bartman06
Member
Post removed, not on topic, maybe another time.
Autopsy X-Ray Shows Lack of Penetration
- Thread starter Low Budget Shooter
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Check it again. They said on page six that this was the second time that department has had to shoot someone ten times or so with the .40, the other time being a guy who was in a car. I think that's why they cut off page six at the bottom, because it started to get into the weeds.
I didn't say the bullets didn't pass through something else, I said what they didn't pass through was a car, and that the only reason that came up was the investigator felt it was worth noting that the other time they had oddball performance the guy was in a car. I don't know if they passed through something else, personally I'm leaning towards the medical examiner screwed up and somehow managed to dramatically mismeasure the guy's wounds. Very few of them were in immediately life-threatening areas, and some of the ones that were you can't actually get a fix on the position because of the lack of a side view xray.
I didn't say the bullets didn't pass through something else, I said what they didn't pass through was a car, and that the only reason that came up was the investigator felt it was worth noting that the other time they had oddball performance the guy was in a car. I don't know if they passed through something else, personally I'm leaning towards the medical examiner screwed up and somehow managed to dramatically mismeasure the guy's wounds. Very few of them were in immediately life-threatening areas, and some of the ones that were you can't actually get a fix on the position because of the lack of a side view xray.
Double Naught Spy
Sus Venator
Okay, got it. You are saying that the department is whining that when their officers fail to deliver shots on target in manners conducive to making stops and the suspects don't immediately surrender, that the department is justified in blaming the ammo?
Not all suspects give up because of injuries. Some will fight to the death. Maybe the department needs to better consider their "failure to stop" procedures and work on a bit of retraining of the officers.
JR47
Member
I have to agree. The majority of those shots wouldn't have been immediately incapacitating. Not everyone's body shuts down with a major injury. Sometimes, the body is capable of essentially numbing itself to the injury for a period of time. Add to that the fact that everyone has a certain threshold of pain, and perceive pain in differing ways. 
The idea that a pistol caliber, any pistol caliber, is capable of causing the immediate cessation of hostilities without a CNS hit is simply not true.
Besides, as was stated, this is the second instance, not the fiftieth. Too small a sample for any valid statistical work.
The idea that a pistol caliber, any pistol caliber, is capable of causing the immediate cessation of hostilities without a CNS hit is simply not true.
Besides, as was stated, this is the second instance, not the fiftieth. Too small a sample for any valid statistical work.
In the powerpoint description, it states that the perp ambushed the police as they pulled up, so I'd guess that part of the material that was shot through was the officers shooting out of and through their own car.
It also explains the ankle shot, I'd guess one of the officers grabbed the M4 as he was bailing out of the car and dropped prone before taking the shot.
It also explains the ankle shot, I'd guess one of the officers grabbed the M4 as he was bailing out of the car and dropped prone before taking the shot.
gunboat57
Member
I've been trying to find more details on what cover the perp might have been using. Could the officers' shot placement be explained by the perp having partially hidden behind cover that left him exposed from the waist down? Bullets that did penetrate the cover and connected above the waist were partially spent maybe? I would like to know more details if anyone has found a better account of what happened.
halogrinder
Member
it all ends up to this:
shoot till the threat is stopped.
if you run out of ammo, you now have an expensive club to beat said perp with.
shoot till the threat is stopped.
if you run out of ammo, you now have an expensive club to beat said perp with.
metalman8600
member
- Joined
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- 276
I guess I'll just come out and say it:
If the cops were using 45 ACPs it would have only taken one shot in the arm, the guy would have done a backflip and exploded. Just kidding. I carry a 9mm.
If the cops were using 45 ACPs it would have only taken one shot in the arm, the guy would have done a backflip and exploded. Just kidding. I carry a 9mm.
halogrinder
Member
Thanks for the informative post there
Double Naught Spy
Sus Venator
George Deeb, III, used vehicles for cover. There are no reports of officers shooting out through their own cars. It was an ambush, but Deebs wasn't standing out in the open.
This is a standard technique to help stop a suspect behind a vehicle that is being used for cover and/or concealment. You may not be able to see the rest of him, but if you look underneath, often you can see his feet. Shoot them, and he may go down. That might account then for the hits from the same .223 to his hip/butt area because if he dropped to his butt, then like his feet, it because a visible and viable target.
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There is nothing hand held that is 100% guaranteed effective. A Vietnam vet friend tells of helping a buddy WALK back to an aid station after taking a 50 caliber round through the belly.
I saw a 140 pound man take 3 fatal hits from a 45 ACP and run 50 yards before collapsing.
A cop was shot 6 times in the chest with a 357 Magnum and took the gun from the perp and beat him nearly to death with the empty gun.
On the other hand a famous motorcycle gang enforcer who was 6'6" and 450 pounds of bodybuilder muscle took one round of 9mm ball to the chest and immediately fell dead.
Another cop took a 22 to the forearm and died because he had convinced himself that if he was shot he would die. Mind over matter works.
There are many variables in shooting humans. Size, exact placement, presence of drugs, mental state and determination can affect how a person reacts to a gunshot wound.
