& Revolver Club in 1991, Trey Cooley, a young
spectator, was watching a shooting competition, seated
behind an air gun range. He was struck and killed
by a stray bullet. [Screams] This is how ballistics,
lasers, and forensic animation solved the riddle
of the magic bullet. [Theme music] 14-year-old Trey Cooley.
Look at him, and you'll
see the All-American boy. Trey attended Boles
Junior High School in Arlington,
Texas, near Dallas. He played cello in
the school orchestra, played baseball,
and was a Boy Scout. BUTCH COOLEY: At
that age, every kid has the whole world open to him.
He could have done
anything he wanted to do. NARRATOR: Most of
all, he enjoyed spending time with his family. Trey and his father,
Butch, were best friends. BUTCH COOLEY: We did
everything together.
NARRATOR: September 29, 1991. Butch Cooley woke early
that Saturday morning-- -Get up. NARRATOR: --then
went to wake Trey. The two shared a
passion for shooting.
-Go or don't you want to go? NARRATOR: Butch was
judging a competition. He gave Trey a choice--
to sleep in or tag along. Trey chose to go
with his father. -Trey started shooting
when he was seven.
He enjoyed it. He shot his first deer
when he was eight. He wanted to be a
pistol competitor. And he was pretty good at it.
NARRATOR: At the Dallas
Pistol & Revolver Club, Trey volunteered to help
out by running results from judges to the
official scorer. In between assignments, he
sat in the air gun building to get out of the hot Texas sun. He sat just inside the door
near two women who were working as scorers, but behind
people shooting air pistols-- nothing more than
pellet and BB guns. Then, a blood-curdling scream.
[Screams] Trey Cooley slumped
to the floor, blood flowing from his temple. His baseball cap had a
tiny but telltale hole. Butch Cooley was
outside the building, just a few yards from his son
when he heard the screaming. Although Butch Cooley spent
21 years as a state trooper and was trained to
handle emergencies, no training could prepare
him for what he saw next.
-When I got there, I
saw that he'd been shot. I checked his pulse. I knew it wasn't good. TONI COOLEY: Butch
walked in, and I.
Asked him, what
are you doing home? And I said, oh, where is Trey? And then he came in.
And he told me. He said, um, there's
been an accident. And, um, I was thinking, you
know, well, he's cut his foot, cut his hand, or broke
his arm, you know. And I said, well, it's OK.
He's-- he'll be OK. NARRATOR: Trey was
rushed by ambulance to Parkland Memorial
Hospital in Dallas. TONI COOLEY: He was
just lying there. Um, he was breathing, or the
machine was breathing for him.
His little hands were so warm. And he just looked
like he was asleep. NARRATOR: Six hours
later, Trey died. -I just wanted to tell him that
I was very, very proud of him.
I loved him dearly. -My only son, my best
friend, my fishing buddy, my hunting partner.
Just a void. NARRATOR: Trey Cooley
was seated in the club's designated safety area. It was an accident that
shouldn't have happened.
Detective Tom Pease and crime
investigator David Taylor had a tough job-- to figure out
where the bullet that killed Trey Cooley came
from and to determine if the shooting was
accidental or intentional. Butch Cooley spent two
decades as a state trooper. Was it possible the
shooting had something to do with an enemy he possibly
made during his tenure? Or had the bullet
come from outside, from one of the outdoor
shooting ranges, or possibly, the nearby railroad
tracks where kids had a history of taking shots
at the air gun building. -Uh, the biggest problem
with this range or this scene was the size of it.
It wasn't contained inside a
house, inside an apartment. It was outside, and it
covered several hundred feet. NARRATOR: The bullet
removed from Trey's skull would provide some answers
and raise new questions. The bullet was small, about
half an inch long, but lethal.
Larry Fletcher is
the firearms expert who conducted the
ballistics examination. -The bullet was
not that damaged. Uh, the bullet was, uh, ridden--
rather remarkable condition. NARRATOR: This is a
.45 Caliber bullet after striking a cement wall.
