Sometimes officers are ambushed, other times a gunfight may develop during a traffic stop or when they first arrive at a call. However, in many situations, officers may have the opportunity to use a patrol vehicle as cover when taking fire.

But how do you use your patrol vehicle to provide cover while under fire, and do certain areas of the vehicle offer more or less protection? There is no clear-cut answer that could apply to every scenario. As with any form of cover, it depends on the situation and terrain.

Dustin Mowery, a product specialist at Team Wendy, shares his insights on how to best use a patrol vehicle for cover. He is a retired cop who served 27 years in law enforcement in Ohio.

“Let's talk about using the engine block as cover. Most of the time, we see that in situations where officers are arriving,” Mowery says. “The situation is already occurring. It's ongoing, and officers are rolling up, they're turning their car sideways to put it long-ways across the situation.”

“And then they'll get out, get their rifles or shotguns, and then they'll start using that engine block as cover,” he says.

But the engine block is not necessarily used as cover in some of the more frequent situations.

Mowery says the engine block is not used initially when officers are executing a traffic stop and the gunfight begins. The bulk of the engine block on a typical traffic stop is not positioned to help officers when they are standing beside or near the suspect’s vehicle.

However, as the gunfight evolves, the patrol vehicle can come into play.

Most of the time, officers will want to stay on a piece of cover and not move. Locking into cover like that is not necessarily a good thing, Mowery points out.

Maintain Distance Off Cover

While the engine block can absorb a lot of rounds, there is another consideration about hunkering down behind it. It allows the bad guy to adjust his fire.

“If they see that rounds are going low, or they're missing and not getting the effect, just like we would do, they are going to move the muzzle of their weapon up, and they're going to start putting rounds up into the hood of the car,” Mowery explains. “Those could skip, still hit you in the face, arms, or whatnot.”

The best approach, Mowery suggests, is to keep your distance from the vehicle you are using for cover.

“What we suggest, and when I'm teaching vehicle classes, is get off the vehicle,” Mowery says. “Get weapons distance away or one step away and weapons distance. If I can get away from the car and get off that vehicle, I can maneuver around it. If the rounds do skip, I'm not going to catch those rounds in the face.”

Again, don’t get cemented to that vehicle. Mobility is going to be one of your biggest allies when using your car or SUV for cover.

“In reality, what you want to do is maintain mobility because of the suspect. If he loses sight of you, what is he going to do? He's going to start moving on you,” Mowery teaches. “So, getting lower to the ground and then cementing yourself there is not going to help you.”

A Shooting Problem

Mowery says that law enforcement circles frequently discuss tactics in such scenarios. While he does not discount the importance of tactics and even acknowledges that over the past 40 years officers have done a good job of examining and improving them, there is another issue.

“In reality, it's a shooting problem and we have to teach officers how to be more dynamic or aggressive with their shooting when the shooting starts,” Mowery says.

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“How do we know that officers are not doing well in shooting? It's super, super simple. We can look at two different things. We can look at the bodycam video, and you can see how officers are moving and getting around their vehicle when the incident happens. But also, we can look at the FBI stats,” he explains.

While those FBI stats can vary by location, Mowery says cops usually only have a 10% to 12% hit percentage when they discharge their firearms. Even if rounding up to 20%, that means for every 10 rounds fired, eight don’t connect.

Those rounds that do land on target, according to Mowery, usually hit the bad guy in the legs or stomach.

“That is not putting the suspect down and stopping the aggression, which is ultimately what we want to do,” Mowery said.

He says it is time for agencies to examine how they train their officers. Those departments that put officers in a practical training program or a performance-based way of training have better results in gunfights.

Creating Distance from Threat

Returning to a common shooting scenario, when a traffic stop goes bad, the officer's movement is dependent on their location when it begins. There are typically three places where the gunfight starts.

“You're either at the vehicle, you're halfway there between bumper and bumper, I call it no man's land, or I'm just exiting the vehicle,” he explains.

In the first scenario, where the officer is beside the suspect’s vehicle when the gunfight begins, the officer should immediately move to the rear of that suspect’s vehicle.

“I don't want to stay in what I call the cone of fire, especially on a driver's side approach. I want to move out of that cone of fire, which is anywhere from the muzzle and out to about a 45-degree angle each direction, left or right,” says Mowery.

He points out that often officers will remain in the cone of fire and start shooting back. But priority should be to create distance and get out of that cone.

“If I move to the back of their vehicle and I start to maneuver around, you're going to increase the probability that you're going to survive the gunfight,” Mowery says. “I'm not saying you're not going to get impacted. What I'm saying is that you're going to survive the gunfight by moving to the rear of the vehicle, and then you're going to start getting your gun out of the holster and start shooting.”

As Mowery points out, body-worn video often shows officers shooting at what he calls a “frantic” pace. Is that a tactics problem, or is it because they are not confident with their weapon?

