Posted on 08/15/2015 4:45:38 AM PDT by don-o
The autopsy reports for the nine men killed in the Twin Peaks Massacre in Waco on May 17 are a thicket of words that don’t seem to answer many questions. The reports may be as important for what they don’t disprove as for what they do or don’t prove. They do not for example, disprove the notion that all, or at least most of the dead men were killed by police using M-16s and FN P90 machine guns.
Thirteen of sixteen entrance wounds were .25 inches in diameter or smaller.
FN P90s fire a round with a diameter of .224409 inches. M-16s fire slightly smaller rounds with diameters of 0.218898 inches. All but one of the victims had wounds fired from a downward trajectory. Six of the nine dead had head or neck wounds. None of the wounds contained gunshot residue which indicates that the shots were fired from at least three feet away and probably five feet or farther away. The absence of residue casts doubt on claims by prosecutors of “Bandidos executing Cossacks, and Cossacks executing Bandidos.” Two of the dead had large wounds consistent with a 12 gauge shotgun slug. Ten of 16 wounds were in the back, indicating that the victims were running away when they died. Seven of the wounds were fired from right to left. Six were fired from left to right.
Nine millimeter bullets have a diameter of 0.35433 inches; forty caliber handguns fire a bullet that is four tenths of an inch in diameter and 357 magnums fire rounds that are about .357 inches in diameter.
Highly Deformed
Most of the recovered bullets were either highly deformed or fragmented which indicates they were fired by high velocity weapons and suggests those bullets were shaped like a swallow’s tail. Bullets fired from M-16s have a muzzle velocity of 3,110 feet per second. Bullets fired from FN P90s leave that weapon’s comparatively short barrel at 2,350 feet per second. Bullets generally leave the barrels of nine millimeter handguns at between 950 and 1,300 feet per second; 40 mm handguns generally have a muzzle velocity of between 1,000 and 1,200 feet per second; bullets leave a .357 magnum at about 1,500 feet per second or less; 38 Specials generally have a muzzle velocity of 1,000 feet per second or less.
Most police ammunition in the United States is designed to penetrate a human body to a depth of 12 inches and for that reason that ammunition is usually copper jacketed. Most of the bullets that killed at the Twin Peaks were copper jacketed. Bullets fired from high velocity M-16s, have a tendency to tumble after impact. M-16 rounds tumble because the tail of the projectile is heavier than the nose. The kinetic energy contained in the round has to go somewhere so the bullet tumbles, deforms and usually stops before reaching a depth of 12 inches. Most of the wounds described in the autopsies are consistent with wounds inflicted by M-16s. Both M-16s and FN P90s fire swallow tail shaped bullets.
None of the autopsies include ballistics information. Notations by eight pathologists involved in the autopsies describe bullets and bullet fragments in very general and inconsistent terms. One hundred fifty-one firearms were seized at the crime scene. Bikers usually carry small caliber pistols that range from small revolvers and derringers up to .380 automatics. Ballistic tests on the weapons seized at the Twin Peaks are being conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. An informed source with knowledge of ATF procedures speculated that the tests would be completed in November.
Of course it does. The source is a blogger with a predefined conclusion. He cherry picks facts to support those conclusions.
I would not be surprised to hear the police were shooting military ball. I know nothing about LE but when it is so available and inexpensive why get fancy?
The facts are each of the dead were killed by tissue destruction of hypersonic, low caliber ammunition.
I’m going to add to the confusion a bit with a couple of observations...
It looks like folks here are generally thinking of FMJ (full metal jacket) bullets with a full copper jacket that is designed to NOT fragment or expand on impact. These rounds have deep penetration characteristics and will often go through a target if they don’t strike something solid. They may or may not tumble during penetration.
Self-defense and police handgun rounds usually employ JHP (jacketed hollow point) bullets that are designed to expand and open into multiple blades during penetration. They have a partial copper jacket on the base and an opening at the tip to enable expansion. These bullets are intended to remain inside the target and generally don’t fragment unless they strike a solid object. There are a few genuine fragmentation rounds available for handguns but they’re not common.
I noted that a couple of the autopsies mentioned codes stamped into the base of the bullets and I suspect those would be JHP rounds since they usually have a copper base as opposed to FMJs with an open lead base.
Entry wound diameters will be misleading and depend on the clothing penetrated, elasticity of the skin, the density of the underlying tissue, the overall profile of the bullet and the shape of the bullet nose. Don’t assume a 1/4” hole in the skin gurantees a 1/4” diameter bullet. It could easily be a larger round with a pointed profile that pushed the skin aside after the initial penetration.
>>> The codes on the base of recovered rounds appear to be related to the person who removed the slugs from the body (initials) and a case number (number following initials). <<<
AHA! I was thinking manufacturing codes and that it was rather unusual to mark bullets. That makes much more sense. Thanks!
I don't see anything in the autopsy reports regarding an opinion of hypersonic velocity.
The location, the behavior of authorities before, after and during the event and the results all point to a flash flag op. Luckily, it was done by Democrats and so far they’re failing badly.