It is badly mangled, especially
when compared to the bullet that killed Trey Cooley. That lack of damage could be
telling, except for one thing. This was not a typical
.45 Caliber bullet. -This particular bullet is
a hand-loaded or handmade bullet-- it's not a
commercial-made bullet-- in which they could add
other materials to the lead and make it much harder.
Uh, it can withstand a lot
of damage, uh, upon impact. NARRATOR: Who makes and
uses these types of bullets? Butch Cooley knew. -Competitive shooters like to--
to load their own ammunition, uh, probably the reason
being, uh, the cost savings. NARRATOR: Most of the
competitive shooters on the outside ranges that day
were using handmade bullets.
So there was little doubt that
the bullet came from somewhere here rather than from kids
on the railroad tracks. Police collected the weapons
and ammunition samples from the shooters
in the competition. When Larry Fletcher examined
the bullets used that day on the outside ranges, he
noticed something else. -The powder charge which,
uh, increased the velocity of this particular
type of bullet.
NARRATOR: Basically,
the shooters use bullets with more gunpowder. More gunpowder means these
bullets travel farther and faster than a regular
.45 Caliber bullet. Fletcher's next task was to
match the bullet that killed Trey to one of
about a dozen guns. Each of the guns from
the shooting competition were test fired and
compared to the bullet taken from Trey Cooley's skull.
Fletcher had trouble
getting an exact match because the extra gun powder
created extremely high temperatures during
the firing of the gun, actually melting some of
the distinguishing marks. But Fletcher noticed a red wax
on the bullet that killed Trey. All shooters use a lubricating
wax, but only one of the guns used a red wax. Larry Fletcher found the gun
that fired the fatal shot.
-At that point, I was
pretty much convinced. NARRATOR: A pistol competitor
named Dan Smith was using that gun on the day
of the competition. And he was firing on
this outdoor range, just behind the
air gun building. But Smith told
police he couldn't have fired the fatal shot.
LARRY FLETCHER: He felt that all
his shots had made the target, that there were
no errant rounds. NARRATOR: But something just
didn't add up to Butch Cooley. He spent his entire
life around guns and won awards for
marksmanship and gun safety. He knew shooting ranges
are supposed to be safe.
Accidents aren't
supposed to happen. It just didn't make sense. Police were satisfied that Trey
Cooley's death was an accident. The ballistics report
said the fatal bullet came from a gun fired
from an outdoor range during the competition.
But how? The owner of the gun said
he didn't miss a shot. And the range was designed
to contain any errant bullet. First, there's a
barrier between the air gun building and
the firing range. It's called a berm.
It's a small mountain of
dirt, about 12 feet high. The berm sits right
behind the targets in the event a shooter misses
either to the left or right. Directly above the targets
are a series of wooden planks, fastened end-to-end
and side-by-side. These are called
baffles and they're designed to catch bullets fired
a little high of the target before they leave the range.
Then there are two
additional sets of baffles, one just
a few yards in front of the firing line and
another, called an eyebrow, directly over the firing line. Ken Buster is a safety
management consultant with years of
experience as a shooter and with a special
expertise in firing ranges. -Between the eyebrow, the
baffles, and the height of the berm, the vast
majority of any stray bullet would be stopped. -Safety should be the number
1 priority in everybody's mind anytime that you--
that you participate in marksmanship as a sport.
Something was wrong there. NARRATOR: Butch Cooley
began a personal crusade to learn the truth. He needed to know how a bullet
could bypass the range's safety features and kill his only son. Butch hired Attorney Mike
Schmidt to find out where or if the safety system had failed.
Schmidt put together
an investigative team. Steve Irwin was
the first member. As an accident
reconstructionist, his job is to create an exact
computerized three-dimensional scale model of the air gun
building and the firing ranges. Using laser technology,
precision measuring devices, and sophisticated
computer programs, Irwin would also uncover
the path of the bullet.
