Via Miguel. Here’s the video of the shooting:
Thug gets the guy behind the hotel desk to open the cash drawer, then pulls a gun on him and demands money. While the employee is fumbling with the cash the gun discharges twice in rapid succession, hitting the employee in the stomach in a non-fatal way, and hitting the robber in the head in the other kind of way.
In the comments one reader posts this video:
This isn’t a freak event:
Now look at those videos. What happens is the heavy recoil of that big magnum pushes the gun back hard enough that the shooter’s finger get’s pulled away from the trigger by inertia and resets the trigger. Not knowing they even came off the trigger the shooter is still squeezing so as the gun continues to recoil they continue to squeeze causing a second shot to fire in double-action. Now this ONLY happens if you are “limp Wristing” the gun (quotes used, because you can be a pretty decent shooter but not have enough grip on a gun that powerful to have this happen) and with the heavy recoil when the second shot breaks it is almost straight up.
Now the gun used appears to be some sort of double-action revolver…looks like an Ruger SP101 to me, but it’s hard to say, the video is grainy as hell.
What I suspect might have happened from all that is going on, the shooter probably had his finger on the trigger the whole time (robbers don’t take safety classes or read gun blogs!), the employee is nervous and dropping cash everywhere. I suspect the shooter never planned to shoot the employee. There were witnesses everywhere, and his robbery was going well so far, and he likely only had 5-6 rounds to his name, so killing all the witnesses wouldn’t have worked anyway. Still he WAS carrying a loaded gun, and surrounded by witnesses, so I don’t see how discharging a bullet would have helped him out in any way no matter how this went, so logic isn’t really at play here.
Still assuming he he didn’t plan to shoot the employee at the desk, he’s obviously tense and frustrated that the money is not being placed in a neat stack in his hand, as well as the adrenaline rush of a robbery. He accidentally squeezes the trigger as he reaches over the counter. Boom, employee takes one in the gut. Now he’s OBVIOUSLY got the gun in a weak grip, and has it indexed near his ribs to keep it out of sight of bystanders. Even if he’s using .38s that crappy grip is going to make that gun flip CONSIDERABLY.
Now nobody was expecting a gunshot, that’s a BIG surprise, and that will make ANYBODY flinch, and in this case he has a gun pointed at his head with his finger on the trigger when he flinches.
I suspect the coroner will find the entry wound between his neck and upper lip, and the wound track will be at an upward angle.
Also again assuming this poor man getting shot in the gut was a big a surprise to the as the guy who caught lead, this goes back to my standard tactic for armed robbery.
GIVE THEM NOTHING, AND DO EVERYTHING IN YOUR POWER TO HURT THEM UNTIL THEY ARE NO LONGER A THREAT.
Even if they aren’t planning on killing you, you may be dead anyway from pure negligence.
