OT - Retired Green Beret shoots intruder, gets court martial

[treespider]

Retired Green Beret shoots intruder, gets court martial

BREVARD, Jan. 19, 2008 - Retired Army Green Beret James T. (Smokey) Taylor got his court martial this weekend and came away feeling pretty good about it.

Taylor, at age 79, is one of the oldest members of Chapter XXXIII (The Larry Thorne Chapter) of the Special Forces Association. He was placed on trial by fellow Chapter XXXIII members under the charge of "failing to use a weapon of sufficient caliber" in the shooting of an intruder at his home in Knoxville, TN, in November.

The court martial, of course, was very much tongue in cheek. The event itself was deadly serious.

Taylor had been awakened in the early morning hours of November 5, 2007,when an intruder broke into his home. He investigated the noises with one of his many weapons in hand.

"It was just after Halloween, on Monday morning at 4:30," Taylor said. I heard this commotion at the door and grabbed my fishing gun, a little .22 revolver, to see what was going on. I got to the front door and this fellow had ripped my security door out of its frame. He said, 'you're going to have to kill me. I'm coming in.'"

When a warning to leave went unheeded, Taylor brought his .22 caliber pistol to bear and shot him right between the eyes.

"I was about four feet away from him when I shot," Taylor said. "Looking back now, I'm glad he didn't die, but that boy had the hardest head I've ever seen. The bullet bounced right off."

The impact knocked the would-be thief down momentarily. He crawled out of the house then got up and ran down the street. Taylor dialed 911 and Knoxville police apprehended the wounded man about 200 yards away, hiding in a hedgerow.

Complicating the case, as well as the court martial, the offender was released on bail but failed to appear for his court date. Knoxville police said the man was homeless. They did not know his whereabouts or why he had been given bail.

The charges brought against Taylor by his fellow Green Berets were considered to be serious. He is a retired Special Forces Weapons Sergeant with extensive combat experience during the wars in Korea and Vietnam.

"Charges were brought against him under the premise that he should have saved the county and taxpayers the expense of a trial," said Chapter XXXIII President Bill Long of Asheville, NC.

The trial was held at the Hampton Inn in Brevard, part of the group's regularly scheduled quarterly meeting. Long appointed a judge, Bert Bates, a defense counsel, Jim Hash, and a prosecutor, Charlie Ponds. All are retired Special Forces non-commissioned officers with extensive combat and weapons experience.

Ponds outlined the case against Taylor, emphasizing that the citizens of Knox County were going to be burdened with significant costs to again apprehend, and then prosecute and defend the would-be burglar.

"Proper choice of a larger caliber gun would have spared the citizens this financial burden," Ponds said, "while removing one bad guy from the streets for good. He could have used a .45 or .38. The .22 just wasn't big enough to get the job done. Hash disagreed. He said Taylor had done the right thing in choosing to arm himself with a 22.

"If he'd used a .45 or something like that the round would have gone right through the perp, the wall, the neighbor's wall and possibly injured some innocent child asleep in its bed. I believe the evidence shows that Smokey Taylor exercised excellent judgment in his choice of weapons. He clearly remains to this day an excellent weapons man."

Hash then floated a theory as to why the bullet bounced off the perp's forehead.

"He was victimized by old ammunition," he said, "just as he was in Korea and again in Vietnam, when his units were issued ammo left over from World War II."

Taylor said nothing in his own defense, choosing instead to allow his peers to debate the matter. The jury, consisting of all the members of the Chapter, discussed the merits of choosing a larger caliber weapon as well as the obvious benefits to society of permanently deleting the intruder so he would never again threaten any private citizen.

The other side of the coin, that of accidentally causing injury to a completely innocent citizen if a more powerful gun had been used, also gained considerable support.

Following testimony from both sides, Judge Bates determined the charges should be dismissed. The decision was met with a round of applause. In fact, there was strong sentiment expressed that Taylor should receive an award for not only choosing wisely in picking up the 22, but for the accuracy of his aim under difficult and dangerous conditions.

After the trial Taylor said the ammunition was indeed old and added the new information that the perp had soiled his pants as he crawled out the door.

"I would have had an even worse mess to clean up if it had gone through his forehead," Taylor said. "It was good for both of us that it didn't."

Meanwhile, back in Knox County, the word is out: Don't go messing with Smokey Taylor He just bought a whole bunch of fresh ammo.

[DuckofTindalos]

[:D][:D]

[Speedysteve]

[&o]

[Yava]

[:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]

[decaro]

An amazing story, but how does a homeless intruder get and make bail?

Actually, a 22 caliber should be more than sufficient to stop an intruder dead in his tracks if it penetrates a fleshy area and then bounces off his internal organs like a pin ball; this usu. results in severe injuries w/internal bleeding. In other words, if he manages to crawl away, he doesn't get very far.

