NYPD modern procedue help

[snowynight]

Hi! I'm writing a story that involves New York police officers in current time and I would like help to check the fact. 
1. Situation: Two patrol officers answers a call of noise complaint and discovers that murder has taken place inside, with the murder suspect holding a possible murder weapon.  It's possible that there's another living victim in a place they can't see.
I google homicide+regulation and find principles regarding the situation, but I'm not sure I apply the rule right. My officer persuade the murder suspect to put down the weapon, with one distracting her with conversation and the other checking over whether there're living victims and ask for reinforcement. Then the murder suspect's arrested. But should the officer subdue the suspect first after disarming her? Or is there anything I neglect?

2. Situation: The same two police officers are attacked by several gangsters on patrol duty. One of them shoot in the sky to warn them off. No one's hurt. But the gangsters ignore the warning and start the attack. Should the patrol officers ask for reinforcement immediately (In my mind, they're in too much a hurry to do that but I may be very wrong here.) After they subdue the gangsters, do they report the shooting to the superiors and how? I googled combination of NYPD, gun, shooting, rule, policy and regulation but I can't find the information needed. And I'm not sure of the procedures after the arrest.

I'll be grateful if anyone can provide help in either or both questions.

Comments

[jumpuphigh]

I cannot imagine any officer ever shooting into the sky as a warning. The primary reason not is it is very dangerous (always know what your target is!), but even if it wasn't, the paperwork would be insane.

ETA: Not to mention, that's one less bullet in the gun if it is necessary to use it later.

[amadi]

This is my thoughts exactly. Maybe in a riot of armed attackers, but only as an absolute last resort. What goes up must come down and bullets coming down at that trajectory can and do kill.

[snowynight]

Thank you very much for pointing out my mistake. So can you give me pointer what will they probably do in situation 2?

[amadi]

Outnumbered, I'm fairly sure the protocol is to just try to get out, or get to a secured position until backup can arrive.

[misse]

Not being any flavour of law enforcement officer, this is my understanding...

Situation 1: Disarm the suspect, remove the weapon from the vicinity (even if just kicking it out of the way) and restrain suspect. Then check for other victims.

Situation 2: As the first respondent suggested, firing into the air is too dangerous. In this era of litigation, it should be a given that you don't do this. Also, any and all shootings must be reported, except under controlled conditions (ie, shooting gallery.)

[hradzka]

In situation one, the person holding the weapon is going to be really damn lucky if they don't get shot. If they make a move toward the police, they will be shot, and maybe even if they don't. If the murder weapon is a gun, they almost certainly will be shot if they do not drop the gun *immediately.* As in, given the circumstances, if the person *turns toward* the police while holding the gun, the cops may open fire.

Situation two: nobody does warning shots, ever. If cops are shooting, they are shooting to drop people. Yes, police will ask for reinforcement immediately; they've got radio mikes and will report that officers needs assistance. This is the drop-everything code and cops will swarm to their aid.

[snowynight]

Thank you very much for pointing out my mistake! The murder weapon 's an axe but I suspect it doesn't make any difference.

Will it be different in situation 2 whether the gangsters are armed or not?

[recessional]

Well, if they're NOT armed, they're idiots for attacking armed police officers, unless they have overwhelming numbers (and even then), and successful gang members tend not to be that kind of stupid. If they have overwhelming numbers, it's moot whether or not they're armed. "Armed" here may include knives, bats, a piece of wood they just picked up, etc - anything other than their own bare hands.

If there's more than two of them, then the cops are going to call for backup for sure. And if the gang is out to kill them (and why else would you attack the police? it's not the kind of thing you do for a lark) there are several gang members dead, rather than just "subdued".

And keep in mind, the gang guys are going to assume they're attacking armed officers - officers are always armed. This makes things like shooting in the sky unnecessary as well as super dangerous: you do something like that to inform people you've got a gun and it's got bullets in it. When dealing with on-duty cops, this is pretty much a given.

The thing to remember is that the first focus is going to be getting everything safe, both for other people and for the officers in question. You get the weapon out of the subject's hands and get the subject subdued and in handcuffs right away because otherwise, the scene isn't safe, and it's not brilliant or effective to look for victims when the subject could go nuts and hack them up. You call for backup immediately because you neither want you to get killed, nor do you want to deal with the mess if some bystander gets killed.

Good luck with your story. :)

[snowynight]

Thank you very much!

[rokeon]

Not NYPD, but if my backup and I walk into a scene where one person is standing there holding a weapon and there's a body on the floor, we're both going to be 100% focused on that person until they're controlled. Well, call it 95%, because we're also calling it in and staying aware enough to be sure there's not a second suspect coming up behind us, but the victim(s) will to have to wait until we get the suspect disarmed and in custody. That's if the suspect's lucky, because like the other poster said above, walking in on what looks to be a murder in progress is going to have us very sensitive to anything even resembling a threatening movement.

Think the airplane safety briefing where they tell you to put your own oxygen mask on before helping others; we're not going to be much use to the victim if we get ourselves killed first. Besides, the paramedics are not going to come into the building until we can tell them it's secure.

As everybody else said, you do not do warning shots. Call for assistance (I don't know if NYPD still uses 10 codes, but it may be as simple as saying 10-13 and giving their location) and then use whatever level of force is appropriate to the situation. If they're firing their guns it should be because lethal force is necessary, no other reason. Again, I don't know any specific NYPD rules, but "subduing" a bunch of gang members who try to assault the police is going to require a report even if their guns never clear their holsters- there's the arrest report, the use of force documentation, the booking paperwork...

[snowynight]

Thank you very much!