I saw a 140 pound man take 3 fatal hits from a 45 ACP and run 50 yards before collapsing.
A cop was shot 6 times in the chest with a 357 Magnum and took the gun from the perp and beat him nearly to death with the empty gun.
On the other hand a famous motorcycle gang enforcer who was 6'6" and 450 pounds of bodybuilder muscle took one round of 9mm ball to the chest and immediately fell dead.
Another cop took a 22 to the forearm and died because he had convinced himself that if he was shot he would die. Mind over matter works.
There are many variables in shooting humans. Size, exact placement, presence of drugs, mental state and determination can affect how a person reacts to a gunshot wound.
I think it's very easy to overestimate a gun's potential to cause short-term interruption and harm to a person, and very easy to gloss over the very long term damage that surviving even a relatively minor gunshot wound can leave someone with.
Just read a post over on Glocktalk in the Caliber Corner by a guy whose 'friend' for some reason decided to pick up his gun and pull the trigger while it was pointed at the guy's arm.
Just read a post over on Glocktalk in the Caliber Corner by a guy whose 'friend' for some reason decided to pick up his gun and pull the trigger while it was pointed at the guy's arm.
As others have said, not enough information is available about the shooting with regards to intermediate targets.
The radiographs are both incomplete and not in a diagnostic format.
Also, care must be taken even if you do get lateral views, because these radiographs are subject to a thing called diverging beam projection.
it is very difficult to work out what the distance is between a retained projectile and another surface on these plain films, even if you do it prospectively (you set out before doing any X-rays with a distinct objective to be able to work these distances out). If someone wants to see an example of this phenomenon I can post it here when all the hubbub has died down a bit.
In a case where the target is now deceased and is the subject of a post-mortem investigation there is greater value to be had from physical examination and dissection than from plain X-rays. There is some merit in CT scanning because then you get exact measurements (well, exact enough for this question about penetration depth).
Whether they would scan that body routinely is another question.
Multiple gunshot wounds present a challenge in terms of matching up a projectile or fragments thereof to a known injury (whether it is seen clinically or radiologically) and indeed there is much difficulty in determining whether the opacities you are viewing on the imaging represent the entire projectiles in each case.
In some trajectories you may see radiological evidence of damage but you cannot be certain that any one projectile has been responsible for that damage, or even that you have (thus far) located all the projectiles or fragments thereof that have struck the individual.
Last year for my Master of Science project I tried to develop an expert system to assist with determining the possible locations of missing projectiles in live gunshot cases and also to match up projectiles with known radiological manifestations of acute injury. The system was based on skin breach totals (the number of holes in the individual) and also a radiological indication of the position of each skin breach. All the holes were marked with a radio-opaque tag before the person was X-rayed.
Based on 150 cases and a range of individual projectile breaches ranging from 1 to 10, I found the system to be reasonably good (depending on the subjective evaluation of the person reading the radiographs) in handling cases involving breaches numbering 1, 2 or 3. Even at 3 breaches, there were several cases where it didn't work out and provided incorrect advice. After three breaches, all bets were off.
I had several advantages also: clothing evidence and direct supervision or acute quality control of the radiography side of it by myself. I was on hand when these gunshot cases arrived at the hospital and I could get current clinical information also. But...these were mainly handgun cases, no mixed rifle and handgun. I have had some cases where it has been obvious that a bullet has passed through auto glass before striking the person, either because of glass stippling on the wound or because of the appearances of the entrance wound. Those have all been single shot cases. Multiple is not so easy.
So, I have to tell you all that the case discussed in this thread represents an extremely difficult one to analyze from the perspective of what projectiles went where and did what damage in the body. Add to this the fact that none of the breaches were tagged prior to X-ray and that there was no prospective modification of X-ray technique to accurately gauge the distances being queried in this thread, and it's pretty much an armchair debate in my opinion.
Of course you may not care about my opinion, but there it is
The radiographs are both incomplete and not in a diagnostic format.
Also, care must be taken even if you do get lateral views, because these radiographs are subject to a thing called diverging beam projection.
it is very difficult to work out what the distance is between a retained projectile and another surface on these plain films, even if you do it prospectively (you set out before doing any X-rays with a distinct objective to be able to work these distances out). If someone wants to see an example of this phenomenon I can post it here when all the hubbub has died down a bit.
In a case where the target is now deceased and is the subject of a post-mortem investigation there is greater value to be had from physical examination and dissection than from plain X-rays. There is some merit in CT scanning because then you get exact measurements (well, exact enough for this question about penetration depth).
Whether they would scan that body routinely is another question.
Multiple gunshot wounds present a challenge in terms of matching up a projectile or fragments thereof to a known injury (whether it is seen clinically or radiologically) and indeed there is much difficulty in determining whether the opacities you are viewing on the imaging represent the entire projectiles in each case.
In some trajectories you may see radiological evidence of damage but you cannot be certain that any one projectile has been responsible for that damage, or even that you have (thus far) located all the projectiles or fragments thereof that have struck the individual.
