Path: utzoo!lsuc!ecicrl!clewis From: clewis@ecicrl.UUCP (Chris Lewis) Newsgroups: tor.general Subject: Re: Toronto Police Summary: It's time to shut up. Message-ID: <200@ecicrl.UUCP> Date: 28 Jan 89 03:30:55 GMT References: <157@aimed.UUCP> <4674@hcr.UUCP> <89Jan23.093655est.38021@neat.ai.toronto.edu> <4742@hcr.UUCP> <1989Jan24.133658.23930@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> <4761@hcr.UUCP> <1989Jan26.112904.22906@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> Reply-To: clewis@ecicrl.UUCP (Chris Lewis) Distribution: tor Organization: Elegant Communications Inc. (CRL Division) Lines: 92 HEY EVERYBODY! This is getting out of hand. If you think that the media can totally screw up a story, just carefully go thru all of the conflicting rumors here. The media can't screw up anything near as bad as USENET does. What I'm seeing going past here makes the newspaper stories about rec.humor.funny look like gospel from the mount. I strongly recommend that everyone stop further speculation. There seem to be just as many stories as there are people. The media is not doing a good job in telling what happened or is claimed to have happened. From the complete mismash of stuff here, you'd almost think people are inventing their own versions. This is an extremely sensitive issue - let's wait for the hearing where everyone gets to tell their story under oath. Spreading unsubstantiated rumor like this discussion is doing won't do anyone any good. Especially if someone from the net ends up on the jury.... The AG is keeping his mouth shut for a reason - to not prejudice the trial - let's not make the job harder than it already is. If you want to talk fine points of law (eg: procedure leading up to trial) or more general issues, fine. Just no more speculation on what might have happened. Okay? I'm not singling the article I'm following up on out for any particular reason, except for the following statement - which is simply an example of how twisted this story is getting: In article <1989Jan26.112904.22906@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> sarathy@gpu.utcs.UUCP (Rajiv Sarathy) writes: >I seriously doubt that the bullet richocheted off something and then hit him. >You took out the line I had in my original posting saying that the bullet was >HOLLOW-TIPPED. I've read that these bullets do VERY LITTLE damage once they ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Wrong. Hollow-tipped is the same thing as "mushroom". Any hollow tip round larger than 22 caliber will take half your head off. You ever see "The Day of the Jackal", where he's testing his bullets on a watermelon and practically the whole thing disappears in a cloud of pink spray? Or, slow motion footage of the carnage that Lee Harvey Oswald caused? Or what even a .22 short mushroom will do to a bar of soap? (great fun, BTW ;-} *That's* hollow tip. The media was referring to soft-point *NOT* hollow-tip. If the police officer had used hollow-tip he would have been charged *immediately* with murder. "Soft-point" is something somewhat different: the bullet deforms on impact. These can be "optimized" for several different results: 1) minimal penetration (so it doesn't go thru walls and three other people you didn't know were there) 2) Maximal damage. 3) Maximal shock. The bullets that hit Bastien (the OPP shooting discussed previously) were (1) - police bullets specifically designed for the purpose of hitting one and only one person. Good ol' Bob Rae made a big thing about soft-point and their prohibition. Far from it - they *do* have a place. Even those designed for "max damage" or "max shock". These are hunting bullets - to ensure as quick a kill as possible of large animals. The use of anything but mushroom or soft-point rounds for big game hunting is extremely cruel and stupid. >hit something because their velocity diminishes to relatively VERY LOW once >they hit something, and their mass is much less than a regular bullet. Hence, >if you know anything about physics, you know that their kinetic energy will >be even lower than the ratio of differences between the velocity and mass, >since they're being multiplied (the product of two small fractions is a smaller >fraction). Exactly - most mushroom rounds will almost completely disintegrate when they hit anything solid, thus making your conclusion: >CONCLUSION: THE BULLET WENT STRAIGHT THROUGH THE GLASS AND INTO THE DRIVER'S > HEAD. THIS IMPLIES THAT THE COP WAS EITHER A VERY POOR SHOOTER > OR HE AIMED AT THE DRIVER. nonsensical. Not to mention problems of glass refraction and the abysmal lighting conditions that were present. In perfect lighting conditions, with near-zero refraction in the window, constant velocity (eg: the driver conveniently lets up on the gas), and a *hard* point round, a policeman just *might* be able to hit something the size of someone's head on purpose. *Nobody* shoots as good as Dirty Harry. -- Chris Lewis, Markham, Ontario, Canada {uunet!attcan,utgpu,yunexus,utzoo}!lsuc!ecicrl!clewis Ferret Mailing list: ...!lsuc!gate!eci386!ferret-request (or lsuc!gate!eci386!clewis or lsuc!clewis)