On a Tuesday, April of 2006, my squad worked nightshift in Homicide. The main phone line into the office rang just before 8:30 that evening.
“Homicide,” I said, answering the phone.
“Hi Homicide, Radio here,” the operator replied. “We have an officer-involved shooting at Broadway and East John. They’re requesting that you respond.”
“We’re on the way,” I said.
We gathered our things in the Homicide office on the seventh floor of police headquarters downtown and headed to the car deck to respond.
My partner Jason Kasner and I pulled up to the chaotic scene. Several police cars parked in the street, their red and blue lights flashing, yellow crime scene tape blocked East John Street east of Broadway. The body of a young white male lay on the sidewalk, his shirt removed, EKG stickers placed on his bare chest by medics before they pronounced him dead.
I approached a patrol sergeant.
“We received a call from that phonebooth,” he said, pointing to a nearby payphone. “The caller said a male told him he would shoot the first police officer he saw.
“Officers arrived and saw the suspect standing on the sidewalk. They approached him, and he pulled a revolver and pointed it at them. They fired and hit him. His gun is over there,” he said, pointing to a revolver on the sidewalk behind the deceased suspect.
I walked over to the weapon. I shined my flashlight on it and noticed an anomaly. There was something in the cylinder gap between the cylinder and the grip. I knelt to get a closer look.
From my position on my knees, I realized what it was. A bullet, presumably fired by one of the officers, had gone in the opening in the cylinder and struck a round that had been loaded there, sending it back to the rear of the gun. It was very significant, unequivocal evidence that the suspect’s gun had been pointed at the officers when they fired. It was physically impossible for the bullet to enter the cylinder if that wasn’t the case.
The show Mythbusters did a segment on this shooting several months later. They had the situation all screwed up. They had the officers armed with the revolver and the suspect with the semiautomatic pistol, opposite reality. They had the round entering an empty chamber, not one loaded with a live round, which had been the case. They concluded that this could have happened.
I know it could have. I was there.
