[Broadcast Transcript] ABC News Special : Eyewitness Texas

    ABC News Special, Eyewitness Texas 
Dec. 2 2 , 1975' (eve.)

Police Officer;
...Further, it's to, it's not to scare someone or threaten

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them; it's to shoot them, you see, and why are you shooting 
them? It's to stop' them.

Announcer:
For stopping power when dealing with criminals, Houston is 
one of the places using the bullet; but a question has arisen; 
are the hollow points inhumanly lethal? Reporter Wess Sims 
and Photographer Ed Brad take a closer look at the controversy. 

(Sounds of shots)
Paust:

You have to kill certain people in warfare as you do when 
you lawfully enforce the law in some circumstances; and in 
both circumstances you want to cut down on any extra suffering. 

(Sounds of voices. Shock 4 Shock 4 and scene of recent shooting of 
several police officers in Houston)'

Dr. DiMaio: /
/

Why do people die of bullets? They die because the bullet has 
gone through vital organs such as the heart, or the brain 
or a major blood vessel. Generally, it makes little difference 
what the caliber of the bullet is.

Announcer;
Deadly force can be used to prevent the imminent Commission

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of a crime of aggravated kidnapping, murder, rape, aggravated 
rape, robbery, and aggravated robbery. That definition 
comes from the Texas penal code.

How deadly that force is sometimes rests solely in the 
hands of the police officer pointing the gun.

AS incidents of crime continue to rise, so do the number of 
police departments switching to the use of magnum and hollow 
point ammunition. With that switch has come a cry from some 
segments of our society charging that the police are unnecessarily



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endangering the lives of the criminal and the public. Magnum 
bullets contain a stronger powder charge. Hollow points are 
a physical modification of the round-nose bullet whicJi has 
been the standard load for police departments for many years.

Announcer (speaking to police officer)
What's the difference between the normal .38 shell used in 
police work and the hollow point shell?

Police Officer:
This is the 158 grain round nose lead bullet that has generally 
been used by police. This is the .158 grain hollow point 
bullet. This bullet is being used more by police now because 
it moves at a higher velocity; when it, enters the person's 
body it causes more damage because the bullet expands. Also, 
it doesn't exit a person's body and endanger other peoples' 
life.

Announcer:
This skeleton block shows essentially what happens to the 
human body when hit by a hollow point bullet. The bullet 
tends to spread upon impact causing the release of greater 
amounts of kinetic energy in the body, thus increasing the 
stopping power. But here is greater injury? Most of the 
research on the effects upon the human body has been done 
here at the Institute of Forensic Sciences located behind 
Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. Dr. Vincent DiMaio, 
a forensic pathologist who is Deputy Medical Examiner for 
Dallas County says with regard to pistol ammunition,
"There is little difference between the wounds inflicted 
by hollow point than those from a standard .38 load."

Dr. DiMaio (showing x-rays of bullets lodged in the human body):
The radiological appearance of a wound from a hollow point 
versus a solid lead bullet is essentially the same. You can 
take a look at this wound here - this individual was shot 
with a .38 Special all lead bullet. You have the bullet 
which is widely deformed and two small fragments of lead.
The second x-ray shows a hollow point bullet. Here the jacket 
has fallen off, so you know its hollow point, and all you see 
again are two small little fragments of lead.



Announcer;

Paust;

Now what has happened is people confuse hollow point 
pistol ammunition with hollow point or soft point rifle 
ammunition. Now these x-rays show rifle ammunition, an 
individual shot in the arm and in the chest with a high 
powered rifle, not a pistol, and you see the radiological 
picture is completely different. There's a snow storm effect. 
Multiple little fragments of lead are scattered all along 
the wound track.

Dr. DiMaio's assesment of the actual damage caused by hollow 
points differs greatly from that of an Associate Professor
of Law at the University of Houston. Jordan Paust claims

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hollow points are both illegal and inhumane.

They are illegal because of what these bullets do within the 
human body, and that is also one of our primary reasons for 
opposing the use of these bullets - the effects within 
the human body, the transfer of some 3 to 5 times the 
kinetic energy to the human body in the case of a .38 
hollow point, for example, or the transfer of about 5 to 10 
times the energy to the body in the)case of a magnum (.357 
magnum hollow point, for example).And this kind of energy 
transfer to the body produces, as Dr. DiMaio indicates, a 
directly proportionate increase in muscle, tissue damage in 
wound injury. Over all wound injury is directly proportionate.

