Police story doesn't add up

There is a night-and-day difference between a ballistics test and a gunshot-residue test.

You confuse the two in your story about the three police officers being exonerated over the death of a suspect who they said died from a grenade explosion which went off after he fell in a ditch while they were chasing him.

Suspicions were aroused several days later when a doctor performing an autopsy found the man died from a single gunshot wound to the head, not the grenade explosion.

The officers, who had several days to clean their guns of gunshot residue plus fire the victim’s gun, which they had possession of, denied killing him saying he must have shot himself in the head with one hand while detonating the grenade with the other.

All a gunshot residue test shows is the presence of gunpowder on a person’s gun or body indicating that a gun has been fired recently.

But if the person firing the gun has time to clean himself and his gun, then the test is useless.

By contrast, a ballistics test is by far the more reliable test because it matches unique grooves in a bullet with that of the rifle or pistol that fired it. The barrel of a pistol or rifle has grooves inside it which cause a distinctive pattern on bullets fired from it.

No ballistics tests were done in this case, only gunshot residue tests.

Another problem with the police story is that pulling the trigger on a gun can be done in less than a second while detonating a grenade usually takes seven seconds after the pin has been pulled and the handle released arming the grenade.

The police story does not add up.