Besides, the M-16 round is essentially a large 22, but w/a lot of powder behind it.

[Feltan]

ORIGINAL: Joe D.
...Besides, the M-16 round is essentially a large 22, but w/a lot of powder behind it.

Correct. Which is why I always chose an older M-14 if given the option. The 7.62 round will set someone on their backside with one hit --- while the 5.56 has a tendancy to only slow down the bad guy.

Regards,
Feltan

[rogueusmc]

the 5.56 NATO is a high grain .223 hunting round. It is designed for acuracy at range not stopping power. The round does it's damage by having a slight wobble in flight that turns to a tumble upon impact. The tumbling is what tears the tussue up. I once saw the after report of a M-16 wound that hit the man's body in the shoulder and tubled under the skin to the wrist before exiting the body. It did a lot of damage...

[DaveB]

at the door and grabbed my fishing gun, a little .22 revolver

 
Not very sporting chaps, over here in the UK we use a rod and line....
 
Dave

[Mynok]

It's more sporting than this:

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: Feltan

ORIGINAL: Joe D.
...Besides, the M-16 round is essentially a large 22, but w/a lot of powder behind it.

Correct. Which is why I always chose an older M-14 if given the option. The 7.62 round will set someone on their backside with one hit ...

Why not go all the way w/an M-1 Garand? You won't even have to shoot it; just hit him w/the butt of the rifle and down he goes!

[Feltan]

ORIGINAL: rogueusmc

the 5.56 NATO is a high grain .223 hunting round. It is designed for acuracy at range not stopping power. The round does it's damage by having a slight wobble in flight that turns to a tumble upon impact. The tumbling is what tears the tussue up. I once saw the after report of a M-16 wound that hit the man's body in the shoulder and tubled under the skin to the wrist before exiting the body. It did a lot of damage...

This is largely an urban myth. It was experimented with during the initial M16A1 timeframe but discarded as impracticle. A "slight wobble" is entirely inconsistent with accuracy. It never made production.

With regard to accuracy, you're talking about 450 meters or so. Not bad, and better than an AK, but not exactly a marksman's weapon. The M-14 is accurate out to 800 meters, but you really need a scope to take advantage of that range; a human target is pretty small at 500m let alone 800m.

Regards,
Feltan

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: rogueusmc

the 5.56 NATO is a high grain .223 hunting round. It is designed for acuracy at range not stopping power. The round does it's damage by having a slight wobble in flight that turns to a tumble upon impact. The tumbling is what tears the tussue up ...

My understanding of the M16's 5.56 mm kinetic-energy round was that a small projectile at high velocity builds-up a great deal of potential energy in flight; this translates into kinetic energy upon impact into soft tissue, i.e., bouncing/tumbling.

But here's a more detailed, if not gruesome, explanation of this round.

...Take an average M855 round, the standard round of "green-tip" rifle ammunition used by U.S. forces in both the M4 and M16 series weapons and in the M249 SAW. The 62-grain projectile has an exterior copper jacket, a lead core, and a center steel penetrator designed to punch through steel or body armor. An M16 launches the M855 at roughly 3,050 feet per second, and the M855 follows a ballistic trajectory to its target, rotating about its axis the entire way, and gradually slowing down. Eventually, the bullet slows enough that it becomes unstable and wanders from its flight path, though this does not typically happen within the primary ranges of rifle engagements (0-600m). (For more detailed ballistic discussion, see FM 3-22.9).

Upon impacting the target, the bullet penetrates tissue and begins to slow. Some distance into the target, the tissue acting on the bullet also causes the bullet to rotate erratically or yaw; the location and amount of yaw depend upon speed of the bullet at impact, angle of impact, and density of the tissue. If the bullet is moving fast enough, it may also begin to break up, with pieces spreading away from the main path of the bullet to damage other tissue. If the target is thick enough, all of these fragments may come to rest in the target, or they may exit the target. Meanwhile, the impacted tissue rebounds away from the path of the bullet, creating what is known as a "temporary cavity." Some of the tissue is smashed or torn by the bullet itself, or its fragments; some expands too far and tears. The temporary cavity eventually rebounds, leaving behind the torn tissue in the wound track--the "permanent cavity." It is this permanent cavity that is most significant, as it represents the damaged tissue that can impair and eventually kill the target, provided, of course, that the damaged tissue is actually some place on the body that is critical.
From: Infantry Magazine | Date: 9/1/2006 | Author: Dean, Glenn; Lafontaine, David

The article also said, "What the wound ballistics community at large has long known is that the effectiveness of a round of ammunition is directly related to the location, volume, and severity of tissue damage. In other words, a well-placed .22 caliber round can be far more lethal than a poorly placed .50 caliber machine gun round."

