Police sniper??

[HunterXCooL]

Sometimes there is an announcement that a sniper is around but... where are they anyway?? can you see them?? can you kill them?? or they just shoot you out of nowhere??

[Kittenpox]

I've encountered them in multiplayer, though not yet in singleplayer. But I assume the game mechanic would be the same.
You can sometimes see their red laser-pointers, which can help give you an indication of where they're firing from. They can be difficult to spot, but you should also be able to mark them by pointing them out to your team. Having them highlighted should make them much easier for your team to take out.

[心脏同频，至死不渝]

11111111111111111

[MShields]

money train finale has a couple of them

[Your Neighbour]

They always use a laser you will see them. You can kill them as long as your weapon can reach. Some pistols have unlimited reach and can hit snipers.

[Wingnut Mcmoomoo]

not only can you kill and see them but every that can spawn them has only 2 or 3 spots they can spawn in, so as soon as you hear the announcement you can check all the spots. in the new bank you can even see all the sniper spots from windows around the bank so you can take them out quickly, old bank has a couple of spawn points you have to poke your head outside to get as an example of knowing the spawn points.

But yeah when you see a sniper somewhere on a map just remember where you saw it because that is one of the 2 or 3 spawn points on the map. Eventually you can literally get them as they spawn.

They even spawn in droves if you get a campaign into the late stages of days 15-25 on extreme. They spawn so much eventually you can't help but learn the spawn locations.

The bots are pretty good about shooting snipers they can see now adays so the reason you might not be seeing the snipers is because after they shoot you once the bots may be spinning and shooting them before you find them.

As a general rule they pretty much always spawn on the edge of maps and on roofs. Just check roofs and look for the laser.

Edit to add more tips: If you have a weapon that can't reach the sniper from where you are shoot anyway. Unless you're WAAAAAY out of range (like in the cocaine heist, you can be exiting the boat and a sniper can spawn on the buildings on the other side of the map) you can shoot at the snipers and make them duck.

So even if you don't hit them you can make them stop shooting for a handful of seconds by shooting near them, they'll duck and hide then usually try to move left or right a bit before shooting again.

So because of the above shotguns are really good for taking out snipers because even if its not enough damage to kill them it will still stop them from shooting for a while. But some shotguns are snipers themselves if we're honest (like the practical elite, theres a scope on that shotgun for a reason lol)

There are also some maps that can't get snipers. Like port plunder i think is sniper free, and same with i think all the warehouse maps are sniper free. I could be wrong but i don't think i've seen snipers ever on those maps. I think this is because there are no good spots for snipers to be. Same with store robberies, gas stations, gang hits/stabotages.... lol now that i think about it its basically just the banks and big heists that have them (except gold cup and cagnali and dragon dogs, their big heists have no snipers)...oh and some of the character missions arcs have snipers but thats also pretty rare.