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Dr. DiMaio

Announcer:

There is, of course, more shocking power due to the hollow 
point bullet. It's as, you know, if somebody punches you in 
the belly. It immobilizes you, it doesn't kill you - doesn't 
rupture your organs - it doesn't cause hemmorage - but it 
immobilizes you. And this is what these hollow point bullets do; 
they have more shocking power. To kill, however, these 
hollow-point bullets still have to hit a vital organ.

The American Civil Liberties Union claims that the use of 
expanding bullets is illegal by international law, and they 
base this claim on the declarations that came out of the



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Paust i

Announcer;

Hague Conferences which were held at the Hague in the 
Netherlands in 1899-1907. The purpose of the conferences 
were to attempt to regulate types of arms that would be 
used during warfare. The first time around three declarations 
were adopted: (1) prohibiting the use of projectile from
baloons; a second prohibiting the use of asphyxiating gases 
and the third prohibiting the use of expanding bullets. But 
in 1907, as the encyclopedias say, the declarations of 1899 
with respect to asphyxiating gases and expanded bullets were 
not renewed. The United States having opposed both declarations, 
besides the United States did not. sign either agreement.
Still, Professor Jordan Paust, University of Houston, who is 
also with the A.C.L.U. contends that expanding bullets are 
illegal by international law.

Well, that is only one of the laws we cite. The 1899 Hague 
Declaration that prohibits bullets which expand or flatten 
easily in the hviman body was not signed by the United States 
in 1899, but it was adhered to formally in a conference in 
1907 and it has been used by the United States in testing the 
legality of weapons systems by the 'army ever since. Also,

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it's part of the field manual law, in the U.S. military field 
manuals.

There is a basic difference between police action and warfare, 
an argument which police are quick to point out, in supporting 
the use of hollow point ammunition. The object of war is 
to put as many men out of action. The greater numbers of 
wounded mean great numbers of soldiers caring for those 
wounded, and a projectile which keeps on going through 
bodies or ricichets easily stands a far better chance of 
putting more soldiers out of action. The police action is 
directed at a limited number of persons with a goal of 
stopping the criminal without injuring innocent bystanders.
Police claim hollow points are less injurious to the public, 
that they are more likely to stay in the body of the person



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shot, and tend to break up when they strike solid objects. 
Police Officer (1):

Well, I think they're a necessity in police type work, due to 
the fact of their stopping ability and they generally have a 
tendancy to stick at wherever they hit instead of passing 
through a person into several other persons.

Police Officer (2):
Hollow point would probably be more safer, one thing it 
wouldn't go through you and continue traveling like a regular 
.357 would.

Police Officer (3):
You've got to protect yourself and protect the citizen and 
somebody is out here - you need something that is gonna stop 
'em; knock 'em down.

Police Officer (4):
I feel it is a lot safer than other types of ammunition because 
it doesn't go as far if it hits somebody, so it spreads out, 
it stops more or less in the body of the person you are 
shooting at, and doesn't take a chance on hitting somebody else, 

Police Officer (5):
If it is necessary to shoot a man and your life is in danger, 
and you have to shoot somebody, I want to knock him down. I 
don't want a bullet to go through him and him shoot me or hurt 
somebody else.

Announcer (speaking to Police Officer);
Would you think there are .45 would be preferable to a .38 
with hollow points as far as safety of bystanders or effec­
tiveness?

Police Officer;
Well, any firearm is not gonna be safe for bystanders. It 
doesn't make any difference what it is. But I prefer a 
large caliber bullet because it travels slow and it doesn't 
go quite as far as say a .357 magnum out of a 5 or 6 inch 
barrel!.

/

Announcer;
Most officers on the Houston police department do prefer



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Paust;

Announcer:

hollow point ammunition and many of them use magnum loads 
according to a recent survey conducted by the department itself.

Part of the concern of the American Civil Liberties Union 
is the easy accessability of hollow point and magnum 
ammunition. Gun shops are required to go through the same 
procedure of recording names or I.D.'s of purchasers of pistol 
ammunition as they do for firearms. But anyone can still walk 
in off the street and purchase heavy firepower. Either a police 
officer, or a felon. A House Resolution prohibiting the sale 
or use of hollow points is presently in a sub-committee on
crime but it's given little chance of passing because it

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would also band hollow point rifle bullets used for hunting 
game.

Our position is that these bullets should be prohibited per se. 
They should not be for sale in any gun shop across the country, 
as they are.

