View Full Version : Removal of small arms and ammunition from a body
Gents
There is a project that I have been invited to assist with, here in the UK. I can't say too much at this point about who or where, but I can say a little about what it involves.
The images below are from a training environment set up by a UK-based forensic response team. This part of the setup concerns the imaging of victims of terrorism and other major incidents.
That's all digital: the first one is a mobile fluoroscopy unit and the second one is a mobile digital radiography unit. The setup that you see there is almost exactly the same as the setup we will have if there is another incident such as the London bombings. Not shown is the dental station and the other booths such as the pathology and odontology booth.
When the bags arrive, they will remain sealed and will be X-rayed in two planes. There will be two or three steps thereafter (not for public consumption) and then various items or components from within the bag will be imaged again.
On the training day there were several issues that came up to do with pattern recognition and potentially hazardous items. I don't know how we are going to get around some of the issues, but that is a whole topic on its own. I am going to leave explosives out of it for now.
What I want to know, hinges on the scenario that a firearm, (or components thereof) or ammunition is detected in the bag and that such components are associated with body parts that may be commingled.
My question: is there a document that advises or protocols the safe handling of these components, when such components MUST be removed from remains that are not intact?
On a very basic level I am sure that such a document would advise against placing one's finger within the trigger guard while removing or handling the weapon. That's obvious to us, but I want something in much more detail, that covers as many bases as possible for firearms that are small enough to fit in that bag, but most likely will be smaller than the body if they go unnoticed at the scene.
The key problem we have here (that I want to rectify) is that the persons conducting and analysing the imaging aren't necessarily firearm savvy. Compared to where I would like us to be, I place myself in that group too.
Your advice is much appreciated.
I'm from the days of the body was hauled off and the maintenance guy cleaned up the area with water, a bucket and a mop.
Nowdays it's the Bio Hazmat Team or contractors in white suits, gloves, barrels of gunk and lots of paper towels.
But on the serious side - anybody who is looking for something should have regular classes and updates on what "something" looks like. LEOs should allow the inspectors to view the items up close and through the machines used to look for them.
Those with an interest in the items being removed should be the ones instructing how they should be removed and handled.
anybody who is looking for something should have regular classes and updates on what "something" looks like. LEOs should allow the inspectors to view the items up close and through the machines used to look for them.
Fully agree on that.
The problem is that the initial radiological inspection is done by the same person who handles the X-ray equipment. I was rather distressed to hear a young woman (a radiographer who is in the territorial army and is part of the response team) describe the radiological features of a 'bullet' found in one of those bags, when it was in fact an entire cartridge. Her description of what the item was and how it related to a firearm was alarmingly poor.
The radiographers and pathologists in general here in the UK don't know diddly about arms and ammunition. I guess it is an ignorance promoted and perpetuated by a philosophy of disarming the common man because guns are 'evil.' You can imagine the problems I am going to have, trying to get the proper exposure to small arms that these radiographers need.
Don't get me wrong, they are very good at detecting anatomical damage and anomalies to do with the injuries that have been sustained, but they are no good at recognising, handling or even describing firearms and ammunition.
Those with an interest in the items being removed should be the ones instructing how they should be removed and handled.
Agreed. The connection needs to be made though: the police may (and that is an assumption at this point) recognise what something is, if they have direct sight of it. The problem is that they get a radiograph with a description from the radiographer and that is all they have to work on before somebody reaches into the bag.
One or both parties needs to cross-train: either the LEO must do radiography or the radiographer must learn about small arms. I suspect the latter is easier, but it does not have to be done to the exclusion of the former.
The Reaper
10-27-2007, 08:18
OJ:
You are proposing handling a firearm, not a poisonous snake.
Despite what the liberal media would have you believe, ammunition does not spontaneously explode, nor do firearms fire themselves. The hysteria generated by hoplophobes is truly astounding to me. Tommy would be shocked to see what has happened to the nation he fought for. Amazing that you managed to win two World Wars before disarming yourselves.
