our guys today don’t shoot any better than their counterparts in the last century,” said Vila.

To which police here and elsewhere responded in utter disbelief.

Bob MacLeod, general manager of the Orange County Deputy Sheriff’s Assn.: “Any study is only as good as the data you start with, and I’m sure in 1880 in New Orleans when they shot somebody, they wrote a report when they damn well wanted to, and if a guy missed, and he didn’t report it, that would affect the percentages.”

Leslie Dees, publisher of “Police Marksman” magazine in Montgomery, Ala.: “How can that be? A hundred years ago, they didn’t do any training. They’d hire somebody, pin a badge on ‘em and say, boom, you’re a deputy.”

Jim Pledger, chief of the FBI’s firearms training center in Quantico, Va.: “I don’t buy it. If I had to face an average gunman from 1894 with his equipment and his training, or a police officer today with his equipment and his training, I’d take the 1890s guy any day.”

Vila confessed that it sounds odd, but he said the study, which included mathematical modeling, indicates that humans can only perform so well in gunfights, regardless of training or weaponry.

He and Morrison, who is also an ex-police officer, theorize that “it just may be humanly impossible to do any better than people did 100 years ago. We may be up against a biological limit,” he said.

Both Vila and Morrison were marksmen when they were in law enforcement, but in light of their study, it is unclear what that means.

While the modern data came from some of the country’s biggest police agencies, such as Los Angeles, Houston and Portland, Ore., Vila acknowledged that the historical data may be a little iffy, if only because it involves only one department.

“That was the only study available back then,” said Vila, an assistant professor of criminology who is presenting the findings to UCI’s School of Social Ecology today and is scheduled to be published in American Journal of Police soon.

“When you look at contemporary departments what you find is performances just like you had in New Orleans 100 years ago, and New Orleans wasn’t a progressive department 100 years ago.”

“Gimme a break,” said Dean Moser with the National Sheriff’s Assn. in Alexandria, Va. “A hundred years ago? That’s a ringer. I’m sorry, I’m from Missouri, and they’d have to prove that one on me.”

After he finished snickering, Don Blankenship, president of the Santa Ana Police Officers Assn., said there may be something to the study, titled “Biological Limits to Police Combat Handgun Shooting Accuracy.”

“It’s true that the reaction of a police officer today is going to be similar to a police officer 100 years ago,” Blankenship said. “And it’s true that cops don’t shoot as well as people think.

“God, I can remember that TV show where Efrem Zimbalist Jr. played an FBI agent and here he was on the bow of a bouncing boat with a two-inch .38 and he wings some guy passing by.

“Maybe he’s right,” Blankenship said. “I’m sort of talking myself into this.”

Vila said his former colleagues should not take umbrage. On the contrary, he said, this was good news for cops, bystanders and even bad guys. If it can be shown that cops can only shoot so well with traditional handguns, regardless of the amount of training and technical wizardry, then maybe it’s time to devise something that guarantees accuracy in the 70% to 80% range, he said. Perhaps some sort of laser gun a la James Bond, or “smart bullets,” which, like smart missiles, would guide themselves--although it’s unclear how either of those scenarios would be better for bad guys.

“Well, I’ve got to be honest, I don’t really care about the bad guys,” Vila said. “I’m not talking about Buck Rogers or anything, but maybe it’s time to explore” new options.

“Actually,” said the FBI’s Pledger, “they have experimented with the concept of smart bullets. The problem is, cruise missiles have miles and miles to adjust to radar, but bullets sometimes have only five or six feet.”

Vila said he and Morrison think further study is in order. In the meantime, he said they fully expected to take a few, er, potshots from their former colleagues.

“That’s what doing research is all about,” Vila said. “You stand up there and let guys toss stones at you, and if they knock you down, you move in another direction.”