Cop Killer Bullets: Has it ever happened?

[Dr Rockso]

DeLeon is out there running his yap about how the CRPA's successful challenge to AB962 has opened the door to challenging long-standing prohibitions on "cop killer bullets". There are several more news stories out there (including, apparently, one showing some green-tip 5.56 as an example of what is 'banned'). I've been following gun-related news closely for a while now, and I certainly can't recall a single incident in which any police officer in the US has had his or her vest penetrated by any type of AP handgun ammunition.

What I want to know is can anybody point to a single case in which this has happened in the United States? I'm not talking about vests being penetrated by rifle ammo, we all know that any centerfire rifle caliber will zip right through soft armor regardless of what the bullet is made from; what I want to know is have any police officers ever been shot by the ammunition that has entered the collective lexicon as 'cop killer'.

Specifically what I'm asking about is your 'typical' handgun calibers, those being 9mm, .45ACP, .38 Special, .357 Magnum, .40 S&W, and others, with a hardened projectile made from tungsten or steel. Also of interest would be if any American cops have ever had their vests penetrated by more exotic calibers, like 5.7x28, or even 7.62 Tokarev.

According to an issue of American Rifleman from 1989, no police officer at the time had been shot by this type of ammo, and that was several years after the term had been coined. The thing is, it's not the 1980s anymore, we can much more effectively call the politicians on their BS thanks to the power of the internet. My hypothesis is that the 'cop killer bullet' is nothing more than an urban legend, popularized by movies and TV shows that use it as a plot device but with essentially no basis in reality.

[stormy_clothing]

when you care more about your power base than the future of your country you can only come to one conclusion. Fear sells so get peddling.

firefighter killing rounds are the next ban.

72% of people polled don't want tougher gun laws thats more than enough to make a decision based on democracy easy right ?

[Rob454]

just look at the panic the Saiga 12 possible ban started. prices JUMPED
Cops get killed by regular ammo just as easy as so called cop killer ammo. Most cops probably get shot in areas where the vest does not cover. Ive never heard of a instance where a cop was killed with a handgun round through the vest. i remember the story recently where the 4 cops were killed by that maniac with the AK in Seattle? i remember when the black talon ammo was out and MAN did that ammo have cops in a uproar. I mean news conferences, protests etc. They were pulled off the shelf. I was pretty young when that happen but I remember watching it.

[tonb]

DeLeon is out there running his yap about how the CRPA's successful challenge to AB962 has opened the door to challenging long-standing prohibitions on "cop killer bullets". There are several more news stories out there (including, apparently, one showing some green-tip 5.56 as an example of what is 'banned'). I've been following gun-related news closely for a while now, and I certainly can't recall a single incident in which any police officer in the US has had his or her vest penetrated by any type of AP handgun ammunition.

What I want to know is can anybody point to a single case in which this has happened in the United States? I'm not talking about vests being penetrated by rifle ammo, we all know that any centerfire rifle caliber will zip right through soft armor regardless of what the bullet is made from; what I want to know is have any police officers ever been shot by the ammunition that has entered the collective lexicon as 'cop killer'.

Specifically what I'm asking about is your 'typical' handgun calibers, those being 9mm, .45ACP, .38 Special, .357 Magnum, .40 S&W, and others, with a hardened projectile made from tungsten or steel. Also of interest would be if any American cops have ever had their vests penetrated by more exotic calibers, like 5.7x28, or even 7.62 Tokarev.

According to an issue of American Rifleman from 1989, no police officer at the time had been shot by this type of ammo, and that was several years after the term had been coined. The thing is, it's not the 1980s anymore, we can much more effectively call the politicians on their BS thanks to the power of the internet. My hypothesis is that the 'cop killer bullet' is nothing more than an urban legend, popularized by movies and TV shows that use it as a plot device but with essentially no basis in reality.

I don't know that they track if a bullet is "armor piercing" or not, but the FBI's Uniform Crime reports do track caliber. The only thing I could find that was close was if the bulletproof vest was penetrated (see table 40 2009)

As far as your question about caliber and armor penetration, well that is tracked. Table 39 gives us a breakdown on the 315 officers who were killed while wearing body armor, by caliber that killed them, both rifle and pistol. And there we see that 220 were killed by handgun fire of multiple calibers.

But that doesn't really answer your initial question, which was how many had vest penetration. So we head back over to table 40 where we see that of the officers that died while wearing body armor, 97 were due to a torso hit (the rest are on another table for headshots, etc) of those, only 16 exceeded the vests capabilities. So if you assume all 16 were "armor piercing" then you've got roughly 16% of the calibers used against officers falling into that category.

The problem is that what is not shown, is what calibers made it through the vest. So continuing our journey, we head over to table 41 where the calibers that penetrated the vest in a torso shot that killed an officer over a 10 year period are tracked. And of those 16 we find that... only 1 was a handgun cartridge at 9mm (a fluke?) and the remaining 15 were rifle cartridges:

• 3 x .223
• 2 x .30-06
• 3 x .30-30
• 1 x .300
• 1 x .308
• 1 x 5.56
• 2 x 7mm
• 3 x 7.62x39mm

No shotgun rounds made it through vests.