My biggest concern would be a piece of unexploded ordnance, perhaps lodged in the body. That will require an EOD tech to work with.
Any small arms ammunition found should simply be removed from the remains, and any firearm found should be cleared and rendered safe by competent authority; i.e., someone who actually understands how firearms work. Once the ammunition is removed, the weapon is only as dangerous as a short, oddly-shaped club.
Keep weapons pointed in a safe direction and your finger off the trigger. Perhaps you may want to get a weapons clearing barrel for your facility, if you have not already considered it. At least a stack of sandbags.
1. Place the weapon on safe, if there is a manual safety.
2. Remove the magazine, belt, or ammunition source (such as ammunition from the cylinder of a revolver).
3. Clear the chamber by operating the slide or bolt, and visually inspect the chamber for ammunition. If possible, lock the bolt or slide to the rear and secure it there by means of a chamber flag or zip tie.
The sequence is very important.
If the weapons knowledge is as low as you ahve stated, perhaps you should request a military or LE armorer to be assigned to your team. That would also serve the purpose of preserving the chain of custody of any discovered evidence items.
Best of luck.
TR
monsterhunter
10-27-2007, 09:38
I came in contact with something very similar years ago, following the explosion on Turret II of the USS Iowa. If you recall, the explosion occurred with the "breach" still open. All of the powder in the silk bags did not burn. The sections of powder were in a solid form about the size and shape of a 12-gage shotgun shell. Some were broken and some were intact.
Several of these sections of powder were inside the bodies. I didn't know what it was and was asking around. A Navy O-6 said it looked like some type of electronic insulation device. One of the coroners performing the autopsy found one and was hitting it with a hammer. Later on, some EOD folks came through and identified it as gunpowder.
All I can say is, if you don't know what it is, don't mess with it. Bullets and guns may be the least of your worries.
@ TR
Despite what the liberal media would have you believe, ammunition does not spontaneously explode, nor do firearms fire themselves. The hysteria generated by hoplophobes is truly astounding to me. Tommy would be shocked to see what has happened to the nation he fought for. Amazing that you managed to win two World Wars before disarming yourselves.
I know that, sir. I am not they. I am South African.
I own guns both in South Africa and in the UK. The same hysteria that astounds you, astounds me too. I try to get people from work to come down to the range with me, but it is slim pickings in terms of volunteers. I have had moderate success with the Ozzies and Kiwis though. I don't know how the British got into this mess but they are headed for a bad place at the moment. Anyway that is another discussion.
The handling of the items for retrieval is sometimes going to be done by the radiographer. There is no getting away from it, because of staffing issues and availability of the proper experts. Some of the points you mention will indeed be in the kind of document I am looking for, but I propose that no operation of any firearm component is done by the radiographer for two reasons:
1) It affects the investigation into the circumstances of the incident and subsequent analysis of whatever components are retrieved.
2) It requires that the radiographer can identify and manipulate components on a wide variety of arms.
There are sundry safety issues that are likely to be quite rare, such as the case that Vincent Di Maio reported, where the safety of a home-modified pistol was engaged and it resulted in the weapon firing full auto. Not common, but such things do have to go into the risk analysis.
I wrote some guidelines a few years ago on how radiographers should accept and store firearms from patients for X-ray, and the safe and courteous way of handing them back afterwards. The hospital, like the temporary mortuary has no place for a backstop and there are time and staffing constraints to boot. It is much easier if a living patient can hand over an intact firearm than if the item has to be dug out of a bag with who-know-what in it.
What I need is something similar to what I wrote, but with the added variables of commingled remains, firearm and ammunition components that are not macroscopically seen, may be damaged, unrecognised, modified etc.
All of this is in a forensic atmosphere.