Last year for my Master of Science project I tried to develop an expert system to assist with determining the possible locations of missing projectiles in live gunshot cases and also to match up projectiles with known radiological manifestations of acute injury. The system was based on skin breach totals (the number of holes in the individual) and also a radiological indication of the position of each skin breach. All the holes were marked with a radio-opaque tag before the person was X-rayed.
Based on 150 cases and a range of individual projectile breaches ranging from 1 to 10, I found the system to be reasonably good (depending on the subjective evaluation of the person reading the radiographs) in handling cases involving breaches numbering 1, 2 or 3. Even at 3 breaches, there were several cases where it didn't work out and provided incorrect advice. After three breaches, all bets were off.
I had several advantages also: clothing evidence and direct supervision or acute quality control of the radiography side of it by myself. I was on hand when these gunshot cases arrived at the hospital and I could get current clinical information also. But...these were mainly handgun cases, no mixed rifle and handgun. I have had some cases where it has been obvious that a bullet has passed through auto glass before striking the person, either because of glass stippling on the wound or because of the appearances of the entrance wound. Those have all been single shot cases. Multiple is not so easy.
So, I have to tell you all that the case discussed in this thread represents an extremely difficult one to analyze from the perspective of what projectiles went where and did what damage in the body. Add to this the fact that none of the breaches were tagged prior to X-ray and that there was no prospective modification of X-ray technique to accurately gauge the distances being queried in this thread, and it's pretty much an armchair debate in my opinion.
Of course you may not care about my opinion, but there it is
halogrinder
Member
im convinced thats why feral hogs i shoot at are so hard to kill. they have the mentality of " dont die be tough" they dont have the "die" part in their vocab.
That's kind of you and I appreciate the sentiment, but I must state for the record I am not a radiologist or any other kind of doctor. I am a radiographer who just happens to have an interest in gunshot wounds.
brickeyee, did you even read his post? He said that exact thing (about needing a lateral view), as have about 10 people (myself included) previously. Thanks though.
Odd Job, I thought you were a radiologist because of something you said on TheFiringLine a few years ago about some gunshot films that I (mistakenly) thought you had said were from your patient.
Either way, carry on everyone.
Odd Job, I thought you were a radiologist because of something you said on TheFiringLine a few years ago about some gunshot films that I (mistakenly) thought you had said were from your patient.
Either way, carry on everyone.
mljdeckard
Member
There is no guarantee that any bullet fired from any gun will do any particular thing. What you have are degrees of likelihood. Under normal circumstances, premium JHP ammo of 9mm or greater will penetrate 12" of ballistic gel. In a real-world comparison, this means that it will USUALLY penetrate 12" of tissue. As for whether or not weird things sometimes happen, sure they can. But my money is on a .40 or a 5.56 smashing through anything within a human. I do not take for granted that it will happen EVERY time, this is why I get as many hits as I can.
You can't learn much from a single odd occurrence. Even statistics have to be taken with a grain of salt. Sometimes it's more like the roll of a dice. Even though you carry a caliber that is known to be effective, it doesn't mean it will be in any given circumstance. Unpredictability is a large part of ballistic performance.
That guy's tattoos are ironic.
That guy's tattoos are ironic.
Cop Bob
Member
All True... Mental State is a very important factor...
We have had officers die from relatively minor injuries, all because they thought they would. and I, like you have seen officers walk away after some hits that would have put many in the ground..
jojo200517
Member
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2009
- Messages
- 580
Well since the OP honestly asked what we thought i'm gonna say what I really think...
1. I think 9mm isn't enough to do the job
2. I think .40 isn't enough to do the job
3. I think .223 isn't enough to do the job
Now that I got that out of the way, the question remains is would they have been better off with anything else?
I have always said bigger is better and thats my matter of personal opinion, just like I say there is no such thing as too much penetration because bleeding out 2 holes is always more effective than bleeding out one.
Maybe .45acp +P's should become standard, and replace the whimpy .223 with .308 or .30-06. Who knows maybe that would work, then again maybe it wouldn't. No one can really say but I know which one's I'd choose.
Now I'm gonna sit back and wait on everyone to rip me a new one for calling the other rounds whimpy, despite evidence that shows they can be.
1. I think 9mm isn't enough to do the job
2. I think .40 isn't enough to do the job
3. I think .223 isn't enough to do the job
Now that I got that out of the way, the question remains is would they have been better off with anything else?
I have always said bigger is better and thats my matter of personal opinion, just like I say there is no such thing as too much penetration because bleeding out 2 holes is always more effective than bleeding out one.
Maybe .45acp +P's should become standard, and replace the whimpy .223 with .308 or .30-06. Who knows maybe that would work, then again maybe it wouldn't. No one can really say but I know which one's I'd choose.
Now I'm gonna sit back and wait on everyone to rip me a new one for calling the other rounds whimpy, despite evidence that shows they can be.
The problem is that .45 ACP+P is also too "whimpy" (sic) to do the job.
In fact, there is evidence that even .50 BMG sometimes lacks stopping power. halogrinder
Member
What about 10mm and 50 beowolf
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