Into the Kill Zone

by David Klinger

  Even though I had relaxed a little bit, I was on my weapon. I had my M-16 shouldered, with the barrel aimed right at the mound where I thought his torso would be. As he came up, all I had to do was raise my sight picture a little bit and I was right on him.

  All three of us fired at the same time. I could hear Paul and Matt’s rounds going off, but it wasn’t that loud. That kind of gunfire in that closed-in environment—especially my M-16, with no ear protection on—should have hurt my ears tremendously. But I never felt any pain sensation in my ears. It should have been really, really loud, but it was pretty soft.

  I couldn’t tell if the suspect fired, because it was fairly dark right where we were, and the muzzle blasts from my weapon got in the way of my seeing. But in between the blasts, I could still see him there. He was sort of flopping around a little bit. I was on semiauto, riding the dot on my optical sights, just cranking rounds off at the guy’s chest. I was going to shoot until I didn’t see him anymore, but he never disappeared from view. After a few rounds, I still saw him in my sights. Something told me this guy’s got to be done; there’s no way he could still be a threat. I knew Paul and Matt were shooting, too, and we were all too close to be missing. Even if the guy was wearing body armor, I figured he had to be done; the .223 rounds from my gun would punch right through. So even though he was still in my sights, which I’d normally take to mean he still presented a threat, I just quit shooting.

  When I stopped firing, I realized what was going on. The guy was propped up by one of the rafter boards. He was over near one of the eaves, so there wasn’t much room overhead. When he sat up and pointed the gun at us, our shots knocked his upper body sideways a little bit to where his shoulder was sort of wedged against one of the rafters. It was holding him up, so he couldn’t fall back. That’s why he was still in my sight picture. He couldn’t go down. When we quit shooting, there was nothing to hold him against the rafter, and he fell back down into the insulation.

  Paul and Matt stopped shooting just about the same time I did. I think Paul was the last to stop, because it turned out he ended up firing the most rounds. He fired ten. I thought I fired three or four, but it turned out I fired six. Matt fired five. All twenty-one rounds hit the guy. Because I was off to his right side a little bit, my rounds caught him on his right side. Some of them hit his right arm first, tore it up quite a bit before passing into his chest. Matt stacked his rounds on top of each other, right in the guy’s ten-ring. Paul’s rounds were spread out a bit more on the left side of the guy’s body.

  I saw how bad the guy was shot up when I moved up to check him out. When he fell back into the insulation, his hands disappeared from view, and I didn’t see the gun anywhere. I could tell he was still alive because he was moving one of his arms a little bit and his body was kind of twitching and rolling a little. I also heard him moan once or twice. I told Paul and Matt to stand by and cover me. I moved from the two o’clock position I’d been in to about four or five o’clock. That way, if he was still a threat, I’d be coming at him from a different angle than the one he’d first seen me at. When I approached him, I could see just how badly he was shot. I saw lots of blood, lung matter, and things like that all over the place.

  He was still moving a little bit, and Paul said, “Watch him, watch him. He’s moving, he’s moving.” I was being real careful checking him out because his hands were hidden and I couldn’t see the gun. I wanted to find that gun, so I reached down into the insulation and started scooping around for it. No pistol, but I found his right hand. It had a glove on it. Then I noticed some bone coming out of his arm where some of my rounds hit on their way to his torso. Then I swooped down again and found his other hand. It was gloved, too. But still no weapon. I scooped around a little bit more looking for the gun. As I moved a little insulation aside, I saw a huge gaping hole in the center of his chest where Matt had stacked his rounds.

  When I saw that, I knew the guy wasn’t going to make it. In fact, I was amazed that he was still alive. Because he was so shot up, I wasn’t worried about the gun anymore. I started thinking about all the procedural stuff we needed to do. The guy was definitely down. He was clearly no longer a threat. We just needed to protect the scene and make some notifications. I had gotten on the radio after the initial gunfire and told the CP that shots had been fired, that the suspect was down, that all officers were OK. They said that’s clear, and then I told them to stand by, that we still needed to secure the guy. So after I was done checking him out, I got back on the radio and told them we needed an ambulance, we needed a paramedic to come up and check on the suspect. I also told them to get Homicide rolling. I sent both Matt and Paul downstairs to gear down and relax, but I stayed right there because I wanted to make sure that the scene wasn’t tampered with. The EMTs came up, looked at how badly he was shot up, took his pulse, didn’t find one, and said he was DOA.

