Post 10 – What I Learned From The Last Murder / Shooting Scene I Worked
Post 10 – What I Learned From The Last Murder / Shooting Scene I Worked
Last updated: 6/18/15
I work part-time for a private company that is contracted to transport bodies for the 3rd largest Medical Examiner in the United States. Through this company I also have experience working with 2 other counties. As a result I’m called to many crime scenes where people are shot, stabbed, beat or choked to death. I also go to many scenes where people die from a variety of medical emergencies. By having direct access to real scenes I am better able to educate my students about violent crime and medical emergencies, which is why I do the job. Going to real scenes also keeps me fiercely motivated and focused to do everything in my power to prepare my students for reality. Nothing puts self-defense, crime prevention and first aid training into perspective like lifting up the body of a murdered child, something I had to do twice in 6 days only a few days before writing this article.
The last murder / shooting scene I went to involved a single male that was shot to death while on a front porch. It was a drive by shooting, most likely drug related. The deceased was shot multiple times. One of the gunshot wounds was in his left hand. This wound was consistent with being shot in the hand while pointing a gun (bullet entered from the front of the fist traveling towards the body). The wound to the hand was not consistent with a defensive wound or random hit. As soon as I saw the wound to the hand I asked the police if the deceased was shooting too and if the gun was in his left hand, and they said yes to both.
So here are the facts:
1.) The deceased was shot in the hand holding the gun
2.) The deceased was shooting his gun with his left hand
3.) The deceased had a brace on his right hand
4.) The deceased had scars from previous gunshot wounds on his right arm
5.) The shooting distance of the shooting was from the street to the porch of a residential neighborhood
I don’t know if the deceased was left-handed or right-handed, but because he had a brace on his right hand he may have been forced to shoot with his left hand. The scars from previous gunshot wounds to his right arm might have happened because he was right-handed and consequently was using his right hand to shoot the gun. And while I don’t know the circumstances of his previous gunshot wounds, I do know that, unlike his final encounter, he lived. That means it’s possible that what caused him to lose his life in this shooting is the fact that he was forced to shoot using his “off hand” instead of his primary hand. Now that’s only speculation on my part, but it’s a valid concern nonetheless. Which begs the question, HOW OFTEN DO YOU SHOOT WITH YOUR SUPPORT HAND ONLY? And if you do, how realistic is your support hand training? Do you draw from concealment using the support hand only? Do you shoot and move shooting with the support hand only? Do you shoot at combat speed (5 shots a second) using your support hand only? If your primary hand was injured in a fight right now, could you use your support hand to fight back effectively?
Two other points of consideration:
First, most shootings start close (from contact range to 10”) but do you push the range out to street range distance? This may have been a classic drug related drive by but the last murder / shooting I went to that was similar to this murder was of an innocent property manager killed for evicting people not paying rent. They started shooting the property manager from the street while he was on his front porch, just like the last case I went too. The 2 killers chased the property manager into his house and assassinated him on his kitchen floor while 2 toddlers were in the home. That murder victim was an innocent, hard-working family man, not a drug dealer or street thug.
Second, during survival stress people will usually hyper focus on the problem they are trying to solve. Most people will not shift their focus away from the threat to look at gun sights, optics or a laser red dot. That’s why getting shot in the hand is so common during real fights and during force-on-force simulations. The brain will fixate the eyes on the gun being pointed and people will subconsciously direct fire where their eyes are looking. You won’t notice this shooting paper, steal or cardboard because those targets are passive. But you will see it immediately in real shootings and force-on-force training. So another question is, do you know how to quickly and accurately aim your gun without using gun sights, optic or a laser red dot? And do you practice your gun skills during realistic force-on-force training so you have to recognize and respond to a real person attacking you in realistic ways? Obviously training and violence are never the same. But your training should prepare you for real encounters as much as possible.
If you don’t you might be that dead body at a crime scene.