He suggests the latter.

“It goes back to making them confident with the gun that they have when they're on duty every single day. Just like driving a car, the first time you got in a car, it probably did not look good,” he says.

Perhaps it is like a young cop running lights and sirens in response to a call for the first time, alone and without a field training officer, or maybe it's their first pursuit. Shooting should become just as proficient and instinctive as a veteran cop doing all those examples Mowery points out after they have gained experience.

“Again, I'm not saying that tactics are not important. They are very important. But what we're really talking about is a shooting issue, not a tactics issue,” Mowery stresses. “Again, mobility is going to help you in this situation, but the most important thing is going to be the shooting piece.”

Mobility allows an officer to maneuver to the rear of the car, then possibly the patrol car, or another vehicle, and buys time to get on the radio and start calling for backup.

Don’t Run to Patrol Vehicle

Why retreat to the rear of the suspect's car and not to your patrol vehicle?

According to Mowery, on traffic stops, cops typically park somewhere between 15 and 17 yards behind a vehicle. So, when near the door of the suspect’s vehicle, that officer is still quite a distance away from his own vehicle

“When the suspect's getting out of the vehicle, if you're running to the back of the car. You're giving them all the time in the world to steady their hand, bring the gun up, and start shooting at you,” explains Mowery.

“What you've just done is you've taken all this time that you had to maneuver, and because you're taking the time to run to the back of your vehicle, you're pushing that time over to the bad guy,” he adds. “You're running away. He's now the predator.”

When the gunfight starts, Mowery says you have to be aggressive both in your movement and in your shooting. Typical range shooting, with a line of officers firing at static targets, does not teach officers to shoot aggressively, according to Mowery.

Arriving at a Known Threat

Mowery says that when officers arrive at the scene of a known threat, they commonly turn their car broadside to the situation and use the whole vehicle, from the side, as a piece of cover.

But he points out several concerns. Again, it's a good idea to understand that rounds go through glass and pillars, both of which are not a long-term ballistic solution as cover.

“I know there are people out there that say, well, rounds don't go through an A pillar, B pillar, C pillar,” Mowery says. “Yes, they do.”

“What you're doing is you're using a piece of cover for an undetermined amount of time,” he explains. “As rounds start to deflect, deform, and cause shrapnel, your cover may no longer be where you want to stay.”

That is why he stresses mobility and not sticking to any piece of cover indefinitely.

Only Transitional Cover

Most of the time, gunfights are a highly mobile situation for both the officer and the bad guy. While the engine block can provide cover, Mowery suggests officers put as much of the vehicle in front of them as possible.

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Moving to the rear of the patrol vehicle can put the entirety of the vehicle and all of its contents in front of the officer. But, when moving, the A, B, and C pillars can offer some cover.

However, Mowery sees the pillars as only transitional cover.

“So, I'm moving from one piece of hard cover, let's say the engine block, and I'm trying to maneuver to the rear of the vehicle, because there's more mass,” he says. “I'm moving because I need to get a better angle on the suspect, or the suspect is moving on me. But as I'm moving to those other pieces of cover, or even another vehicle, I see an opening on the suspect, and I'm at that B pillar or C pillar. I can take a few shots and get some rounds on the suspect, then continue to move and get to a better position. So that's why I call them transitional cover. They're not hard cover.”

A Gunfight is a Fight

A gunfight is just that —a fight —and the combatants often move to gain an advantage, much like MMA fighters scrambling around the ring.

Inside the ring, the jockeying for position is to take someone down or land a blow. In a gunfight it is about getting yourself into a position with your weapon to stop the threat.

“When the situation needs to be solved with a gun, it's about the gun. It's about the gunfight and shooting better. Yes, you can use the cover. And I'm not saying don't use a cover. I'm 100% advocating using that cover, but don't overthink it. Think about learning to shoot better and putting rounds on target to put the suspect down and stop that aggression,” Mowery says.

EVs: No Engine Block

How will using a vehicle for cover change if an officer is using an electric vehicle? There is no engine block to catch rounds. For now, it is rare to see EVs assigned to patrol duties, and most are relegated to administrative or public relations roles.

But what if gunfire erupts and an officer with an EV starts looking for cover?

“I don't think we really have to change the tactic. We can still use the same principles of using the vehicle for cover, putting as much of the vehicle between us and the suspect as possible, but it's definitely going to change the dynamic,” says Mowery.

He also points out that regardless of whether there is an engine block or not, other items can stop or deflect rounds. There are a lot of other things in that patrol car that are going to help you deflect, slow down, or deform bullets for an undetermined amount of time.

“I've seen some incidents where the back of a vehicle has taken a lot of rounds, 50 or 60 rounds from a suspect, and it has stopped those rounds. But it's because of all the other stuff in the back of the vehicle,” he explained.

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