  Then the supervisors came up. I ran it down to them real quick. They didn’t go up to his body and really look around; they just kind of studied at a distance as I described to them what happened. One or two of the other team leaders also came up and once again at a distance looked things over while I described where we were and what happened. They asked me if I needed anything, and when I told them no, they took off.

  About fifteen minutes or so later, Homicide showed up. I gave the detectives a quick rundown and then left to head downtown to give my statement. After they had done all their photos and other prep work, they rolled the guy over and found the gun lying underneath him. They couldn’t determine if he got any rounds off at us. The gun had been fired recently, it had rounds in the clip and one in the chamber, but they couldn’t tell whether he fired it up in the attic. They never found any casings, but they could have been lost in all that insulation. I don’t even think they found all of our brass. So we’ll never know if he shot at us.

  But I remember wondering about that while I was up in the attic by myself after the other SWAT guys left and I was waiting for Homicide to show up. I went over the whole thing in my mind several times, just playing it back over and over. I could see that gun coming up, me just riding the dot as I fired, the whole thing. I still couldn’t believe the guy did what he did. I just couldn’t believe he did something that stupid. He was in such a compromising position. The only thing I could figure is that it was suicide-by-cop. I was thinking that he was hoping we’d miss him in the search and that he’d get away later but that if we found him, he wasn’t going back to jail.

  So I was thinking about a lot of stuff up there in the attic, waiting for Homicide to show up. It was kind of eerie, knowing that I had just helped kill this guy. I was just standing there thinking all this stuff, my weapon at a low ready, his body lying over there. It was a little weird. Just me and him up in that attic.

  Same Shooting, Different Views

  As the foregoing story indicates, both of the other SWAT officers in the attic with the busy cop also shot the suicidal robber. This section presents their stories and thereby provides the reader with the second look in this book at how different officers experience the same shooting incident.

  • • •

  I was working the number-two position on Randy’s team, so I was covering the point man as we cleared the house, room by room. It was pretty much a regular deal, no different from any of the other deliberate clearings I’d done over the years, so I don’t recall any particular thoughts I had as we moved along. But I do remember being a bit apprehensive as Matt and I got ready to go into that attic. Adrenaline started pumping a little bit ’cause I knew that the guy had to be up there. Even though we had mirrored it and we used the SWAT-cam to look around, we didn’t spot him, so it was still dangerous. The guy had said that he wasn’t gonna be taken alive, so I was thinking that he might start shooting as we went up there. Since I didn’t want me or Matt to get shot in the head, we were real careful.

  After we did the pole-cam, Matt and I popped ourselves up real quick a time or two—did a couple of quic
k peeks into the attic—then we eased on up. We worked our way up the stairs back-to-back. Matt was looking one way. I was looking the other. That way, we had a visual on the whole attic—kind of 180 degrees one way, and 180 the other. Randy was below us, looking through the pole-cam and kind of directing us. I felt pretty good because I had Matt behind me, and with the light on my gun I had a good view of my part of the attic. But I was still a little bit nervous.

  Once we got all the way up, Matt and I just sort of scanned the two sides of the attic until Randy got up there. Then we started looking around real thoroughly. I saw some insulation stacked up in my half, so I eased over that direction a bit. Then I heard the other guys say, “He’s over here.”

  I said, “Are you sure?”

  They said, “Yeah, we see his boots, and the insulation’s moving.” So, in other words, they could see him breathing.

  So I turned around.

  I could see a pile of insulation over near the eaves, and I could see the guy’s feet in front of it. I knew that he was underneath there ’cause I could see the insulation rising and falling as he breathed. Then we eased ourselves into positions closer to where he was—Randy up around his right side, me down around his right foot, and Matt kind of off of his left foot—and at that point I relaxed, ’cause I figured he was gonna give up. I felt real confident because everything was in our favor: there were three of us, we all had light-mounted weapons so we had the light in our favor, plus we had all our training. It was the three of us against one; we had the advantage. So I thought, “He’s gonna give up.” But he didn’t.

