Guilty!!!

No doubt.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
Some fragments of lead separate from the jacket fragment were also reportedly recovered at autopsy. That could support the idea that the bullet blew up on a thin bone column and remained in a (very) few inches of tissue, or it could have happened after the fragmented bullet struck his neck. In any event it’s not something I would bet the rent on. I will, however, be interested in the autopsy report if it is ever released. ...

This was what I recalled. (in the first several paragraphs)

https://www.foxnews.com/us/tyl...ination-charlie-kirk

"...Two law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation told Fox News last month that the reason the ATF was unable to match the bullet to the rifle is because when the bullet impacted Kirk’s body it hit bone and broke on impact. ..."

Thanks. If two (anonymous) law enforcement (what agency?) officials say something about guns and terminal ballistics that settles it. Every gun owner knows that LEOs are the final authorities about the subject; they demonstrate that all the time.

The current group of talking heads out there seem to think no one wondered about the details right after the event occurred.
This forum determined a long time ago that the bullet hit something on the way to the target, causing great loss of weight and velocity. I think the furry lover had a completely one in a million hit and result.

I can't even be certain that he didn't flub up and discharge the rifle without aiming (like way low), then ran off shocked that he hit anything at all.

There are trees about halfway between CK and the shooter, it ain't tough to figure out.

I'm re-posting this on the new page so that it's sure to be seen.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Let me ask you guys- and a simple yes or no with no elaboration is what I'm looking for: Based upon the facts in evidence, is there any doubt in your mind that this Robinson guy shot Charlie Kirk?

Step right up, if you please. No elaboration; just yes, I have doubts, or no, I am certain.

No doubt whatsoever. Weird bullet behavior is simply another discussion, and one probably not worth wasting a lot of time on. He’s as guilty as Oswald. But even in that open and closed case was the Sylvia Odio “loose end”, if you want to call it that.

quote:

Originally posted by 83v45magna:
I can't even be certain that he didn't flub up and discharge the rifle without aiming (like way low), then ran off shocked that he hit anything at all.

That was my immediate thought along with what I’ve explained regarding why Mr. Kirk was hit with just a bullet fragment that first struck something else.

A show of hands among the shooters on the forum: Have you ever jerked a shot so that the bullet didn’t go where you wanted it to? I’ll confess to having done it myself—perhaps even more than once.

In one of the most famous rifle assassinations of all, a marksmanship-trained former member of an elite military force managed to completely miss an entire car from about the same distance as this incident.

This killer was reportedly a hunter and therefore had some familiarity with guns, as was also demonstrated by his choice of ammunition and weapon. Like most hunters, though, I strongly doubt that he was a highly-skilled and -experienced precision rifle marksman. Nervous, tensed, working at speed (to assemble a rifle?) while hoping to not be spotted, getting into a possibly unfamiliar shooting position on uncomfortable gravel, evidently no artificial support like a bag or bipod or even a sling: Is it conceivably possible that the shot wasn’t fired with enough skill to ensure absolute deliberate accuracy—?
Heck, I might have missed that shot myself. (As was demonstrated during my first and only NRL22 match recently despite having fired over 7500 rounds with the same rifle in the previous 12 months.)

If my comments aren’t clear, I have no doubt whatsoever that the accused defendant in this case killed Mr. Kirk deliberately and with malice aforethought. As I keep saying, I could be proved to be wrong with all my speculation, but at this time I firmly believe that part of the bullet he fired with that intent struck and killed the victim by horrible mischance, and not due to fiendish skill.

I have read some of the alternate thoughts (if they can be called that) which propose that the defendant in this case wasn’t the actual killer. All strike me as arrant nonsense that are as likely as little green men under the sea.

As a final comment, does all this speculation matter? If I were a member of the defense team, I know exactly how I would try to make it matter. I’m not here to give them advice about how to muddy the water, so I’ll leave it at that, but if anyone wonders why stuff like the shape of an assassin’s bullet matters, there are plenty of books mentioned in other sources about another assassination that make that clear.

Well, Candace says the Jooz got him, so there's that.

No doubt at all that the shooter was Robinson.

Sigfreud, were there, to your knowledge, any reports of sparks on the ground or fragments of this or that? Stuff like that was brought out in Dealy Plaza, so if he missed so badly that he wound up hitting by accident there has to be some validation of that.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Step right up, if you please. No elaboration; just yes, I have doubts, or no, I am certain.

I have no doubts.
If I were a juror, I would (hopefully) see more evidence than I have, but I doubt that would change anything.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
Thanks. If two (anonymous) law enforcement (what agency?) officials say something about guns and terminal ballistics that settles it. Every gun owner knows that LEOs are the final authorities about the subject; they demonstrate that all the time.

Sigh.

I think you misunderstand my intent.

I am in agreement, not contention, with you that the bullet may have hit something along the flight path, and it is also possible that the bullet fragmented when hitting bone and did not pass through.

I only mentioned that this was stated as a possibility in the news in the past.

I have not stated, and have never stated, anything but speculation.

You want to be the authority and be right; you have it.

I was only adding opinions and logical possibilities (with significant information and historical ballistics data that support this premise).

I am just tired of all the conspiracy slop, hence my posting in opposition.