-You wind up starting
at, unfortunately, the-- the young
boy getting shot, and then working
your way backwards. NARRATOR: Police had
already identified some important clues. The outside wall of
the air gun building was riddled with bullet
holes from all angles. Irwin needed to know exactly
which one was the culprit.
Police also found bullet
holes inside the building-- in a sheetrock strip to
protect the lighting fixture and in a wall that
separated the indoor range from a storage shed. There was also a fresh gouge
in an ordinary ceiling tile. Irwin's laser survey equipment
traced the bullet's path from where Trey was sitting
through all those points-- from Trey through the sheetrock
strip, off the ceiling tile, and through the back wall. It seemed unlikely, but
it matched the evidence.
-It-- it was roughly
a straight line. But I couldn't see
from the interior wall to the exterior wall. And it-- it wasn't until we
got it back to the office and got it mapped
that-- that it formed this remarkably straight line. NARRATOR: A straight
line that led directly to one of the bullet holes
in the aluminum siding then down to the shooting
range behind air gun building.
It led to the range where Dan
Smith was shooting, but oddly enough, not to the firing line. The laser pinpointed
a path that landed 10 yards in front
of the firing line. When Ken Buster was brought
into the investigation, he immediately inspected
the firing range to see if there was any way
a bullet could get past all of the range's safety features. Buster delivered
a scathing report.
-At the time and
now, I still think that was the worst range
that I have ever seen. NARRATOR: He found dozens
of potentially deadly safety flaws. KEN BUSTER: The berm
separating the back range from the front range was
not the standard height, which is supposed to be 20 feet. NARRATOR: The berm behind
the air gun building was only 12 feet high.
The baffles were
far below standard. The wooden planks
should have had a steel or concrete backing. And look closely at
the planks themselves. They had separated,
leaving big gaps.
A bullet could
easily pass through. KEN BUSTER: In this case,
the baffle might well has not have been there and
served no purpose at all. NARRATOR: And Buster was
appalled by the bullet holes in the back
of the building. KEN BUSTER: Several of these
holes had been plugged.
That means to me as a safety
person, as a range person, as a long-time
shooter that they knew that bullets were getting
out of that range. And they accepted that fact
and continued to shoot. NARRATOR: The laser analysis
projected the bullet path to the middle of
the outdoor range, well in front of
the firing line. How could this be? It was due to a
monumental blunder.
During the competition,
shooters were required to fire from several distances--
first, from the firing line at 25 yards; then they
moved forward to 20 yards; and finally, to 15 yards. The laser study showed
that the fatal bullet was fired from the 15-yard line. The architectural model
shows the problem clearly. By firing from the
15-yard line, shooters had to move in
front of the eyebrow and the first set of
protected baffles.
And Irwin's computer also showed
another frightening reality. From the 15-yard
line, you could see the back of the
air gun building. KEN BUSTER: If you can
see it, you can shoot it. And any projectile that might
leave the range in that area was going to hit that building.
NARRATOR: The laser
showed the bullet flew under the last baffle, over the
berm, and into the building. It involved a
bizarre trajectory. It meant that the shooter missed
the target high and to the left by more than 5 feet--
a terrible miss. How could a trained
marksman miss a target by that much from
only 15 yards away? Part of that answer was
found in the gun itself.
Close examination revealed
it had been modified. -It's like taking a standard
car, making it a hot rod. NARRATOR: Some competitive
shooters filed down parts of the gun
to make it easier to pull the trigger quickly. DAVID TAYLOR: They've, uh, got
it set to where they go off so easily, where they fire
two rounds instead of one.
It feeds so fast. NARRATOR: The result is
called doubling, which sometimes occurs
as the gun recoils. A recoil is the backward
force created by the explosion pushing the gun up in the air. Each type of gun
recoils differently.