  Matt started giving the commands, but the guy didn’t react. Then he just popped up. All I remember seeing at that point was the gun. Before he popped up, I could see Randy and Matt off to my side, but when he came up, my field of vision shrunk to about two feet, and all I saw was the gun. I saw the barrel, then the frame, then I saw a hand holding it. And then, for just a millisecond—at least I think it happened then, but it might have happened right after it was over—I thought, “That looks like Randy’s .45.” Randy carries a .45 Smith & Wesson stainless, and the gun the guy had looked just like it. As it turned out, the guy’s gun was a Smith & Wesson stainless. But it was a 10 millimeter, not a .45. Still, it did look just like Randy’s gun.

  Like I said, I don’t remember whether I had the thought about Randy’s gun in that blurb of time or if I thought of it immediately after the shooting was over, but I identified the gun right away. And that’s when I started shooting. I didn’t make a conscious decision; I just reacted to the gun. It was like, “Here it is, time to shoot.” I don’t remember how many times I pulled the trigger or how long I was firing, but it turns out I got off ten rounds in about a second and a half. Then it was over.

  A lot happened in that second and a half. The first thing I remember is firing toward that gun. Then, for a split second, I could see the guy’s head. I had this thought—but just like the thought about the gun, I don’t remember if I thought it then or if I thought it later—“He’s still wearing a mask.” Then he disappeared, and I think I held up for just a millisecond, like I was gonna get back on target, and then something kicked up in front of my face. I didn’t know what it was, but I fired at that also. Then I stopped when I didn’t see any more movement.

  Later on, I found out it was his foot that had popped up after his face disappeared, ’cause it turns out that I put a round through the bottom of his foot, and that’s the only way I could have done that. He fell over backwards when the first rounds hit him, and I guess his foot just came up as a natural reaction to that. I just saw the movement after that millisecond of hesitation, and I thought he was still in combat with us. So I just kept firing even though I didn’t recognize what it was that flashed in front of me.

  I never used my sights. I knew I had ’em lined up on him, but I was point shooting. I never saw the flash of my gun as I was firing because I had the light on and Matt and Randy had their lights on, so it was quite bright up there. The way I saw what I saw was kinda different though, because I don’t remember any motion. It was more like blurbs of vision, like snapshots: there’s the gun. Then there he is. Then he’s gone. Then there’s something in front of me. Then it’s gone. And it was over. It was so fast, but as I remember, later on it seemed like it came, “Pop, pop, pop, pop.” I saw this, I saw this, I saw this, I saw this, and then it was over.

  Also I didn’t really hear any of the rounds go off. All I could hear was little pops. In fact, I didn’t even know Randy and Matt were shooting. I should have heard ’em, especially the M-16. I mean Randy fired several times, and if I’d been on the firing line, I’d have been deaf from all that noise. But all I heard was some pops.

  Once we quit firing, things returned to normal. I started talking to Randy, and I started to look around and breathe again. Breathe and scan, to check and see if Matt had been shooting or if he was shot. Then I looked over to Randy to see if he’d been shooting or was shot. So it was just a matter of looking around and talking, and things got back to normal.

  Randy wanted to approach the guy, and I told him to be careful because I couldn’t see the gun. I could just barely see his face sticking up, and I even thought about shooting him again, just to make sure he didn’t pop up again. I wasn’t sure if we’d hit him or not, ’cause I couldn’t see him, and I didn’t want him to try to kill us again. So we had a little conversation about being careful as we approached him. When Randy got there, it was clear the guy was DOA. From there, we just notified the CP about what happened and waited for Homicide to show up.

  I was a little bit concerned until they got there and did their investigation because we couldn’t see the gun when we moved up on the guy. We kind of looked initially, but we didn’t want to disturb the scene, so we stopped. Then I said to myself, “That was a gun, wasn’t it?” I mean, we had blasted him and then the gun disappeared. I wasn’t really worried that I made a mistake, but I always second-guess myself. I knew it was a gun. I mean, I identified it in my head. It looked just like Randy’s gun, but then, it wasn’t there. Homicide found it kind of underneath him. I guess it fell out of his hand, and then he fell back on top of it. I knew it was up there somewhere. But my initial thought when we couldn’t find it was, “Gosh, I hope that was a gun.”

