Local law enforcement still reviewing Cheney shooting

February 16, 2006

There are plenty of lose ends, unanswered questions, and implausible explanations still surrounding Dick Cheney’s accidental shooting, and according to this report, from the Dallas Morning News, local law enforcement isn’t quite done looking into the incident.

Kenedy County sheriff’s deputies have redoubled their efforts to investigate the case after criticism of their decision not to interview witnesses until a day after the shooting.

Ms. Armstrong said she faxed a detailed account to deputies on Wednesday at the sheriff’s request. She said she would have done so sooner if she’d been asked and added that everyone at the ranch has been encouraged to tell the truth about the shooting.

The local sheriff’s office is doing its due diligence, as it should. There’s some question as to why the Vice President delayed speaking to local law enforcement until Sunday morning, and whether deputies were turned away on Saturday night, and those deserve a thorough review.

I’m concerned, however, that it’s a little too late. The sheriff’s office has already talked to the relevant people involved and apparently cleared anyone of wrongdoing.

What happens when they “redouble their efforts”?

February 16, 2006 at 12:55 pm

Have they talked to Harry?

Just how far away was he? How much of the blast did he get. How many pellats out of 260 hit him?

The quotes I’ve heard was that he was 30 yards away. What’s the spread at that distance?

And Has Harry Admitted That He Did Not Tell Dick He Was There?

What happens when they “redouble their efforts”?

2 X 0 is always 0.

I expect absolutely nothing to come from this. Whatever is being done is almost certainly CYA.

Lance, I asked all these questions in a couple of posts yesterday. There is something fishy about being 30 yards away and getting hit the way he did. With a shotgun blast at 30 yards, id think there would be decent spread in the shot. And when you look at how Whittington was hit, it kind of looks like he was closer. If 200 pellets are in him, he DEFINITELY was closer.

I find this story really implausible and cant figure out why we cant get a count of how many pellets hit the guy. It’s an easy way to tell where the shooter was in terms of distance. Just get his gun, fire it at a wall at 30 yards, measure the density of pellets in a area the size of Whittington that was hit, then compare the pellet count in his body. Why hasnt anyone done this? I just dont think the VPs story is legit. He has admitted to drinking that day, although the actual count is unknown, and probably freaked since he was well aware of this, thus the concocted story.

What happens when they “redouble their efforts”?

Is that at Star Wars reference? “I should hope so, commander, for your sake. The Emperor is not as forgiving as I.”

Sounds somehow appropriately ominous.

Wait a minute … they allowed Karen Armstrong to FAX her statement? A sheriff’s deputy or investigator didn’t interview her? It’s been years since I’ve worked the police beat for a small town newspaper, but that doesn’t sound right. Sure they might allow her to submit a written statement, but not without talking to her. That hardly sounds like serious police work. It’s not like they have a lot to do, the entire county only has 400 people or so. And it’s not like this isn’t a serious accident. Shootings, accidential or otherwise, don’t happen all that often in rural areas.

It seems like they’re all trying their best to cover this up …

Here are some arrest stats and crimes reported from Kenedy County, as reported to the FBI. The former are recent, the latter from 2000, but both are likely representatitve:

ARRESTS
Crime | Number

CRIMES

It would seem to me that drunkeness is by far the greatest scourge in the county. And with county making only 1.5 arrests a week, they should have plenty of time to deal with the Cheney shooting.

He had a beer for lunch…
A cocktail after the shooting…

That’s all we need to know.

To wit:

Cheney’s concern for his health doesn’t prevent him from drinking.

Only the naive will believe that between lunch and dinner he was an honest teetotaller…

Bullshit.

He was legally drunk when he shot the fella…

They rushed him back to the ranch and he had that hypothetical cocktail… just in case the local police didn’t want to play chummy chum chum.

‘nuf said…

‘cept this:

Good shooting Dick…
Keep plugging them rich repugs…
Bag another one for me… will ya?

“Lance, I asked all these questions in a couple of posts yesterday.” – G2000

Yep, you did. I bow to your prior post.

Except about asking Whittington if he announced himself. I did not see that yesterday.

True…but Im not concerned with what Whittington did. I have a shotgun license, and I know that it is always the shooter’s fault. I dont care what Whittington did or didnt do. I dont care if he was drunk and running around crazy, it is STILL Cheney’s fault. While he has admitted to the fault, I still dont buy his story. Have you heard an accurate count of the pellets that hit Whittington yet?

What happens when they “redouble their efforts”?

I could speculate that it could refer to twice as many stops at the local Dunkin’ Donuts Shoppe but that would be mean so I won’t. 😉

“…I’m not concerned with what Whittington did.” – G2000

I’m concerned if anyone has interviewed Whittington. I’m not trying to say he is to blame. I don’t work for the white house. I want to know how far away he really was. I want to know if he thinks he announced himself. I want to know if he was in front of or in line with the firing line or if he was behind Cheney.

