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Cop Shoots 5-year old Boy while trying to kill snake

SteveGrenard

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Cop Shoots 5-year old Boy while trying to kill snake

In what has to be one of the greatest police errors of judgement or plain insanity/stupidity or trigger-happy syndrome I have ever heard of, an Oklahoma police officer tried to kill a snake by firing at it with his handgun. He didn't get the snake but he killed a child instead.

Reports said the snake was either in a tree, in a bird house or in the rafters of a house (the true story apparently hasn't surfaced yet). Shooting a snake is very difficult at distance especially if it is on a different elevation than the shooter.

NOBLE — The first shot was so loud it made the hair stand straight up on Jack Tracy's arm. The bullet hit the water just a few feet in front of the boat dock where he was standing.

Instinctively, he pulled his 5-year-old grandson, Austin Haley, close to his left side and began yelling that there were people down by the pond.

Then came the second shot, and the unforgettable thump of a 9 mm bullet penetrating a young boy's skull.

Tracy thought he and his grandson were under attack, so he threw the boy into the back of a 4-wheeler and drove to his daughter's house about 200 yards away.
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This account mentions the snake being in a tree. --go to URL:

http://newsok.com/article/3098919

There are some 46 species of snakes in Oklahoma, most of which (39) are completely harmless. Any snake in a tree or a bird house is probably looking for a meal and that excludes the venomous species in the state, none of which are normally arboreal.

Here is a list of native snakes in Okahoma.

http://www.okherp.com/herpindex.html


Differing news accounts are starting to come in, here’s short excerpts from two of them that differ:

from news accounts:

Much later, Tracy said, he found out one of the officers had fired two shots in the Crest Lane neighborhood, trying to kill a snake that had become lodged in a birdhouse on the back porch of a house just up the hill from Tracy's pond.

Police had gotten a call of a snake complaint from a woman on Crest Lane, whose 16-year-old daughter saw the snake hanging about 3 feet of its body outside a neighbor's bird house on Friday.
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And there is this account:

Noble police were responding to a call of a live snake that was stuck in the rafters of a house about 6:30 p.m. Friday in a rural part of Noble in the Crestdale addition off of South Etowah Road when the incident happened, Wade said.

“One of the officers made the decision to shoot the snake,” he said. “After he fired, they heard a commotion coming from a field behind the house.”
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Disobeyed one the very most basic rules of firearm safety if this is true.

And if it is, he will be the guy they talk about from now on whenever they teach that lesson.
 
Can someone clarify, if the snake was UP, shouldn't the officer have shot UP, how did it hit someone level or down from him?
 
ponderingturtle said:
Gravity.
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This is being discussed on a snake related forum and one of the posters, Paul Barry, who lives in Oklahoma posted this:

I copied an Google Earth view of the area where the shooting occurred. Apparently no tree was involved but a snake identified by a local as a diamond back (unconfirmed) was tucked into a birdhouse on a backyard patio on Crest Lane at the left. No further identification of the exact house or pond are given, but quick measurements put the distance between these ponds and the houses at between one tenth and two tenths of a mile.or 500 to 1000 feet, Gun caliber was variously stated to be 9mm, or the more likely .40 S&W which is a very popular weapon for police. Apparently cops were told that there were just empty fields behind the house. Second shot was claimed to have killed the snake. But the 9mm has a very high pentrating power and will carry on after hitting a target, but is lighter weight than the .40. The forty caliber has what is called stopping power, but is also likely, given the low mass of the snake and bird house, carry on for a portion of its normal range. That maximum range is about 1800 yd s as I recall. If the snake and bird house absorbed 2/3s of the energy, the shot could have still gone another 510 yards, or 1500 feet or less if they were firing at a 45 degree angle to the snake. It was probably half that, and a lower flatter trajectory.
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Third rule of gun safety: know your target, what's in front of it and what's behind it.

Freaking... moron. The guy needs to go to jail for manslaughter.
 
:( Another in the long line of news stories that, a few years ago, would have struck me as sad and tragic and filled me with disgust. Now that I am a parent, they absolutely horrify me.
 
Newtons Bit said:
Third rule of gun safety: know your target, what's in front of it and what's behind it.

Freaking... moron. The guy needs to go to jail for manslaughter.
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Agreed. A horrible tragedy and unthinkable irresponsibility.

Among shooters in my area, we have a general running gag about the police.

One of our nicer outdoor ranges was repeatedly shut down because stray bullets were finding their way into the walls of nearby businesses. The thought that somehow a person could be hurt or killed was appalling, as it should be. It was suspected a group of police officers were out there "hot dogging" and ignoring the range rules.

Some range officials caught them the last time. They were doing exactly what was suspected. Completely violating safety rules and screwing around.

At an indoor range I actually ratted out someone known to be an officer. He was trying to dislodge a jam while pointing his handgun toward people. I don't know if it's a local problem or what, but I just don't understand why I've seen so much behavior among the police, and much less of it among every day types.
 
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