In other words, Taylor should have aimed lower.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: DaveB

at the door and grabbed my fishing gun, a little .22 revolver

Not very sporting chaps, over here in the UK we use a rod and line....

Dave

I'm completely with you..., only I use the 14" sword bayonet on my SMLE. Which always leaves the option of putting a .303 deer slug in the fellow if he seems feisty.

[Big B]

For those of you too young to remember, the 5.56mm round controversy has been around since about 1966 in Vietnam.

I have done years of reading on it (besides being an avid shooter and an infantryman who was issued the M-16A1), and discussing the effect/non-effect with other serious shooters for a lot of years.

To sum it up and simplify it - everything you have heard about 5.56mm/.223 tumbling and doing massive damage is quite true...and everything you have ever heard about its making a .223 cal hole going in - and a .223 cal hole going out, while the target got up and kept going is also true.

The answer to this paradox seems to be that it all depends on the range the target (bad-guy) was hit at. At close range..probably under 100 meters, the effect is all to often not great. At ranges over 100 meters the round tends to do the tumbling act and tear the target up. It really comes down to velocity and angle it strikes the target at. If V and Angle is sufficiently lowered it will go unstable, if it is still high (over 3200 fps in the old M-16) it tends to go clean through without going unstable.

B

ORIGINAL: Joe D.

ORIGINAL: rogueusmc

the 5.56 NATO is a high grain .223 hunting round. It is designed for acuracy at range not stopping power. The round does it's damage by having a slight wobble in flight that turns to a tumble upon impact. The tumbling is what tears the tussue up ...

My understanding of the M16's 5.56 mm kinetic-energy round was that a small projectile at high velocity builds-up a great deal of potential energy in flight; this translates into kinetic energy upon impact into soft tissue, i.e., bouncing/tumbling.

But here's a more detailed, if not gruesome, explanation of this round.

...Take an average M855 round, the standard round of "green-tip" rifle ammunition used by U.S. forces in both the M4 and M16 series weapons and in the M249 SAW. The 62-grain projectile has an exterior copper jacket, a lead core, and a center steel penetrator designed to punch through steel or body armor. An M16 launches the M855 at roughly 3,050 feet per second, and the M855 follows a ballistic trajectory to its target, rotating about its axis the entire way, and gradually slowing down. Eventually, the bullet slows enough that it becomes unstable and wanders from its flight path, though this does not typically happen within the primary ranges of rifle engagements (0-600m). (For more detailed ballistic discussion, see FM 3-22.9).

Upon impacting the target, the bullet penetrates tissue and begins to slow. Some distance into the target, the tissue acting on the bullet also causes the bullet to rotate erratically or yaw; the location and amount of yaw depend upon speed of the bullet at impact, angle of impact, and density of the tissue. If the bullet is moving fast enough, it may also begin to break up, with pieces spreading away from the main path of the bullet to damage other tissue. If the target is thick enough, all of these fragments may come to rest in the target, or they may exit the target. Meanwhile, the impacted tissue rebounds away from the path of the bullet, creating what is known as a "temporary cavity." Some of the tissue is smashed or torn by the bullet itself, or its fragments; some expands too far and tears. The temporary cavity eventually rebounds, leaving behind the torn tissue in the wound track--the "permanent cavity." It is this permanent cavity that is most significant, as it represents the damaged tissue that can impair and eventually kill the target, provided, of course, that the damaged tissue is actually some place on the body that is critical.
From: Infantry Magazine | Date: 9/1/2006 | Author: Dean, Glenn; Lafontaine, David

The article also said, "What the wound ballistics community at large has long known is that the effectiveness of a round of ammunition is directly related to the location, volume, and severity of tissue damage. In other words, a well-placed .22 caliber round can be far more lethal than a poorly placed .50 caliber machine gun round."

In other words, Taylor should have aimed lower.

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: treespider

... When a warning to leave went unheeded, Taylor brought his .22 caliber pistol to bear and shot him right between the eyes.

"I was about four feet away from him when I shot," Taylor said. "Looking back now, I'm glad he didn't die, but that boy had the hardest head I've ever seen. The bullet bounced right off."

... The human body is a very complex target, one that has a number of built-in mechanisms that allow it to absorb damage and continue to function. Compared to a tank, it is far more difficult to predict a human target's composition and what bullet design will be most advantageous (Infantry Magazine).

"That boy" must have had a forehead similar to the sloping armor on front of a T-34.

[rogueusmc]

ORIGINAL: Big B

For those of you too young to remember, the 5.56mm round controversy has been around since about 1966 in Vietnam.

I have done years of reading on it (besides being an avid shooter and an infantryman who was issued the M-16A1), and discussing the effect/non-effect with other serious shooters for a lot of years.