As regards the chain of evidence, that is a good point and we have facilities for that, whether it is a piece of mandible or a spare magazine. The radiographers on the team are capable of bagging and tagging items and also handling legal enquiries that may arise from the analysis of those items.
CoLawman
10-27-2007, 15:43
@ TR
The handling of the items for retrieval is sometimes going to be done by the radiographer. There is no getting away from it, because of staffing issues and availability of the proper experts. Some of the points you mention will indeed be in the kind of document I am looking for, but I propose that no operation of any firearm component is done by the radiographer for two reasons:
In the United States law enforcement is "always" present during this type of activity. In fact LE is always present at the Post. I cannot imagine victims of such an incident would not have law enforcement involved. The justification for their presence is for the very reason you are struggling to write an SOP for every possible scenario.
1) It affects the investigation into the circumstances of the incident and subsequent analysis of whatever components are retrieved.
Your conclusion fails to consider the bag and tag problem. It is accepted practice in our courts as well as yours that the rendering of a gun safe does not result in the suppression of evidence. The item must be rendered safe prior to bagging it.
2) It requires that the radiographer can identify and manipulate components on a wide variety of arms.
That is why law enforcement is an intregal part of this stage of the investigation.
There are sundry safety issues that are likely to be quite rare, such as the case that Vincent Di Maio reported, where the safety of a home-modified pistol was engaged and it resulted in the weapon firing full auto. Not common, but such things do have to go into the risk analysis.
You can game plan all day and still not have an SOP that covers all occurrences. When we do ops plans for large events, there is always some yahoo that wants to what if; tornadoes, earthquakes, and the sky falling. Waste of time. Sometimes it is just bad luck and having an SOP will not postpone the rare occurrence.
I wrote some guidelines a few years ago on how radiographers should accept and store firearms from patients for X-ray, and the safe and courteous way of handing them back afterwards. The hospital, like the temporary mortuary has no place for a backstop and there are time and staffing constraints to boot. It is much easier if a living patient can hand over an intact firearm than if the item has to be dug out of a bag with who-know-what in it.
What I need is something similar to what I wrote, but with the added variables of commingled remains, firearm and ammunition components that are not macroscopically seen, may be damaged, unrecognised, modified etc.
All of this is in a forensic atmosphere.
You hit the nail on the head. This is a forensic environment and your concerns are not destroying evidence. For example; you mention comingled body parts with an evidentiary item. If a piece of evidence is crucial you will not know at the time of recovery. You are not going to be looking for the black box. That trigger or set of car keys just might be important to identifying your badguy. My suggestion is you treat all items found as if it is the key piece of evidence. If you recover it from comingled you have to account for DNA from all comingled tissue. Samples must be taken from all matter that is in close proximity to the item. You very well could have Tom Dick and Harry in that body bag with the item. That would have to be documented. Speaking of documentation, photos diagrams etc. are a must regarding relationship.
TR's post was right on the money. I would only add that if a firearm is recovered then each round should be documented as to location in the cylinder and numbered. The rounds in a magazine can stay in the magazine with no concern. The less the rounds are handled with latex etc., the better the chance of recovering DNA. In other words, don't touch unless it is a safety concern.
As regards the chain of evidence, that is a good point and we have facilities for that, whether it is a piece of mandible or a spare magazine. The radiographers on the team are capable of bagging and tagging items and also handling legal enquiries that may arise from the analysis of those items.
I am not confident that your staff is capable of the bagging and tagging of those items. If they know so little about the items, then the proper packaging to preserve certain evidence such as latents, DNA, rifling, ejector marks, etc. they certainly would not understand the proper packaging. I apologize if I am mistaken, but the packaging of the item is dependent upon the type of evidence one wishes to recover. Paper or Kaypak? Cotton Swab or Swath? Zip Tie in the barrel or twine? Control sample of what? Air Dry (blood) or submerse? Refrigerate immediately or stow in locker?
Do you have someone who is trained in the collection of DNA on your team?