So there you have it. Only one officer in the entire United States over the last 10 years of FBI crime statistic reporting has ever been killed by a handgun round that penetrated a vest. Was it armor piercing or not? I don't think it matters at this point.

[Dr Rockso]

I don't know that they track if a bullet is "armor piercing" or not, but the FBI's Uniform Crime reports do track caliber. The only thing I could find that was close was if the bulletproof vest was penetrated (see table 40 2009)

As far as your question about caliber and armor penetration, well that is tracked. Table 39 gives us a breakdown on the 315 officers who were killed while wearing body armor, by caliber that killed them, both rifle and pistol. And there we see that 220 were killed by handgun fire of multiple calibers.

But that doesn't really answer your initial question, which was how many had vest penetration. So we head back over to table 40 where we see that of the officers that died while wearing body armor, 97 were due to a torso hit (the rest are on another table for headshots, etc) of those, only 16 exceeded the vests capabilities. So if you assume all 16 were "armor piercing" then you've got roughly 16% of the calibers used against officers falling into that category.

The problem is that what is not shown, is what calibers made it through the vest. So continuing our journey, we head over to table 41 where the calibers that penetrated the vest in a torso shot that killed an officer over a 10 year period are tracked. And of those 16 we find that... only 1 was a handgun cartridge at 9mm (a fluke?) and the remaining 15 were rifle cartridges:

• 3 x .223
• 2 x .30-06
• 3 x .30-30
• 1 x .300
• 1 x .308
• 1 x 5.56
• 2 x 7mm
• 3 x 7.62x39mm

No shotgun rounds made it through vests.

So there you have it. Only one officer in the entire United States over the last 10 years of FBI crime statistic reporting has ever been killed by a handgun round that penetrated a vest. Was it armor piercing or not? I don't think it matters at this point.

Fantastic, I've browsed around UCR data before but didn't see any way to do the analysis you just did. Thanks.

According to the table that case happened in 2005. They seem to bin their results by caliber, not specifically cartridge, so I'm curious if it might have been a .357 Sig through a defective vest. I wonder how difficult it would be to find the specifics of that case.

Spoke too soon, when they say "9 Millimeter" they mean 9mm Luger. I vaguely recall hearing about NYPD having some defective vests made out of a non-Aramid/Kevlar material a while back, wonder if it was something like that.

[tonb]

Fantastic, I've browsed around UCR data before but didn't see any way to do the analysis you just did. Thanks.

According to the table that case happened in 2005. They seem to bin their results by caliber, not specifically cartridge, so I'm curious if it might have been a .357 Sig through a defective vest. I wonder how difficult it would be to find the specifics of that case.

I gotta make some food, but I think it might be easy to do by simply narrowing down officer involved shootings starting from the top table, and focusing on the 2005 year. You'll be able to limit it down to a specific geographic region, and then at that point you can probably just look up articles till you find it and potentially get the police report through the freedom of information act, if you were so inclined.

[Dr Rockso]

Well this is interesting.

Zylon gained wide use in U.S. police officers body armor protection in 1998 with its introduction by Second Chance Body Armor, Inc. But protective vests constructed with Zylon became controversial in late 2003 when Oceanside, CA Police Officer Tony Zeppetella's and Forest Hills, PA Police Officer Ed Limbacher's vests failed, leaving Zeppetella mortally wounded and Limbacher seriously injured. Some studies subsequently reported that the Zylon vests may degrade rapidly, [1] leaving wearers with significantly less protection than expected. Second Chance eventually recalled all of its zylon-containing vests, which led to its subsequent bankruptcy. In early 2005, Armor Holdings, Inc. first [2] recalled its existing Zylon-based products, and decreased the rated lifespan warranty of new vests from 60 months to 30 months. In August 2005, AHI decided to discontinue manufacturing all of its Zylon-containing vests. This was largely based on the actions of the U.S. government's National Institute of Justice, which decertified Zylon for use in its approved models of ballistic vests for law enforcement.

Those penetrations don't show up in the FBI data, perhaps they attempted to control for faulty ballistic vests by removing them from their statistics?


Here are the NIJ standards for vest ratings. I guess 9mm out of a carbine is pretty potent stuff.

It is interesting that the make the following distinctions:

Penetrated through vest (round more powerful than vest's capabilities/specifications)
Penetrated through vest (body armor failure)

As a hypothetical question, where would one bin an incident with a 'cop killer' bullet, such as one designed to penetrate vests? I would think you'd place it in the former category, since the penetrative capabilities of the round exceed the ballistic protection provided by the vest (regardless of caliber, handgun vs. not handgun, etc). Makes me think that the 2005 incident was a defective vest, but why wouldn't the 2003 incident with Ofc. Zeppetella appear in that table if that were the case?

[zoglog]

I don't know that they track if a bullet is "armor piercing" or not, but the FBI's Uniform Crime reports do track caliber. The only thing I could find that was close was if the bulletproof vest was penetrated (see table 40 2009)

As far as your question about caliber and armor penetration, well that is tracked. Table 39 gives us a breakdown on the 315 officers who were killed while wearing body armor, by caliber that killed them, both rifle and pistol. And there we see that 220 were killed by handgun fire of multiple calibers.

