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Heartland Patriot wrote:

Excaliber wrote:

alexrex20 wrote:

WildBill wrote:I did notice the deformation of the bullet. I wasn't sure if it was the bullet or an artifact of the x-ray. Overall you did a great analysis of the crime. You should be a cop.

God help us if cops and/or investigators are allowed to "solve" crimes by analyzing a news article and viewing an x-ray...

I wasn't trying to "solve a crime" as in identify a suspect, develop probable cause to arrest him, and amass enough evidence to convict him.

I was simply trying to find a fact based explanation for why the guy on the ladder wasn't dead after apparently being shot in the back of the neck with a .45, which, for those of us who have seen a fair number of gunshot wounds, seemed pretty remarkable at first glance. I saw enough information in the article and the photos to suggest a reasonable hypothesis.

Of course, I don't have enough information to know if it's actually correct, but the fact pattern I suggested makes sense given the data we have available. Thinking about how it occurred makes an interesting brain teaser type exercise for folks who enjoy those kinds of things.

I've seen a few shootings in my time, and I found this one quite interesting. It brought me back some years to the times I and my colleagues would arrive at a crime scene, stare at some important element that initially made no sense at all, scratch our heads, and say "How the heck did that happen?" - And then get to work to figure it out and document it in a way that would stand up in court.

I understand that some folks may just think this is weird - but the type of thinking done around the facts of this case is how real crimes get solved in the real world.

Seems a lot like troubleshooting a malfunctioning machine. Have to take all the available data, use some logic, and apply experience...and usually that does the trick.

Very much so for inanimate evidence - until you get to the people part, which is considerably more complex.

alexrex20 wrote:

WildBill wrote:I did notice the deformation of the bullet. I wasn't sure if it was the bullet or an artifact of the x-ray. Overall you did a great analysis of the crime. You should be a cop.

God help us if cops and/or investigators are allowed to "solve" crimes by analyzing a news article and viewing an x-ray...

I wasn't trying to "solve a crime" as in identify a suspect, develop probable cause to arrest him, and amass enough evidence to convict him.

I was simply trying to find a fact based explanation for why the guy on the ladder wasn't dead after apparently being shot in the back of the neck with a .45, which, for those of us who have seen a fair number of gunshot wounds, seemed pretty remarkable at first glance. I saw enough information in the article and the photos to suggest a reasonable hypothesis.

Of course, I don't have enough information to know if it's actually correct, but the fact pattern I suggested makes sense given the data we have available. Thinking about how it occurred makes an interesting brain teaser type exercise for folks who enjoy those kinds of things.

I've seen a few shootings in my time, and I found this one quite interesting. It brought me back some years to the times I and my colleagues would arrive at a crime scene, stare at some important element that initially made no sense at all, scratch our heads, and say "How the heck did that happen?" - And then get to work to figure it out and document it in a way that would stand up in court.

I understand that some folks may just think this is weird - but the type of thinking done around the facts of this case is how real crimes get solved in the real world.

Okay, here are what I think are the relevant facts:

1. The victim is up on a ladder. We don't know how high, but he's working on a CCTV camera which is usually located out of reach to prevent vandalism. That usually puts the camera at a height of 8 - 12 feet.
2. The police believe the intended victim was standing on the sidewalk at street level.
3. Moments after the first shots the shooter charges into a store - at street level. So there's a strong likelihood he was at street level the entire time, shooting at people who were also at street level - not people on ladders. Of course, he could also just be a rotten shot.
4. If the shot had been a direct one from gun to victim, a round of that type would have fully penetrated the neck, assuming a full load, and the victim wouldn't now be worrying about treatment - or anything else.
5. The round did not penetrate the neck, a very narrow and tender part of the body. In fact, it barely made it beneath the skin.

and....

the one thing everyone missed so far.....

you're gonna kick yourselves......

6. If you look closely at the image of the projectile in the x-ray photo, you'll see that the base of the slug is deformed at the top and bottom edges.
7. Slugs don't deform like that in flight.
8.There's nothing in the victim's anatomy at that point that could have caused deformation of any part of the slug, let alone the base.

My hypothesis:

The projectile came from one of the 3 shots the victim heard just before he felt burning pain. It would take a second or two for this to register in the victim's mind because it came totally out of left field and his OODA loop would need to catch up. Of course the round could also have come from a 4th shot as well (people don't count shots accurately in these situations), but that's neither here nor there.

The slug lost most of its velocity when it impacted one or more surfaces (causing the deformation seen in the x-ray) before it struck and came to rest in the victim.

The intermediate impact was both fortunate - and not so much.

With it the projectile was slowed enough to just barely penetrate without doing major damage.

Without it, the shot quite likely wouldn't have struck him at all.

Does that makes sense to you folks?

A man working in the Bronx caught a stray bullet in the back of his neck from a nearby shooting.

When he was examined at the hospital, the doctors determined the wound was not a medical emergency and told him to return to the hospital's clinic on Monday to have it removed.

What can you expect from a .25 you say?

One small problem: The x-ray photo in the article below shows a round that looks suspiciously like a .45.

Fortunately for the victim, this wasn't one of those one shot / game over situations.

How could that happen?

Isn't the .45 a devastating manstopper - or is it?

Why didn't the slug continue far into the man's neck, sever the spinal cord, and kill him?

Why did it produce a wound so "minor" that treatment could wait until Monday?

I've got a real good idea that I've got a high degree of confidence in, but I'm not gonna give it away just yet.

I want to give our member sleuths a chance to do a little detective type thinking and figure it out. All the information you need is in the article.

Here it is: Daily Mail Article.