I can’t believe people are still defending these idiot bikers. The autopsies are irrelevant. Of course some bikers were shot by cops. They were armed, committing felonies, and there were a lot of them! Here’s a list what the D.A. CAN PROVE as shown in the intent of seizure declaration:
On May 17, several members of the Cossacks and their support groups, the Bogatyrs and Scimitars, arrived an hour or more before the scheduled 1 p.m. meeting. They took over the patio area, which had been reserved for the COC&I meeting.
According to MANY SIGNED AFFIDAVITS FROM WITNESSES, they also had members inside the restaurant and along the perimeter of the parking lot, and members appeared to be posted as sentries.
VIDEOS from Twin Peaks and Don Carlos show several Cossacks reach under their vests and appear to adjust their weapons or check their weapons. They had handguns and knives as they walked around the patio, and officers said they also could see Bandidos, Machateros and Caballeros members standing along the perimeter of the parking lot. [Texas IS NOT an open-carry state, and this is NOT a shooting range - it’s a restaurant open to the general public. They are committing armed felonies at this point.]
According to MANY SIGNED AFFIDAVITS FROM WITNESSES another group of Bandidos arrived in the Twin Peaks parking lot, several Cossacks, Bogatyrs and Scimitars climbed over the patio railing and went toward the Bandidos. Several of the Cossacks pulled their weapons, including handguns, as they stood on the patio and exited the patio. [Texas IS NOT an open-carry state, and this is NOT a shooting range - it’s a restaurant open to the general public. They are committing armed felonies here also.]
MANY SIGNED AFFIDAVITS FROM WITNESSES also state a Bandido nearly struck a Cossack with his motorcycle in the parking lot. Members of both groups converged. Several Bandidos and Cossacks pulled out guns and knives, and shot and stabbed each other.
Of the 239 people who were detained after the shootout, more than 488 weapons - some illegal - were recovered from the crime scene, including 151 firearms.
This bears repeating: Of the 239 people who were detained after the shootout, more than 488 weapons - some illegal - were recovered from the crime scene, including 151 firearms.
Now, go ahead and try to tell me how these “law abiding citizens” were just there to have a friendly get-together, and the police had no cause for alarm. And, please don’t try to sell the story that this evidence is just all made up by the media and police. This comes straight out of the DA’s seizure filing, and he is not about to blow the whole case by citing evidence here that he cannot absolutely show.
Here’s a question for you: If a group of two hundred Black Panthers walked on to the premises of your local predominantly white restaurant while you were having lunch there with your family, took up strategic positions in the restaurant and parking lot, then pulled guns and started waving them around and firing them, what would you expect the police to do? Because according to the evidence so far, the police were legally justified in their actions at Twin Peaks.
Good idea given the conspiracy theory nuttiness surrounding this event.
How many handguns shoot pointed bullets?
http://m.wacotrib.com/news/twin-peaks-biker-shooting/autopsies-released-in-twin-peaks-biker-deaths/article_4b1e45fb-3941-540c-9783-ecc9908c366a.html?mode=jqm
Not all the autopsies reference bullet size. Of the ones that do, one references small caliber bullets, the others are medium caliber bullets.
I have done a lot of reloading. Never seen a bullet stamped with a code (yet).
Read my post regarding two cases of low velocity head and neck wounds in the more recent thread. Compare those cases with the tissues damage in the autopsy reports. The evidence is there. Hypersonic velocity tissue damage.
I carefully read each autopsy report before I ever posted any conclusion.
“...VIDEOS from Twin Peaks and Don Carlos show several Cossacks reach under their vests and appear to adjust their weapons or check their weapons. They had handguns and knives as they walked around the patio, and officers said...
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Do YOU have links to the “VIDEOS from Twin Peaks and Don Carlos” to which you make reference? Of course you don’t because the authorities who conducted this BATF provocation operation gone bad are not releasing them to the public...they’re just releasing THEIR spin on the videos.
And the LAST TWO WORDS of the extract I made in this post (”officers said”) are reflective of all the “information” you are allowing yourself to rely upon. I’d be careful to take the selective release of “information” with a full deer lick of salt before arriving at any settled conclusion.
In spite of what Jr. boyette claims he saw, read his Dad’s autopsy report. Both head wounds had “quarter inch entr(ies)” through scalp overlying bone (tissue elasticity not a factor) and both did considerable damage to the brain and then both either penetrated or came to rest in Petrous bone. There is a reason it is named Petrous bone. I also, again, suggest you read my post about two sub sonic injuries in the other thread and ponder a bit.
>>> How many handguns shoot pointed bullets? <<<
You’ve concatenated multiple thoughts and there was no statement that “handguns shoot pointed bullets” although there are some semi-conical (perhaps truncated conical?) JHP pistol rounds available which are more ‘pointed’ than the basic round-nosed ball ammunition.
I guess we need to wait for the ballistics reports (which will probably be delayed until sometime next summer) before reaching any firm conclusions.
>>> I have done a lot of reloading. Never seen a bullet stamped with a code (yet). <<<
I haven’t seen any either, but then I haven’t seen EVERYTHING in existence and I’m open to new ideas.
If you’d read down a couple of posts, you’d have found I was corrected on that particular item and learned something new.
>>> . Hypersonic velocity tissue damage. <<<
I’m curious as to what ‘hypersonic’ means in this context. I know that ‘trans-sonic’ is more general and would mean anything over sound velocity and would include hypersonic, but where does hypersonic begin?
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