This motion is a recreation of a shooting scenario with a suspect running away from an officer with the weapon in their strong arm pointing the weapon backwards on their strong side, toward the officer, firing at the officer and then coming back into a full forward running position. The subject in the study was instructed to run away from the “fictional officer,” point the gun back, pull the trigger and then bring the weapon back into a bent arm running position, and to do this as quickly as possible. Because suspects in the street could shoot one or more rounds at an officer before returning to a full forward running motion, the timing of the movement was begun after the subject pulled the trigger and then moved into the “drop off” position where the barrel of the weapon would no longer be pointed directly at the officer and subsequently no longer be an immediate, direct threat. This “drop off” position was the start of the return of the arm to a running movement and happened in different ways. Sometime the subjects simply turned the barrel as they started to bring the weapon forward and into the arm position for running. Sometimes they dropped their hand by a few inches or twisted it away. The timing of the motion ended when the subject had returned to a “square back” running position. The “square back” position is one where the subject would be moving in a straight line directly away from the officer and in the same direction as the officer would be facing. The “square back” would be at an 80-90 degree shoulder angle to the lateral plane of the movement of the subject. In this study, in almost all subjects, the hip or waist was often “square back” to the “officer” for the full motion of rotating and shooting, and did not shift from this position, so the measurement for this study was done on only the shoulder axis. Even in the full 90-degree “square back” position almost all subjects had a slight forward lean to their upper body. The angle of forward lean was not measured in this study. All actions were completed and the measurements were done within 20 yards of the subject starting to run.

The supplemental videos are included so the viewer could see how a variety of subjects perform this movement. The viewer should note the extended time the gun is held pointed backward, after the subject has rotated the shoulders forward. The viewer might also note that subjects accomplish the motion of “squaring up” and pulling the gun forward within a half a stride, well engaged in an all out sprint.