I would spend far less time on writing an SOP for firearms and more on forensic needs.
Just my two cents.
@ CoLawman
Thanks for the post, it is appreciated. There are going to be some issues with the team if arms and ammo are present, because the LEOs assigned to the operation are typically not proficient in the handling of any kind of firearm (they aren't all armed as in other countries). It is a definite disadvantage - I suppose one way to solve it would be to have a consultant from the US or SA involved in these operations if we don't have the right resources here. But that means money....
As for the handling and storage of evidence, it is all refrigerated (certainly in the early stages). I can found out what happened in Operation Theseus as regards the evidence handling (no firearms involved, this was the London bombings) and get back to you.
What is clear is that bodies went to and fro from fluoroscopy to pathology, back to fluoroscopy again and then on to odontology and digital radiography. This was to localise items of interest within bodies and also within pieces thereof. It often took several 'passes' to extract/localise/identify the item of interest.
On a lighter note, one of the victims' radiographs presented a problem because of unexplained extraneous bones being present. Upon localisation, the bones were found to be from pieces of chicken that had been in another victim's lunch bag.
I would keep in mind that those victims rolled into your lab, although loved and cared for in life, are now major pieces of the crime scene as a whole. And therefore EVERYTHING you do with said victims will be scrutinized at a coroners inquest or court of law (not to mention the media). As your protoclos and actions will become part of the chain of evidence in a huge way, or may provide critical pieces to a much lager puzzle (components, initiators etc) my question is, why do you need to take/remove anything from the bodies at that point without a professional based skill set present?
Those lads across from that big ferris wheel should (and do) have protocols for removal of "suspect or unintended items" from bodies, especially since the ttps of some of those groups operating within your borders have changed.
Understanding the task of identifying, removing, and documenting unknow items from those bodies is important, I would suggest a true sit down with SO15, your Medical examiners, and even D.W. from National Health in London. What resulted here from similar training, is a tagging system at the scene and inside the ME's office for those corpses with "suspect x-rays", shrapnel or unexplained anomalies. As you guys learned with Operation Overt, the problem with identifying explosives just got a lot harder, so you will need a SME with those skills on hand during this process, it just makes good safety and investigative sense.
Explosives...we might have a problem. This was made evident in the training. I won't say what was in the bags, but there were items that were improvised that weren't recognised radiologically. There are combined technical factors and pattern recognition issues that influence our ability to detect those items.
I can (with the proper resources) get a reasonably broad radiological database of small arms and ammunition together, but explosives are another matter. By rights, we have no business having anything to do with explosives at all, but the fact remains that we are the first to examine the contents of the bag (even though it is by imaging).
There is no provision of airport-style computer-assisted diagnostics at this point, but there have been some experiments with mobile CT scanners (mounted in trucks).
I don't know what the density range is of certain explosives or even if it is a worthwhile endeavour to try to plot Hounsfield units for them, especially since we would need a rapid automated analysis of the results.
I don't know diddly about imaging explosives and I suspect most radiographers fit in that category. I'll find out more about that later, but it isn't my focus at this point.
Good points, all, I do appreciate it!
Karl.Masters
10-28-2007, 14:27
The National Firearms Centre in Leeds UK has been of great assistance to me in identifying bits of firearms, ammunition, and ordnance recovered from remains. The NFC has a group of weapons specialists that are well versed in both production and improvised firearms. They have an extensive colection of both. I contacted them through the Royal Armories Museum in Leeds. If you have not already done so, I would recommend a visit, as they have been engaged in the type of work you are setting up for quite a while. You might be able to electronically transfer digital images to the experts through a secure "reach back" capability. As TR, CO LM, and Casey mentioned, there is no substitute for proficient firearms subject matter experts and EOD technicians in work of this nature. HTH.
@ Karl.Masters
Thank you very much, sir: that does indeed help a great deal.
Thanks to all, once again.