CMPD Officer Struck By Falling Bullet

During the first moments of 2012 a CMPD Officer was apparently struck by a falling bullet.

There is no indication that the Officer was targeted, rather the errant bullet was fired into the air in celebration of the start of 2012 and oddly enough struck the officer in the shoulder.

The unnamed officer was transported to CMC by his Steel Creek Division Response Area Commander (RAC) Lt. Pam Lisenby, and was released from the hospital a short while later. The Officer's injuries were limited to serious bruising.

This is were it gets cute, apparently RAC Lisenby told Officers to delete the Officer's name from the report and list the victim only as "Person" specifically ordering officers to alter the report to keep it out of the media.

No explanation from CMPD for the "Cover Up" but Rob Tufano's "action report" issued on Sunday states "no officers sustained injuries" during CMPD patrol efforts in conjuction with New Year's Eve.

Cedar Posts emailed Tufano and RAC Lisenby as usual nothing but "crickets" from Tufano or CMPD Command staff.

Cedar Bonus:

From Wikipedia, bullets fired into the air usually fall back at speeds much lower than those at which they leave the barrel of a firearm. Nevertheless, people can be injured, sometimes fatally, when bullets discharged into the air fall back down. The mortality rate among those struck by falling bullets is about 32%, compared with about 2% to 6% normally associated with gunshot wounds. The higher mortality is related to the higher incidence of head wounds from falling bullets.

A study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 80% of celebratory gunfire-related injuries are to the head, feet, and shoulders.

MythBusters covered this topic in Episode 50: "Bullets Fired Up"

Using pig carcasses, they worked out the terminal velocity of a falling bullet and had a mixed result, answering the question with all three of the show's possible outcomes: Confirmed, Plausible and Busted.

They tested falling bullets by firing them from both a handgun and a rifle, by firing them from an air gun designed to propel them at terminal velocity, and by dropping them in the desert from an instrumented balloon. The "busted" result applied only to bullets traveling on a perfectly vertical trajectory, which tumble on the way down, creating turbulence that reduces terminal velocity.

The "plausible" result was cited because they found it was very difficult to fire a bullet in near-ideal vertical trajectory, so bullets were likely to remain spin-stabilized on a ballistic trajectory and fall at a potentially lethal terminal velocity.

The "confirmed" result related to their research which verified cases of actual deaths from falling bullets.

Cedar's Take: Only a moron would randomly fire a gun into the air and this same moron will start running his mouth. Only a matter of time before this idiot is charged.