Years ago when I was a police officer in Columbus Ohio, we had a situation where an officer shot a charging bad guy who was hit in the center of his jaw. The 158 grain copper jacketed round shattered his jaw at the center line, took out a row of lower teeth broke his jaw again just below the ear taking out a bit of skull. The bullet then entered a twin single with both families home, passed through the outside wall, another wall on one side of a stairway, a second wall in the stairway, the shared wall between the apartments and stuck in the back of a couch. The bad guy (Wimpy Hairston) a well known professional burglar, did not stop, but ran past the officer punching a ride along lawyer to be, unconscious along the way. Wimpy was shot in the rear a few hours later by one of the hundreds of armed citizens sitting on his porch .22 rifle in hand listening to his police scanner. We found Wimpy a few blocks away under a parked truck. The folks exposed to the round passing through their house were upset because of the level were the round traveled was about as high as their little girl had she been in the living room.  The investigation ended with a change of ammo for the whole department. Half jacketed flat nose hollow points.

Goes into gelatin about 3 inches. Expands to the size of a quarter. It stays in one piece most of the time. Falls on the floor after passing through two layers of drywall. Very much less powder in this round and almost no recoil to take you off the target. I suspect a similar amount of thought went into the rounds used by the air marshals. Probably.

 

A year later, Wimpy met us outside the courtroom and we did not recognize him. He had lost 200 pounds. He shook hands with all of us and apologized for the trouble he had caused. He was always happier in prison where all of his friends lived. He pled guilty and got another 10 years. He was happy again.

 

 

Lynn E. Hanover 

 

On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 9:30 PM, <bktrub@aol.com> wrote:

I hope the airliners' skins are not stressed that highly.

Just the same ... Air Marshals have a special load. It's a hollow point like I've never seen before. It won't be a through-and-through that's for sure.