But that doesn't really answer your initial question, which was how many had vest penetration. So we head back over to table 40 where we see that of the officers that died while wearing body armor, 97 were due to a torso hit (the rest are on another table for headshots, etc) of those, only 16 exceeded the vests capabilities. So if you assume all 16 were "armor piercing" then you've got roughly 16% of the calibers used against officers falling into that category.

The problem is that what is not shown, is what calibers made it through the vest. So continuing our journey, we head over to table 41 where the calibers that penetrated the vest in a torso shot that killed an officer over a 10 year period are tracked. And of those 16 we find that... only 1 was a handgun cartridge at 9mm (a fluke?) and the remaining 15 were rifle cartridges:

• 3 x .223
• 2 x .30-06
• 3 x .30-30
• 1 x .300
• 1 x .308
• 1 x 5.56
• 2 x 7mm
• 3 x 7.62x39mm

No shotgun rounds made it through vests.

So there you have it. Only one officer in the entire United States over the last 10 years of FBI crime statistic reporting has ever been killed by a handgun round that penetrated a vest. Was it armor piercing or not? I don't think it matters at this point.

wow thanks for sifting through the data, not that we really thought any differently

[jaustin612]

Man, I'll never forget this arguement I had with this idiot in bootcamp.

Somehow we got into an arguement about gunbans. He brought up how hollow tip rounds were "cop killers"

me "wha? you know thats the complete opposite right, how would a round thats made for flesh work on vests?"
him "Shut up austin, my uncle told me that he's a cop"
me "your uncles wrong"
him "yeah ok, hes a cop he knows what hes talking about"

ugh..... I wanted to bang my head on a wall.

[tonb]

Well this is interesting.

Those penetrations don't show up in the FBI data, perhaps they attempted to control for faulty ballistic vests by removing them from their statistics?


Here are the NIJ standards for vest ratings. I guess 9mm out of a carbine is pretty potent stuff.

It is interesting that the make the following distinctions:

As a hypothetical question, where would one bin an incident with a 'cop killer' bullet, such as one designed to penetrate vests? I would think you'd place it in the former category, since the penetrative capabilities of the round exceed the ballistic protection provided by the vest (regardless of caliber, handgun vs. not handgun, etc). Makes me think that the 2005 incident was a defective vest, but why wouldn't the 2003 incident with Ofc. Zeppetella appear in that table if that were the case?

Was the 03' incident a rifle or handgun?

edit: Googled this and apparently he was shot in the neck: http://www.odmp.org/officer/16892-po...lli-zeppetella

[Dr Rockso]

Was the 03' incident a rifle or handgun?

edit: Googled this and apparently he was shot in the neck: http://www.odmp.org/officer/16892-po...lli-zeppetella

I found some vague references stating that he suffered multiple shots (not all to the vest), one that was stopped by the vest near an edge, and another that was a glancing shot at an extreme angle and only partially penetrated the vest before sliding off the edge and into his body. Lots of other references to problems with Zylon vests, however, so I wouldn't discount the possibility that the vest's construction was at least partially to blame. FBI might have discounted it because it was controversial as to whether or not the vest was actually penetrated, per se.

Interesting thread on the topic

http://www.m4carbine.net/showthread.php?t=19912

It is annoying that the FBI data is only for fatalities, they don't seem to make the same delineations for officers wounded by firearms.

[z-bob]

In 2001, Cory Maye killed a cop who wearing a vest during a botched rug raid in Mississippi -- with a .380 (I thought it was a .25, but I had to look up the spelling of his name and wikipedia says it was a .380) He got a lucky shot that went under the vest.

[Ronin2]

i remember when the black talon ammo was out and MAN did that ammo have cops in a uproar. I mean news conferences, protests etc. They were pulled off the shelf. I was pretty young when that happen but I remember watching it.

It wasn't the police officers who were upset the ammo was out. In fact they were upset it was pulled because they liked carrying it. it is available today and has been for years as Winchester "Ranger" ammunition which is black talon without the "sharp star points of the jacket".

The group that did make an issue of the round as I remember were the Emergency room doctors and nurses, who claimed that the bullets created an undue safety hazard to them when removing them from perps...the risk of getting cut (thru surgical gloves) while operating inside a patient's body, many of whom are infected with among other things, HIV and Hepatitis.

I have heard that the 7.62 x 25 tokerev was capable of defeating soft body armor when firing steel-core ammunition in 7.62x25 that si commonly available internationally. In the United States the importation of 7.62x25 cartridges loaded with copper-coated steel bullets is illegal; federal law defines these as armor-piercing pistol ammunition.

[RRangel]

Consider that the term "cop killer bullets" is contrived by gun prohibitionists. Who would even use such a term? This is the giveaway itself. It typifies those who do not care for the rights of citizens. Those who would legislate prior restraint and classify a whole populace as second class. They do not deserve the credibility.

[tonb]

I guess the takeaway here is that in the last 10 years, save for 1, no cop in the entire United States has ever been killed by getting shot through his vest.