In the recent police shooting in Minneapolis

[question everything]

the woman, who called 911, went out in her pajamas and approached the officer on the driver side.

The second officer, on the passenger side, shot at her through the driver's door and killer her.

http://www.startribune.com/australian-woman-justine-damond-fatally-shot-by-minneapolis-police-officer/434782213/

Can a bullet actually pierce a door of a police car? I thought that these days they are built like tanks.

[Warpy]

1. The only protection that rolled sheet steel and/or figerglas offer

is that a shooter in a firefight can't locate the target. Bullets go right through.

[PoorMonger]

2. Depends

Individual departments make choices with funding ; my Nebraska local dept has enough in funds - but they buy new cars every damn year. They had dodge chargers for last year , got something else in the spring. I wouldn't have noticed how often they change things if not for my mom - who works at a sign company that does their car wraps. She's worked at this place four years this month and done three rounds of wraps for their patrol cruisers in that same period.

[PoliticAverse]

3. Doors are just sheet metal attached to structural members that gives the door...

its strength. Light weight = fuel economy.

[ManiacJoe]

15. Just enough metal to hold the paint.

.... For all practical purposes.

[KT2000]

4. she was talking to the driver

so I imagine the window was open. Are we sure it was through the door?

[CozyMystery]

9. The window was open, I guess...

because she was talking to the driver.

"Three sources with knowledge of the incident said Sunday that two officers in one squad car, responding to the 911 call, pulled into the alley. Damond, in her pajamas, went to the driver’s side door and was talking to the driver. The officer in the passenger seat pulled his gun and shot Damond through the driver’s side door, sources said. No weapon was found at the scene."

http://www.startribune.com/australian-woman-justine-damond-fatally-shot-by-minneapolis-police-officer/434782213/

[Lokilooney]

18. It appears the story has changed recently

"Near the end of the alley, a “loud sound” startled Harrity. A moment later, Justine Damond, the woman who had called 911, approached the driver’s side of the squad car. Suddenly a surprise burst of gunfire blasted past Harrity as Noor fired through the squad’s open window, striking Damond in the abdomen."

http://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-police-officer-heard-loud-noise-before-partner-mohamed-noor-shot-justine-damond-minnesota-bca-says/435251273/

[question everything]

10. Yes, this is why she was shot in the abdomen

Had she been shot through the window it would have been her head or her upper body.

Such senseless event. Even if his pistol happened to discharge, it would have been one shot. But 2 or three?

[Binkie The Clown]

5. Moral: Do not, under any circumstances, dial 911.

No matter who you are, and regardless of what they try to tell us, the police are NOT your friends.

Exceptions: to summon an ambulance in a medical emergency, or the fire department in case of fire. But even then, if a police car shows up, stay far away from it. Do not make eye contact. Do not engage the occupants in conversation. Do not provoke them. They are armed and dangerous, and prone to shooting people at random for no apparent reason.

[question everything]

11. Or, I compare it to traffic stop. Stay in place

let the police approach you.

Still unbelievable.

[Lurks Often]

6. In general, a police car door is not bullet proof.

Police cars are modified from a standard civilian model with certain additional options* to optimize them for police work.

Some departments, notably NYPD have chosen options that allow for a Kevlar panel in the doors and upgraded bullet resistant glass.


*A partial list from memory: heavy duty suspension; upgraded electrical system to handle the increased electrical load of a police car; upgraded cooling system, an oil cooler, higher performance tires and push bars/bumpers.

[PoliticAverse]

7. I believe the NYPD is still just doing a trial of those options...

See: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nypd-testing-bulletproof-ballistic-panels-cars-article-1.2503465

And don't forget "cop motor"...

[question everything]

13. In the past years, several police departments got excess cars from the army

at a cost of more that $275K to "withstand riots." They are called "tactical vehicles."

As Radley Balko wrote in his book "The rise of the Warrior Cop" practically every city got a SWAT unit fully militarized.

I suppose this was not a SWAT unit..

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

8. Yes, easily

It is IMHO likely that she shot through the open driver's window.



"...there’s no way Damond would have had a gun. She often talked about how much better it was in Australia, where people aren’t allowed to have guns..." Well, maybe it would be better here if the cops didn't have guns.

[question everything]

12. No, it was through the door. This is how she was shot in the abdomen

Had she been shot through the window it would have been her head or hear upper torso.

[krispos42]

14. Yeah, a door frame is mostly hollow

It's essential a sheetmetal frame with a few reinforcing, structural beams inside. There are some other hard spots besides the beams: the hinge area, the lock area, the power window mechanism. And of course there's sound-deadening insulation, weatherstripping, and some wiring harnesses. If a bullet hits something solid it will either deflect (with deformation) or simply splatter. But if a bullet will penetrate 12-16 inches of meat (which is what tactical, expanding ammuntion is designed to do) then a combined eighth of an inch of soft steel won't stop it.

Understand it will rob the bullet of energy, and will make the bullet expand. Both of these will reduce penetration is whatever is past the door. I'd rather be hit by an already-expanded, reduced-speed bullet than the alternative, given a choice.

Cars today are "built like tanks" with respect to collisions with other large objects; there's a video of a 2009 Chevy Malibu in a collusion test with a '59 Chevy Bel Air that makes the tanklike aspect of the passenger compartment of the modern car abundantly clear.

But being able to stop a bullet, which focuses all of its energy very quickly on a very small area is different from having two big, broad cars collide.

This page might be useful... a guy experiments with the protection a mid-to-late 80's Buick door would give.

He puts some posterboard behind the car door to see what would happen with the bullets after they penetrated. The bullets do penetrate, but they are also seriously deflected, spinning and tumbling and slowing down.

https://www.theboxotruth.com/the-buick-o-truth-3-pistols-and-car-doors/

[jmg257]

16. Shot through the open window, but yes - harder with window down, and depends on the ammo.

[SQUEE]

17. A few patrol cars do have Kevlar epoxied inside the outer sheet metal.

Ford has offered this since '05

http://masscops.com/threads/ford-to-offer-factory-installed-ballistic-door-panels-with-dupont%E2%84%A2-kevlar%C2%AE.7857/

[pablo_marmol]

19. Even .380 FMJ will penetrate a car door.

I was very surprised the first time I saw a ballistics test with .380 ammo. This video uses a car door to test, but I saw another vid where this "impotent" round went through a car windshield both straight-on and from an angle.

[Straw Man]

20. It's the difference between "cover" and "concealment."

"Concealment" hides you. "Cover" stops a bullet. Very little on a non-armored car is actually "cover." The wheels are actually one of the most bullet-resistant parts.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

21. Quite true

OT: I watch action movies and you can tell a feature that's been made by a staff with good technical consultants and one that wasn't. If you see the hero hide behind a car door that's a giveaway. If he hides behind the front wheel with both wheels and an engine block as cover, there's a good technical point for realism.