To sum it up and simplify it - everything you have heard about 5.56mm/.223 tumbling and doing massive damage is quite true...and everything you have ever heard about its making a .223 cal hole going in - and a .223 cal hole going out, while the target got up and kept going is also true.

The answer to this paradox seems to be that it all depends on the range the target (bad-guy) was hit at. At close range..probably under 100 meters, the effect is all to often not great. At ranges over 100 meters the round tends to do the tumbling act and tear the target up. It really comes down to velocity and angle it strikes the target at. If V and Angle is sufficiently lowered it will go unstable, if it is still high (over 3200 fps in the old M-16) it tends to go clean through without going unstable.

B

ORIGINAL: Joe D.

ORIGINAL: rogueusmc

the 5.56 NATO is a high grain .223 hunting round. It is designed for acuracy at range not stopping power. The round does it's damage by having a slight wobble in flight that turns to a tumble upon impact. The tumbling is what tears the tussue up ...

My understanding of the M16's 5.56 mm kinetic-energy round was that a small projectile at high velocity builds-up a great deal of potential energy in flight; this translates into kinetic energy upon impact into soft tissue, i.e., bouncing/tumbling.

But here's a more detailed, if not gruesome, explanation of this round.

...Take an average M855 round, the standard round of "green-tip" rifle ammunition used by U.S. forces in both the M4 and M16 series weapons and in the M249 SAW. The 62-grain projectile has an exterior copper jacket, a lead core, and a center steel penetrator designed to punch through steel or body armor. An M16 launches the M855 at roughly 3,050 feet per second, and the M855 follows a ballistic trajectory to its target, rotating about its axis the entire way, and gradually slowing down. Eventually, the bullet slows enough that it becomes unstable and wanders from its flight path, though this does not typically happen within the primary ranges of rifle engagements (0-600m). (For more detailed ballistic discussion, see FM 3-22.9).

Upon impacting the target, the bullet penetrates tissue and begins to slow. Some distance into the target, the tissue acting on the bullet also causes the bullet to rotate erratically or yaw; the location and amount of yaw depend upon speed of the bullet at impact, angle of impact, and density of the tissue. If the bullet is moving fast enough, it may also begin to break up, with pieces spreading away from the main path of the bullet to damage other tissue. If the target is thick enough, all of these fragments may come to rest in the target, or they may exit the target. Meanwhile, the impacted tissue rebounds away from the path of the bullet, creating what is known as a "temporary cavity." Some of the tissue is smashed or torn by the bullet itself, or its fragments; some expands too far and tears. The temporary cavity eventually rebounds, leaving behind the torn tissue in the wound track--the "permanent cavity." It is this permanent cavity that is most significant, as it represents the damaged tissue that can impair and eventually kill the target, provided, of course, that the damaged tissue is actually some place on the body that is critical.
From: Infantry Magazine | Date: 9/1/2006 | Author: Dean, Glenn; Lafontaine, David

The article also said, "What the wound ballistics community at large has long known is that the effectiveness of a round of ammunition is directly related to the location, volume, and severity of tissue damage. In other words, a well-placed .22 caliber round can be far more lethal than a poorly placed .50 caliber machine gun round."

In other words, Taylor should have aimed lower.

I'm just remembering the classes I had...damn...18 years ago at ammo school at Redstone Arsenal.

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: rogueusmc

I'm just remembering the classes I had...damn...18 years ago at ammo school at Redstone Arsenal.

The last time I shot an M16 for record was in 2000. Regardless of the ammo, I never liked that weapon. It looked more like a tool than a rifle; the stock was too small -- now none at all -- and I had to yank, instead of squeeze, the trigger.

When the range was over, the incessant cleaning of all it's parts "cured" me of my love of shooting.

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: Joe D.

ORIGINAL: treespider

... When a warning to leave went unheeded, Taylor brought his .22 caliber pistol to bear and shot him right between the eyes.

"I was about four feet away from him when I shot," Taylor said. "Looking back now, I'm glad he didn't die, but that boy had the hardest head I've ever seen. The bullet bounced right off."

... The human body is a very complex target, one that has a number of built-in mechanisms that allow it to absorb damage and continue to function. Compared to a tank, it is far more difficult to predict a human target's composition and what bullet design will be most advantageous (Infantry Magazine).

"That boy" must have had a forehead similar to the sloping armor on front of a T-34.

You have to remember this took place in East Tennessee where most locals have sloping foreheads....[:D]

Original: Joe D.
An amazing story, but how does a homeless intruder get and make bail?

Likewise....this is East Tennessee

[Coach Z]

Wow last time I fired an M16............most have been somethin like 1986 or 1987!
Never liked it much either!
 
Much prefered the 105mm gun on the M60 or M1 or even the 25mm chain gun on the Bradley!

[Son of Jorg]

I must be the only liberal on these boards haha