[Greybeard]

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tri...e/s_177708.html


Heavy coat saves shooting vicim

By Gwen Arbuckle
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, February 3, 2004

A robbery victim in Bethel Park last night avoided serious injury from a shotgun blast to his gut, saved by his heavy winter coat.
Bethel Park police Chief Joseph Mackey said Takisha D. Hipps, 21, lured the 24-year-old man to her apartment at about 7:30 p.m. in the 6100 block of Library Road where her boyfriend Robert Derrick Shelton Jr., 21, and her cousin Brandon Lee Hipps, 18, of the North Side were waiting to rob him.

The trio didn't get anything in the robbery. Shelton shot the victim in the abdomen with a sawed-off shotgun, police said. The bullet traveled through the victim's jacket, which he was holding crumpled in front of his stomach and chest.

"The bullet did strike him, but I'm sure the heavy jacket bore the brunt of the impact," Mackey said.

The victim was able to make his way out of the apartment to a beer distributor, located less than a block away. He was treated and released last night from Mercy Hospital, Uptown.

The three suspects were arraigned overnight and remained at the Allegheny County Jail this morning.

Shelton was charged with criminal conspiracy, robbery, aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and weapons violations.

Brandon Hipps was charged with criminal conspiracy, robbery, simple assault, reckless endangerment and weapons violations.

Takisha Hipps' charges were robbery and criminal conspiracy.


Gwen Arbuckle can be reached at garbuckle@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7844.

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Not to mention hazards associated with THAT type of "baiting". :(

[Art Eatman]

"I'll take luck over skill, any day." (Me.) :D

I reckon he'll be doing small amounts of soft foods for a while...

Art

[Al Thompson]

Wonder what load the BGs used?

[Greybeard]

Not that I'll get an answer, but I just sent e-mail to the author requesting more details. I did point out (hopefully tactfully :) ) that shotguns generally shoot pellets rather than "bullets".

The Wife questioned how the "victim" managed not to catch some pellets in arms/hands. I replied that even with "sawed off" shotgun, the range might not have been sufficient for very much spread.

I'll post if I do get a reply from "Gwen".

[Greybeard]

How about this? :)

Thanks for your note. No follow-up on this one. The chief didn’t have distance or type of shot it was. The victim’s injuries were severe enough to require ER treatment with a quick release, but information laws block my access to specifics.



Sorry I can’t be more helpful.



-Gwen

[nico]

bullet?:scrutiny:
I don't find this too hard to believe. Crooks generally aren't the brightest bulbs. Assuming it was a 12 gauge, a really light load (7/8oz) of #9 shot in a short, low brass shell, from a sawed off barrel (what kind of velocity would that get?) might not cause serious injury.

[H&Hhunter]

Hoooooo now guys!

I'm not down on shotguns. You just shouldn't use them for stuff they weren't designed to do...
;)


Like shoot guys with coats on..

[JShirley]

Good thing that shotgun wasn't loaded with buckshot! If it had been, not only would the victim have been killed, but there would have been a cessation of all life in the entire neighborhood! Buckshot is so dangerous that even the Germans protested against its use while employing machine guns and chemical weapons!

:evil:

[NRA4LIFE]

I heard that if you mix a little antimony with the lead.............

[JohnKSa]

FWIW

I just saw some penetration tests in the SGN.

In wet newsprint, 9mm 115gr Winchester Ranger, 00 Buck and 55gr .223 all penetrate to the same depth.

PLEASE spare me the lectures on how wet newsprint isn't flesh. I have no illusions that it is.

However, while it may not give an accurate measure of actual penetration, relative penetration should be somewhat useful. In other words, the test won't tell us how far 00 buck will penetrate in flesh, but we have a good idea that it will penetrate roughly the same amount as a 9mm 115gr JHP round or a 55 gr .223 round.

[JShirley]

Interesting. Close-range .223 hits have a reputation for shallow penetration...wonder how deep that 9mm Ranger penetrates in gelatin?

[twoblink]

My old manager out in the boonies of New York (away from the city) got a call from his neighbor (old lady) asking him to come over; it was about 2am..

When he arrived, she said there was a robber at the door, and she had gone and gotten her husband's shotgun and blew a hole in the door and the guy ran away..

"you mean the dead guy on your lawn with the big basketball sized hole in him?"
:what:

So it depends on the load and distance... A shotgun can be useful..

That said, I'm still not gonna stand in front of a shotgun just to see if my heavy coat will act as body armor.. :uhoh:

[mete]

Charged with "assault" ???? What ever happened to things like "attempted murder" ?

[St. Gunner]

My dad got hit bad three times with a shotgum when he was guiding quail hunts. twice at about 20yds he caught pattern fringes in the head and neck from #7 1/2's. Required some minor surgery to remove Something like 19 and 14 pellets each time. But he also caught a blast at 15yds one day that left 107 pellets in his head, neck and upper shoulder, plus pierced his ear in three places on the right side. It was a load of 7 1/2's also. He still carries a half dozen pellets on the right side of his head. But most of them didn't make it to deep. The ones in his shoulders where the shallowest after going through a flannel shirt and a blaze orange vest. This one took about six hours to get em all out.

Good thing that shotgun wasn't loaded with buckshot! If it had been, not only would the victim have been killed, but there would have been a cessation of all life in the entire neighborhood!

Yep the mushroom cloud that happens when buckshot is fired is a brutal thing, stuff just drops everywhere. Shoot I had a dream last night of stalking rogue elephants through the African brush with a .410 loaded with 3 ooo pellets. I thumbed the hammer back on the H&R took aim at the shoulders of a huge bull and let rip, you could see the blood gush from the exit on the far side.... Then I realized God was putting me in someone elses mind, to help me realize how it worked... I really wasn't in Africa, I really didn't know much about hunting, and dangit I wasn't me, I was some other guy, dreaming up the power of buckshot...:D :neener: :D

[auschip]

I had a dream last night of stalking rogue elephants through the African brush with a .410 loaded with 3 ooo pellets. I thumbed the hammer back on the H&R took aim at the shoulders of a huge bull and let rip, you could see the blood gush from the exit on the far side.... Then I realized God was putting me in someone elses mind, to help me realize how it worked... I really wasn't in Africa, I really didn't know much about hunting, and dangit I wasn't me, I was some other guy, dreaming up the power of buckshot

You are lucky, usually just having a dream in which buckshot is in it, can cause household pets to die on the spot. Better check your goldfish! :evil:

[St. Gunner]

Yep you where right,

3 dead fish
5 cats
5dogs

All dead from one dreamt pull of the trigger with buckshot, I better check outside and make sure some endangered species didn't decide to bed near the house last night, I could be in serious trouble...

:D :D :D

[Correia]

Article doesn't say, but I'm betting it was a .410.

My understanding is that it was a load of 12 guage 3 inch 000 buckshot that killed the dinosaurs when it was accidently fired into the Yucatan peninsula 65 million years ago. It was fired in modern times, but the power was so great that it distorted the space time continum, travelled back in time, and hit with the force of a giant comet. Just typing that killed my gold fish.

[JShirley]

Yeah. And, just sitting here reading it, my eyebrows were singed off. Such is the awful power of buckshot. It really is too dangerous. There ought to be a law. I'm thinking the WMD the Iraquis were really developing were buckshot rounds. Good thing we got there in time, or all life as we know it would have been destroyed.

[Matt G]

Now y'all quit!