Increasingly these bullets are being used against police 
officers. We've had a death in Houston; there was a death 
in Denver; a police chief was killed in Illinois - all this 
year - with use of magnums and/or ;38 Special hollow points 
(which are violative of international norms and the U.S. 
Constitution). We feel that these bullets must be banned for 
sale or use in any gun shop or for sale or use by police 
departments' and again, this is not an anti-police effort 
because the police departments across the country are split 
on this issue, and many of the finest police departments 
across the country banned these bullets themselves under their 
own regulations.

The largest police department in Texas is still not using 
hollow point bullets is the Fort Worth Police Force, their 
regulations stipulate that officers can carry only factory 
loaded .38 Special ammunition using round nose lead bullets.
The rule stems from the belief that any thing stronger is 
"overkill", a feeling not shared by many officers on the force.



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Police Officer;
Our personal feelings are that we ought to have a stronger 
cartridge, more stopping power. However, I think most of us 
would be in agreement that we don't want the doors just 
flung wide open to use just any cartridge. I think we are going 
to have to strike a happy medium. However, I wouldn't want 
to stop there. No matter how we feel personally, our Chief, 
his concern, with our safety, however, he's in a position to 
where he is not only concerned with our safety but he must 
be concerned with the safety of the citizens. There are 
cartridges that I personally believe are too strong for a

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policeman to use within a city. Give you an example, to me,
I personally don't believe there would ever be a time that 
a police man will be justified in using a weapon such as a .44 
magnum. I think this is going too far in the opposite extreme. 

Announcer (sound of gun shots);
The question for or against the use of hollow point, or magnum 
bullets will probably remain unanswered for quite some time.
The A.C.L.U. wants them banned altogether.

Paust;
The general approach has been to adopt a .45 caliber automatic 
weapon system with a, either a full military jacket or a 
hard unjacketed projectile. Now this transfers to the human 
body about 100 to 110 foot pounds. The normal .38 Special, 
the standard issue police weapon still across the country, 
transfers from 74 - 84. Now somewhere within this range is 
a lawful use of firepower. When you talk about a transfer to 
the human body of 450 foot pounds or 850 foot pounds (with 
some of the magnums), that becomes excessive. That is 
impermissable and unlawful. It produces a directly proportionate 
wound injury that is not acceptable.

Now besides the use of a .45 or a normal .38 police Special 
round, we suggest the adoption of a bullet proof vest. In 
Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Police Department adopted 
bullet proof vests as standard issue equipment for all police 
officers. And we also have FBI statistics that indicate



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that in 75% of all circumstances of shooting situations 
between police officers and assilants, the police officer 
never draws his weapon. The Los Angeles Police Department 
found out, in fact, that over 50% of the cases of officer 
injury, the injury was from a police weapon - either the 
police officer shot another police officer by mistake, 
a police officer jumped out of a car and shot his foot by 
mistake, or a weapon system was taken away from the police 
officer.

Announcer;
In fact that's what happened in Houston the night of 
December 8th when a narcotics suspect shot 2 police officers 
with a handgun, grabbed a wounded officer's shotgun, and then 
shot two more policemen with that weapon.

As for the use of bullet proof vests, Houston Police may
purchase their own but the department does not provide them,
and the vast majority of officers don't wear them, particularly
in the summer when Houston's weather is hot and muggy. For
most of them, the prime concern is the weapon they carry to
protect the public and themselves. \

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Police Officer:
Of course as a matter of necessity, law enforcement has to 
have some means of carrying out these functions. Certainly 
we'd rather not have to use firearms in carrying out our 
functions but its more or less a necessity as far as 
defense of our lives are concerned and carrying out our duties. 
And, as far as the humaness of it, we wish there was a more 
humane manner; but it's not necessarily the guns that cause 
the damage, it's the people that initiate the cause of damage.

Paust:
There's a lot of emotion and thetoric floated about - 
sometimes on both sides of this controversy but it has 
never been shown that the hollow points are more condusive 
to saving the police officer's life.



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Police Officer
At any time a police officer has to use his pistol it is 
because he has to use his pistol. And when you have to 
use your pistol, its in defense of your life or someone 
else's. And when you use your pistol, further, it's to, 
not to scare someone or threaten them, it's to shoot them, 
you see. And why are you shooting them? It's to stop 
them; and the most simple way to stop them is with the most 
efficient use of a bullet, which is the hollow - point.
It's as simple as that.

(Sounds of gunfire)