-A .45 Creates a recoil
up and to the left. NARRATOR: Kirk
Parks had the task of producing the
computerized proof, a fact-based animation
of what happened. His firm specializes
in forensic animation. Parks videotaped hundreds of
.45 Caliber pistol shots using the same type pistol
and ammunition.
He used this footage to
create an exact computerized reproduction of the
recoil for the animation. -And we shot the video
from the top of the weapon. And we shot it from the side. And we shot it from the front.
NARRATOR: Next, Parks
created wire-frame models of a competitive
shooter in action, and then animated Irwin's
laser studies of the firing range and the bullet path
to complete the picture. KIRK PARKS: It produced
the exact results necessary to generate
the bullet path that was surveyed-- up
and to the left. DAVID TAYLOR: I can't say for
sure that the gun doubled. But all of the evidence, uh,
seems to indicate that it did.
And it fired during the
uncontrollable recoil. NARRATOR: This
forensic animation was able to show what
happened to Trey Cooley on the morning of
September 29, 1991. But the animation
showed that the bullet took a remarkable journey, one
which almost defied belief. When Trey Cooley entered
the Dallas Pistol & Revolver Club on September
29, 1991, the range was a tragedy just
waiting to strike.
Outside on the firing range
behind the air gun building, Dan Smith, one of the last
competitors of the day, steps up to the 15-yard line. This moves him in front of
two sets of safety baffles. Using a modified
gun, Smith takes aim and squeezes the trigger. In a fraction of a
second, another shot is fired during the recoil
phase of the original shot.
It happened so
quickly, the shooter doesn't know it left the gun. The bullet misses the
target high and to the left. Traveling upwards, it passes
underneath the last set of protected baffles and
just 3 inches over the berm. It's speeding at
1,200 feet per second.
The bullet blasts through
the aluminum siding, goes through a storage room,
misses a broom and some pipes by less than an inch, and then
breaks through a second wall, entering the air gun range. Then the bullet does
something unbelievable. It strikes an
ordinary ceiling tile. And for some unknown
reason, it doesn't blast straight
through into the roof.
Instead, it skids along
the tile for 7 inches before mysteriously
changing direction, making a 10-degree turn and
begins a downward path. It slows to about
900 feet per second, penetrates a plaster wall,
and enters Trey Cooley's head. [Music playing] The Cooley family filed a
negligence suit against the gun club and individuals involved
with the competition. The judge who presided
over the civil case was impressed with the visual
and computerized evidence.
-I've been on the
bench 6 and 1/2 years, and I would say that's
in the top 2 or 3 or 4, in terms of just the--
the professionalism and the effectiveness
of-- of the, uh demonstrative evidence
brought into court. NARRATOR: The Cooley's attorney
says the forensic animation and model explained this tragedy
in a way nothing else could. -I could not have
possibly gotten the result that I got on behalf of the
Cooley family without them. NARRATOR: The
animation also helped Butch Cooley understand what
had happened to his son.
But there is still little
peace for Trey's dad. -What's peace? It is taking one day at a time. NARRATOR: Change just
one thing and Trey Cooley might be alive today. The range.
-It wouldn't have happened
because I would not have allowed that competition to
occur on that particular range. NARRATOR: The gun. -They may not even
be aware that it's double-firing or
slam-firing on them. They may think it's
properly functioning.
NARRATOR: The bullet. -If it had been a softer bullet,
they may not have ricocheted as much, would not
have had the velocity. NARRATOR: Or if the
shooter had been standing at the proper firing line, the
shot would have hit the baffle or flown over the building. But why did this fatal
bullet change direction as it hit the soft ceiling tile
instead of blasting straight through as it did
with the hard walls? -Bullets can do
incredible things-- things they're not
expected to do.
NARRATOR: These thoughts
haunt Butch Cooley. No explanation can
ease the pain felt by a father who
woke his son early-- -Want to go or not? NARRATOR: --one
September morning. -No, no, I want to go. -I should have let him sleep..
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