And yes, I’d like to know how many bird shot pellets hit him. I’d imagine it would be more than a few, as they seem to have managed to overlook the one that penatrated to his heart.

And I’d like to know his blood alcohol level, because Cheney’s was probably the same.

prm (#5),

Good call on the FAX vs. direct interview contact.

I guess as the largest land owner in that tiny county Armstrong (together with her millionaire lawyer-friend Whittington) has overwhelming clout. She issues her encyclical regarding what happened, and that’s that.

Does any one know what the statistics are for alchohol being involved in hunting accidents nationwide?Texas?Washington DC?

According to the police report:

The Monday after the shhoting, cops visited Whittington in the hospital for an interview, he declined their request to tape a statement because he felt “his voice was raspy.” The cops agreed he could submit a written affidavit when hewas discharged from the hospital.

While there Whittington confirmed the shooting was an accident. The cops were hustled out of the rooom by a nurse, it doesn’t appear they asked him whether he announced himself.

—

First of all, the fact that his “voice was raspy” is a good reason for the cops to insist on recording the interview.

The fact that Harry gets to ponder his statement, syncronize his story with everyone else, and submit it in writing, means if he is playing ball with the VP and Rove, we’ll likely never know what happened.

“Redoubling efforts” might mean re-interviewing Harry or getting a statement from him sooner, since he is already in the hospital longer than originally anticipated. We’ll see.

Sorry Lance, I dont mean to imply any of those things, Im just saying that I think that whatever Whittington did while hunting isn’t that important. Even if he was drunk, Cheney is still at fault. Im just trying to figure out how he got hit in the area he did at 30 yards, what the gun’s pellet spread would look like at 30 yards, and exactly how many pellets hit him. Seems noone can answer this.

As Mr. Furious points out, all they got from Whittington is that the shooting was an ‘accident’.

Not his range from Cheney. Not if he announced himself. Not his position from Cheney and the firing line.

So yes, I would say there are a lot of additional questions to ask. In person.

Re: spread

I read a newspaper (cannot remember which one) at lunch yesterday that had a graphic about this. For a 28 gauge shootgun, the spread at 25 yds would be about 40 inches.

The following page also has information on this. Scroll down to see data on the spread at 35 yds for a 28 gauge shot. Note: not sure how variables such a pellet size, packing, etc would affect spread

http://www.shotgun-insight.com/fibreVsPlasticSporterShells.html#introduction

Hopefully, the “redoubling” will include basic forensic ballistics, since it would become obvious whether the distance and positioning parts of the story are accurate.

Texas shooting accidents. Focus is on 2004 but summary is for prior years. Therea are probably many more that never get reported. Alcohol seems to be a non-factor but shooters appear to be their own worse enemy.

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/publications/pwdpubs/media/pwd_rp_k0700_1124_2004.pdf

My impression is not that Armstrong ONLY faxed her account, but that she faxed her account after haven spoken to a Detective.

That’s not abnormal.

G2000, Lance, etc.:

Over at TPM, people who Know These Things (i.e., hunters) have come up with the fact that Whittington could only get that many pellets (200 out of 260) of 28-guage birdshot if he was somewhere between 8-14 FEET away from Cheney. When you add in the Sheriff has already reported that he was standing on ground approximately 4 feet LOWER than where Cheney was ostensibly tracking birds that FLY UP through a 180-degree arc – for him to finally SHOOT DOWN to hit Whittington means that just about everything that has been said so far is bullshit.

The fatassed pig was likely completely pie-eyed, smacko, thirty sheets to the wind, etc., etc.

And the reason Cheney can drink and not worry about its effect on his heart is because you don’t have to worry about something you don’t have.

Still my vote for best 1-liner on this: “If Cheney wanted to shoot someone, why in hell did he take five exemptions?”

Kate O’Beirne of the National Review was on Hardball last night (yes, I know you think I shouldn’t watch Chris Matthews) and revealed an interesting bit of information. I wish the transcript was up to link, but they seem to be a day behind.

Kate said that the reason the hunting party didn’t want to call the media Saturday night was that there were too many versions of the events.

Wow! Too many versions. Since when has it been good police work to allow the participants of an incident to work out one story before they talk to the police. The sheriff’s department didn’t even talk to Harry Whittington before Dick Cheney got to him and told him the ‘correct’ version.

So here is Kate, whom I assume got this from members of the hunting party (probably Dick himself) saying that there were too many versions to tell the media on Saturday, and the (liberal) media would go all hysterical if they got more than one version of the story, so the hunting party decided to sit on the story until Sunday.

And at the same time, make work easier for the Kenedy County Sheriff’s Department.

And conservatives think we are making too much of this story!

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