Groin, groin... gone

Gang members are fascinated by guns.

Not in a I-Love-Target-Shooting-Skills way; more like a I-Need-to-Compensate way. They sit around listening to Gansta Rap, smoking marijuana and drinking 40 ouncers of Old English beer. Then they put on red or blue hankies over their faces; contort their fingers to spell out things like “BLOOD”, “CRIP” or “SPIFINKLEDORF” (hours of playing Cat’s Cradle helps them spell these words digitally) and then they hold up guns. A girlfriend then takes a photo. This is a very cool thing to do.

However, what do you do with your gun when you want to hold a joint and drink beer at the same time? You can’t put the gun down, they are valuable and you are surrounded by other criminals; you don’t want your new 9mm (which you stole) pinched by your buddy while throwing down the two-handed SPIFINKLEDORF sign do you? You have to put it somewhere; but where? You forgot to steal a holster, so that’s not an option. You don’t want to put it in the rear waistband of your pants, the backside is hanging down around your calves and it would cover up your polka-dot boxers. Hey, why not put it into the front of your waistband? What a great idea!

Well, you guessed it- I got called to the scene of a shooting. The man who was shot (still alive) was saying that it was a “Drive-By,” however the trajectory of the shot was… well… not from street level. To get right to the point of the story, this gang member no longer had a… he was missing his… what was shot completely off was… well, I’ll just say Wally and the twins were completely gone. All that was left was a bloody trough.

You see, Mr. rocket-science gang guy decided to place a sawed off double barreled shotgun into the front of his pants. The shotgun had two triggers, and when he shoved it down, one of the barrels went off. In his pain and shock, he tried to violently pull the shotgun out of his pants; you guessed it- he then pulled the second trigger.

When Sgt. Scott and I searched the house he came from, Scott called out to me, “I found it, I think.” A few feet away from a pair of shotgun blast patterns in the floor was what looked to be a pink chunk of squid.

I took a picture of Mr. (er… Ms?) Gansta’s groin and posted it up at the shooting range with the caption, “PRACTICE SAFE FIREARMS HANDLING. THE PARTS YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN.” So maybe he will have a positive legacy after all, reminding cops to be safe. I just have a hard time ordering the calamari now.


Here is the Herald Republic article:
Shot in groin, it was no drive-by
By CHRIS BRISTOL
Yakima Herald-Republic

YAKIMA -- Friends of a 20-year-old man who accidentally shot himself after putting a sawed-off shotgun in his pants initially claimed he was the victim of a drive-by shooting, Yakima police said.
The man, suffering from massive groin damage, was airlifted to a Seattle hospital where he was reported in satisfactory condition Monday.
Police found the man in the 700 block of North 24th Avenue about 1:30 a.m. Sunday, but quickly deduced his injuries did not correspond to reports of a drive-by shooting.
The officers then got a search warrant for a house about a half block away and confirmed their suspicion the shooting was self-inflicted. The man was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
Capt. Greg Copeland said both barrels of the shotgun accident-ally discharged when the man for unknown reasons placed the gun, which was loaded with birdshot, in his pants.
On Monday, police said the shotgun had been illegally sawed off on both ends.
During the search of the house, officers said they also found a 9 mm Ruger semiautomatic pistol that had been reported stolen in Spokane.
Copeland said police expect to ask prosecutors for felony weapons charges against the man, who has a lengthy criminal record that includes convictions for assault, theft and drug use.
It was unclear if the man is an active gang member. According to court records, his involvement in a shooting in 2003 was gang-related.