Despite FSRC findings to the contrary, some law enforcement sources still regard spent shell casings as immutable pieces of forensic evidence and seem prepared to rely on them to judge the truthfulness of officers’ accounts of controversial shootings. Consider a New York Times report on Dec. 8 about the investigation into the high-profile New York...Read More
Nearly 8,000 rounds fired by Los Angeles County (CA) sheriff’s deputies have now conclusively proved what the Force Science Research Center first asserted more than 2 years ago: The single greatest influence on where spent shell casings land when ejected from a semiautomatic handgun is how the pistol is physically manipulated by the shooter, not...Read More
An expanded study of shell casing ejection patterns, with important legal implications for law enforcement, has just been completed by the Force Science Research Center, with cooperation of the Los Angeles County (CA) Sheriff’s Dept. Details and an analysis will be reported in the next issue of Force Science News, but FSRC Executive Director Bill...Read More
TRUE or FALSE: Spent shell casings ejected from a semiautomatic handgun at a shooting scene can reliably tell where a shooter stood when he fired rounds. In keeping with law enforcement lore, most officers, firearms trainers and crime scene investigators would likely say that’s true, given the operational consistency of a pistol’s ejection mechanism. But...Read More