I get that "unnamed sources", "this or that three-letter agency", or "a couple of cops in a doughnut shop talking over coffee" are not empirical evidence.

Are you the expert we need to solve the case?

If so, why are you wasting time arguing with a monkey?

Out.

quote:

Originally posted by FrankMoses:
there has to be some validation of that.

That is an excellent question. (Excellent because I have given it a lot of thought myself. )

I believe it’s unlikely that the bullet hit the ground first, and for several reasons:

The biggest issue was the presence of the crowd in front of Mr. Kirk. Based on the pictures I’ve seen I don’t see how that would have been possible without hitting someone else as well.

Assuming that was possible, the shape of the bullet fragment is an issue for me. It appears that it was deformed by traveling directly through an intermediate object, and not what I would expect if it had hit a flat surface at a shallow angle. I have seen a lot of recovered bullets that hit something like that and they didn’t look like the pictured fragment.

There is also the question of where on the ground it might have hit. Based on the Google Earth image of the shooting site, it appears that most of the area in front of the victim is covered with grass which means the bullet would have more likely just buried itself in the earth, but if it did ricochet it would have been less damaged. But there are some hard surfaces in the line of fire, so it’s not impossible.

When an (apparently) expanding bullet like that hits a hard flat surface at a shallow angle, it will deform and ricochet at a much shallower angle than at which it hit the surface; it’s not like a billiard ball or light beam off a mirror. That would also have kept its postimpact trajectory low and into the crowd rather than hitting the victim. Also, high velocity rifle bullets tend to break up rather than being deflected more or less whole. That’s why wild shots in an urban area tend to be more dangerous if fired from 9mm handguns than 223 Remington rifles: it doesn’t take much to cause a 223 bullet to disintegrate as compared with a heavier, slower handgun projectile.

So, what could the bullet have hit before fragmenting and striking the victim? That has been the hardest thing for me to figure out.

There were some what appear to be sound speakers on stands in front of him, but I believe they were too close and at too much of an angle for a bullet to have been deflected as much as would have been necessary. It’s also very unlikely that a bullet hole through one wouldn’t have been noticed.

But 83v45magna pointed out something I hadn’t noticed before (thanks!): the presence of trees that weren’t too far from the evident line of fire. If a bullet like what is believed to have killed the victim had struck a tree branch of the proper size and position, it very well could have been deformed in the way the fatal fragment was, and also deflected from the line of initial fire. How likely is that? I don’t know, but I believe it’s very possible. If that happened it would have also caused loss of bullet core material and reduced its speed and mass to explain why the projectile stopped in the victim’s neck.

Well, why didn’t anyone notice a bullet hole in a tree branch?

That would have required looking, and even then might not have been obvious. Based on many online discussions, the idea that the bullet might have struck something before a fragment hit the victim is not something that has occurred to many people. Almost everyone is content to dream up fantastic ways that a .308 caliber, 150-180 grain bullet with probably 2500+ foot-pounds of energy just blew apart, lost much of its core, and was stopped by a few inches of flesh and bone. If the bullet did hit a tree branch, I suspect that just no one thought to look to check the possibility.

I find the tree idea (thanks again, 83v45magna!) particularly interesting because of something I read some years ago in a book about the JFK assassination. A question then was why did the killer miss an entire limousine with what was believed to be his first shot? Other than the likely possibility that he just jerked it into a wild direction due to “buck fever,” the author of one book pointed out that it was possible the first bullet hit a tree branch and was deflected. The author also noted that evidently no investigators ever examined the trees that could have been near the line of fire to check for a bullet impact. By the time that idea surfaced it would have probably been much too late for a useful investigation, but today at this shooting site—?

Anyway, more speculation but I will be interested to learn more information as it comes out.

Added: And I’m not claiming to be an expert, except in the military court martial sense of knowing more than the average person about the subject I’m discussing. If anything, I am bemused by the fact that some of the things I’ve pointed out haven’t been discussed (to my knowledge) by people who do claim to be experts because they seem so obvious to me—someone who is mostly an autodidact amateur.

But my comment about the sources of information concerning why the bullet supposedly broke up was directed at the difference between “two LEOs said that the ATF concluded” and “ATF forensics stated.” The first is hearsay, and the second is not the actual Fox quotation. In any event I don’t believe I was arguing, only expressing—in an inappropriate sarcastic, snarky way, I admit, and I apologize for—my opinion about the expertise of the average law enforcement officer.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
I'm re-posting this on the new page so that it's sure to be seen.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Let me ask you guys- and a simple yes or no with no elaboration is what I'm looking for: Based upon the facts in evidence, is there any doubt in your mind that this Robinson guy shot Charlie Kirk?

Step right up, if you please. No elaboration; just yes, I have doubts, or no, I am certain.

Yes, I have doubts.

No, I have no doubt.

No doubt.

The evidence is overwhelming he did it.

No doubt.

With my background as an autopsy assistant in the military, there is a vital piece of information that we have not seen.

When performing a forensic autopsy, the entry wound would have been photographed and the pathologist would have given a description of that wound as well. Based on the photos of the "fragment" the entry wound would have demonstrated whether a patent bullet tip or the deformed fragment entered through the skin.

Has anyone seen the autopsy report and/or photographs? The answer should be in that document.