At the Citizens Police Academy, we went to KCPD's shooting range. On TV, the officers always shoot at an abstract outline of a person. Kansas City police, though, have targets with photographs of "bad guys" on them. (Or actors posing as bad guys. Please don't interpret this as the police wanting to shoot people -- anything but.)
I saw three versions of the paper targets last night, and one is a dead ringer for Dog The Bounty Hunter. (Though to be clear -- it was NOT a picture of Dog.) One of the other target models looked like Dave Chappelle's Tyrone Biggums character, if he worked out.


Dang it.. it is eating comments and throwing them back up again.
Posted by: Searching | Friday, October 30, 2009 at 01:24 PM
I don't actually want to shoot him, but I would like to taze him and shave his head.
Posted by: mutt | Friday, October 30, 2009 at 01:30 PM
I think I would make a midget silhouette. That way you know how your comrades might fair against a rebellion by the little people. Mark my word the day of reckoning is upon us, they will rise up.
Posted by: D-man | Friday, October 30, 2009 at 01:40 PM
Back in in my teen years, my shooting buddies and I would draw an outline of whatever foreign enemy the cold war provided us that month on to a piece of plywood. We named them all Will.
Fire at Will!
Posted by: Sore-nose Pat | Friday, October 30, 2009 at 02:27 PM
Careful. Some people might think shooting at a resembalance of Dave Chappelle to be racial profiling.
Posted by: cripjak | Friday, October 30, 2009 at 02:44 PM
I think the comments mentioning targets naming who they look like is very irresponsible. Those are people with kids, real people and saying the target even looked like them is quite unneeded. How would you like if I said the target I shot at looks like your mom ?
Have some decency man
Posted by: Ellen Davis | Friday, October 30, 2009 at 08:08 PM
What a stupid thing to do. Saying targets that were shot at resemble real people. With all the nutjobs around, do we really need writing like this. Was the killing of John Lennon not enough ?
Posted by: Mark Edwards | Friday, October 30, 2009 at 10:14 PM
The targets should look like real people with real and different hair cuts and clothing. The back should have a body outline so the target practicers could check if their shots only hit the clothing or the body. Shooting at a person's picture rather than a outline should be able to help determine during training if a recruit could fire on a person, if need be, rather than an abstract figure.
Posted by: AH | Friday, October 30, 2009 at 10:50 PM
Oh puh-LEEEZ
The last two comments are weeeeenie comments.
Its police officers taking shooting practice for cripes sake. They're not shooting at real people.
James, will you get to take shooting practice with them?
Posted by: Elrond of Rivendell | Friday, October 30, 2009 at 10:52 PM
Nope, we didn't, Elrond, which was too bad. But there were 50-some people in the class, so it would've been a nightmare to arrange.
Posted by: James Hart | Friday, October 30, 2009 at 11:34 PM