  • • •

  I know Randy was a little bit nervous about sending Paul and me up into that attic. But I wasn’t worried. When I first heard the guy wasn’t gonna give up, that he planned to take a couple of us with him, I figured it wasn’t going to be any different than any other barricaded-subject call-up. Just same ole, same ole. In fact, I was looking forward to going in to find him. It’s like a hunt-or-be-hunted type of deal. You need to think of what he’s doing, think like he’s thinking, listen carefully, and pay attention to your nose. A lot of times when we go into a room where suspects are hiding, I can smell these guys. Their adrenaline’s going, they’re sweating, so if you’re paying attention, you can smell ’em. You know what each room in the location smells like, and all of a sudden you go in, and something smells different. Well, the guy’s probably in there. You gotta think of all the potential hiding places, because by the time SWAT gets there, the bad guys have usually had a lot of time to hide. Now in this case, we knew the guy was around six foot, 230, so we could rule out some of the smaller places—like tiny cupboards—but we still had to look at all the potential threats. So my mind was not on fear at all. That was the last thing in it. It was on all my training, all my intuition, just doing my job and thinking, “Where is this son of a bitch? Where’s he at?”

  Because we had cleared the rest of the house, I knew he had to be in the attic. We did all the stuff with lights, mirrors, the SWAT-cam. We didn’t spot him, so up we went. I was facing the stairs, and Paul—my cover man at the time—was up against my back, and we started coming up real easy. I had a Beretta with a light mount on it, a 92F. Paul had his .40-cal. H&K. We couldn’t take shoulder weapons up because it was so tight in that
entrance. So up we went, Paul and me back-to-back.

  Because we’d gotten a good look around with the mirrors and that SWAT-cam, we had a pretty good idea of what to expect. My main concern was the AC unit up there, because we couldn’t get a view of all four sides from down below. I was also concerned that he might be buried under some of the blown-in insulation. I looked around when our heads cleared the opening and spotted a lump that didn’t fit with the rest of the insulation. I don’t know if it was my hunting background or what, but it just didn’t look right. So I leaned over above Paul, still keeping eyes on the lump and said, “Paul, I got a lump over here.” He said, “Well, I got a lump too.” So now I was thinking maybe I could be wrong about the guy being there. I took a quick peek over at what Paul spotted. You couldn’t fit a tennis shoe in that lump. So I told him, “My lump is better than your lump.” He turned, looked at my lump, and said something like, “Oh, you’re right.” Then I looked at my lump more carefully, and I saw this black tennis shoe sticking out of the insulation. We found him.

  Randy came up about then, and he sent Sam, the rear guard, to get some more lights and a shield. The three of us moved up on the lump. I was almost straight in line with the bottom of the shoe, Paul was off to my right a bit, and Randy was a little bit further to my left. We all had our guns pointed at the lump, Paul and I with our pistols, and Randy with his M-16. We all had lights on our weapons, so we had the lump lit up pretty good. I looked to Randy, Randy nodded to me, and I start talking to the guy. “Larry, we know you’re under the insulation. We can see you.” Stuff like that. We’ve learned over the years that when some of these guys hide, they think they’re invisible. Just like an ostrich sticking it’s head in the sand. Unless you tell them exactly where they’re at, what they’re doing, what they’re wearing, they won’t respond, because they just tell themselves that we don’t really see them. So I was trying to let Larry know that we knew exactly where he was: “We see you. We need to see your hands.” That type stuff. But I got no response. Nothing at all. I didn’t like the fact that he wasn’t responding. The jig was up. It was over. He had no place to go. He had to know I wasn’t by myself up there. He must’ve heard us whispering and stuff. He had no advantage if he came up shooting. I was thinking that we had him but still was concerned that he was not reacting. So I started talking again. “Larry, we need to see your hands.”