recent LEO story, want your comments

[Notch]

So regardles of what the previous poster said, there is no good reason to put an animal out of its missery by a shot to the thorax. Dont matter where ya are, or what your shootin, the ONLY responsible coup de grâce ( read responsible as "not devoid of intelligence or reason") is a shot to the old brain pan. <> I came accross the very same thing here in Lino Lakes. A deer hit by a car, I drove up a half minute or so after a deputy shot the deer in the belly. It rithed around after a poor decision to execute a poor execution. I looked at the "man" ( closer to a boy) and saw the look in his eye that tells ya he aint never done nothin no harm before.

 

[Commander Guineapig]

I assume you meant the headlights, not flashed by the person inside

*GROAN!*

Was it in the grass or on the road?

middle of the road, center line.

Again, I see the points of both sides. In my situation, had he not shown up, I probly would have gone for a 9-to-the-top-vertebrae shot, or one from behind. She wasn't moving a lot, if she was, I would have never gone for a "probly miss" headshot.

Not sure if he was using slugs or buckshot. I shoulda asked but I didn't wanna stand around for the next 10 minutes waiting for the thing to die.

I had Gold Dot FMJ Hollowpoints in my mag...probly wouldn'y have gone too far had they penetrated in a fairly solid area, since they would have shroomed out like crazy...at least I would hope they would have.
Technically tho, I (and the cop too) could have been nailed for poaching, had I shot it. The cop never called it in to the DOW asking permission..so TECHNICALLY they could nail him on poaching...which is bogus IMHO, there's a better way to poach then shooting a deer with a Sig off a busy two lane highway in the middle of the afternoon! to me, that falls into the "to dumb to be poaching" class. or..heck..maybe "dumb enough to be poaching."
All that is what another cop told me 2-3 days later.

GP

 

[iiibdsiil]

Middle of the road? You should have just let someone run it over again!

 

[v3r71g0]

I think he shot her in the gut, to minimize the possibility of a ricochet from over penetration.

 

[skud_dusty]

In my CHL class the instructor informed me of why LEOs now use the "low ready" position. He told me (believe it or not) that they used to point their sidearm in the air instead of towards the ground, believing that a negligent discharge would ricochet. The story goes that the FBI did a series of tests against asphalt, concrete, and a variety of other surfaces and found that at close ranges such as the low ready position a ricochet is next to impossible unless you are making greater than a 50 or 60 degree angle with your body and the firearm.

 

[MachIVshooter]

First, a shotgun slug is very soft lead and it quite possibly could have ricocheted off the deer's skull if the entry angle weren't almost perfectly perpendicular to the surface of the skull at the point of entry.

Shotgun slugs penetrate more than any handgun or small/medium bore rifle round where flesh and bone are concerned. There is a reason that slugs are one of the top bear defense rounds. They also tend to plow through non-ballistic barriers more effectively (cars, houses, etc.). Lot's of momentum.

To the OP: a pistol round to the peanut is my preferred method for dispatching a wounded critter, so long as it isn't flailing around.

 

[DesertDawg]

Not having been there, nor having any knowledge as to what the shotgun was loaded with, I can only guess that it was PROBABLY "00" buck/magnum. They're loaded with from 9 to 12 pellets, and each one is roughly .32 caliber in size.

Several years ago, there was a shoot-out between several officers and an armed robbery suspect that wouldn't give up without a fight. Somehow, one of the officers was struck in the head with ONE "00" buck pellet and died. It was from "friendly fire"....but the thing of it was, that officer was 80 yards away from the officer who was firing a shotgun!

The officer in your incident probably felt that it would be safer to fire a body mass/heart/lung shot, so that none of the pellets would jeopardize passers-by. Doing a head/brain shot would have given him a smaller area, and pellets COULD disperse wide enough so that 1 or 2 pellets would miss....and injure someone else.

(Personally, I probably would have used the .22 rifle for accurately-placed head/brain shots. I always carry a .38 special revolver when I deer hunt, in case I have to put one down completely)

 

[ilbob]

my guess is they have either a policy or practice of doing it that way. it works. how is it any crueler to kill the dear with a heart/lung shot when it is out in the road versus if you shoot it in the same place while it is walking through the forest? In any case it will be dead soon enough.