[Mark Tyson]

SHELL CHANGES SHOTGUN INTO LIFESAVER
Copyright 2003 Roanoke Times & World News
Roanoke Times & World News (Roanoke, VA)
July 31, 2003 Thursday Metro Edition

At $6 a shell, the Botetourt County Sheriff's Office's latest crime-fighting tool may well be the most expensive ammunition around.

What it won't do is kill anyone, but it surely can knock a 235-pound man to the ground and leave him stunned for a few seconds.

The weapon is a shotgun-propelled miniature beanbag, known in law enforcement jargon as "a kinetic energy impact projectile." It comes in a clear casing that distinguishes it from regular red shotgun shells and is fired from a 12-gauge shotgun.


Botetourt County deputies have been shooting the beanbags at dummies and paper targets during annual training for almost four years. Until Sunday night, they'd never fired one at a person.

About midnight Sunday, Cpl. R.W. Fletcher and deputies R.B. Stewart and S.M. Gathje answered a call at a Cloverdale motel, where they found a 53-year-old man brandishing a pistol and threatening to kill himself.

Fletcher tried to talk the man into putting down his weapon, but when his efforts seemed in vain, Sgt. D.P. Blessard ordered the use of the beanbag ammo.

Stewart fired a single shot from about 25 feet away, knocking the man down and causing him to drop his .22-caliber derringer.

The impact of the beanbag on the 235-pound man's abdomen temporarily knocked the wind out of him. He told deputies that he felt a little tender as he tried to get up. He was taken to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital for medical and mental examinations.

"We wanted to disarm the suspect with the least amount of injury to him," Botetourt County Sheriff Ronnie Sprinkle said. The man was not charged with any crime.

The single-use beanbags, which have streamers and look like kites with tails, are used only in situations where deadly force is not called for, such as with mentally ill suspects or someone threatening to commit suicide, according to county sheriff's officials.

But they are never used without other firepower backup, Maj. Delbert Dudding said.

About 70 of the nearly 100-plus people in the sheriff's department have been trained to shoot the beanbags, according to Maj. Gary Guilliams, uniform division commander. Their cost, he said, "makes training expensive."

"I think they are fairly expensive, but they worked out wonderfully," Sprinkle said of the projectiles.

"I'm glad he used it," he said, discussing Sunday's case.

JoAnne Poindexter can be reached

at 981-3232 or joanne.poindexter@roanoke.com.

[MicroBalrog]

SHELL CHANGES SHOTGUN INTO LIFESAVER

FROM LIFE PRESERVER TO LIFESAFER: ONE GUN'S TALE:D

[zahc]

What it won't do is kill anyone,

I thought they were pretty dangerous. Better listen to the reporter I guess.



or someone threatening to commit suicide


***? Is it illegal to commit suicide?

[seeker_two]

***? Is it illegal to commit suicide?

In some states, it's a death-penalty offense...















:evil:

[DigMe]

***? Is it illegal to commit suicide?

Uh, yeah...last time I checked. Why do you think Kevorkian went to prison?

brad cook

[c_yeager]

Not only that but i think it would take a pretty sick individual to stand by and watch someone kill themselves without trying to do anything about it.

[Iain]

There are a lot of ideas being worked on like this. Good if it works out.

It would be pretty wrong of the police to let a man shoot himself in public view.

There is a video on the internet of a police marksmen shooting the gun out of the hand of a man sat on a chair in the middle of a street threatening to kill himself. Very risky, cool that it came off.

[hso]

A big advantage would be in the "suicide by cop" situations. Now a less lethal option is added to their kit.

[Mikul]

They are frequently lethal if the target is hit in the rib cage or head at anything closer than 25 yards. Bad guys have been killed with them.

[444]

These rounds are nothing new, they have been around for decades.
Yes, they can be lethal.
We had a class on "less than lethal" rounds about six months ago, complete with autopsy photos of a few instances where the projectiles proved to be very lethal. One of the problems with these rounds is that they need to be fired from a minimum distance to be "less than lethal". Obviously in a tactical situation, distances arn't measured and unfortunately in the heat of the moment, the projectile is fired too close. You can imagine the difficulty in getting 25 yards away from a man in a hotel room. Another problem encountered with one particular load is that it didn't open up, but instead hit the target as a wadded up ball. Another problem was the thread used in sewing the bean bag together; if the bag hit on the side, it cut.
I know, locally, these rounds are fired from an orange shotgun. This shotgun is used ONLY with less than lethal rounds, so that the chances of firing a standard load by accident is minimized.

One of the photos we saw was of a man that was wearing a big madallion (sp) around his neck. The medallion was hit at close range by the beanbag and the whole medallion was driven through the guy's chest and stopped at his spine.

[JShirley]

A better way to describe some tools is "less lethal".

John
A weapon is a weapon is a weapon.

[Roadkill Coyote]

[list=1]
Less Lethal is more than just the rounds used, its the whole package including the training, frequent qualification, policies to prevent cross-loading lethal ammo and identifiying appropriate points of aim, as well as the weapon and ammo.

As to the dangers involved, the best current numbers indicate that Specialty Impact rounds have been fatal in less than 2% of documented uses, and all those fatalities involved hits to the rib cage, neck, or head. That's why regular, frequent qualification, that addresses appropriate points of aim is vital.

There's a lot more to Specialty impact these days than beanbags. If your looking at a situation that's going to be inside 15 yards, the new 40mm sponge round has an excellent safety record, provided the above mentioned training and policies are in place. For that matter, the new stuff is so good, that there are agencies getting themselves into trouble by putting officers into situations where they don't have adequate cover, because its easy to get carried away with the cool new technology.

Although beanbags are nothing new, the vast improvement in accuracy in the past five years or so, brought about by the new tail stabilized rounds is. The poor accuracy of the old beanbags, without a doubt contributed to that 2% number.[/list=1]