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Arizona deputy's claim he was shot by smugglers doesn't add up, say experts
Guardian ^ | Sept 26th 2010 | Andrew Clark

Posted on 09/26/2010 9:32:48 PM PDT by Cardhu

Arizona deputy's claim he was shot by smugglers doesn't add up, say experts Chief medical examiners suggest gunshot that wounded Louie Puroll was fired at close range, rather than from over 20 metres ( A border patrol agent near the Mexican border in Arizona, where sheriff's deputy Louie Puroll claimed he was shot by smugglers. The distress call of a wounded sheriff's deputy from an isolated spot in Arizona near the Mexican border has been played repeatedly on primetime US news: "I've been hit! I've been hit! I've been hit!"

But doubts have now been raised over the story of Louie Puroll, who became a political hero to America's movement against illegal immigrants when he claimed to have been fired upon 30 times in an ambush by heavily armed smugglers carrying bales of marijuana through the desert.

A 15-year veteran of Arizona's sheriff's department, Puroll, 53, was awarded a purple heart and was congratulated by Republican senator John McCain when he suffered a gunshot wound in April, a week after the state's governor signed a new law making it a crime for foreigners to fail to carry valid immigration documents at all times.

Several medical experts say a flesh wound on Puroll's back appears to be a close contact wound inflicted from inches away rather than from a shot fired at 25 yards' range, as the officer claimed.

"The weapon was either touching this man or was within a couple of inches," Michael Baden, a former chief medical examiner for New York City, told the Phoenix New Times. "It's pretty straightforward. It clearly is not a shot from distance."

... Werner Spitz, a former chief medical examiner for Michigan and author of a forensic medicine textbook, agreed: "This is a grazing wound fired at contact range."

(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: arizona; beserkcop; deputy; donutwatch; leo; police; shooting
"The sheriff's office admitted that in the heat of the moment, certain details released to media were wrong – including a claim that a police helicopter had been fired on."
1 posted on 09/26/2010 9:32:52 PM PDT by Cardhu
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To: Cardhu

Weird. Any cop should know about powder burns like this.

But, I guess there are idiots everywhere.


2 posted on 09/26/2010 9:35:46 PM PDT by Ronin (If he were not so gruesomely incompetent and dangerous, Obama would just be silly.)
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To: Cardhu

Ya mean the ambush didn’t sneak up behind him and shoot him at point blank... SIDEWAYS?


3 posted on 09/26/2010 9:41:37 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (I am in America but not of America (per bible: am in the world but not of it))
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To: HiTech RedNeck

Imagine for a minute that you were a drug lord running drugs across the AZ desert. What would you tell your people? Avoid contact, surrender, but no violence or shoot to kill and avoid capture? The drug lords don’t want violence on our side of the border. They bribe, avoid, surrender and pay rather than cause problems. I don’t know what happened with this agent, but we must assume that if new is too good to be true..it isn’t. The drug smugglers are business people..bad people, but business people.


4 posted on 09/26/2010 9:48:02 PM PDT by Oldexpat
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To: Oldexpat
Avoid contact, surrender, but no violence or shoot to kill and avoid capture? The drug lords don’t want violence on our side of the border. They bribe, avoid, surrender and pay rather than cause problems.

This may or may not be the instructions from the boss, who doesn't have to do the prison time, but the man in the field may have different ideas...

5 posted on 09/26/2010 10:06:10 PM PDT by CurlyDave
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To: Oldexpat
Avoid contact, surrender, but no violence or shoot to kill and avoid capture? The drug lords don’t want violence on our side of the border. They bribe, avoid, surrender and pay rather than cause problems.

This may or may not be the instructions from the boss, who doesn't have to do the prison time, but the man in the field may have different ideas...

6 posted on 09/26/2010 10:06:21 PM PDT by CurlyDave
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To: Cardhu

Right, are they suggesting the guy shot himself? He was out there alone, except for the creeps he was following. I’m sure at the time he wasn’t aware of where the shot came from just that he was hit.


7 posted on 09/26/2010 10:10:38 PM PDT by McGavin999 ("I was there when we had the numbers, but didn't have the principles"-Jim DeMint)
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To: Oldexpat
They bribe, avoid, surrender and pay rather than cause problems.

Wow, really. Then perhaps you could explain how my fellow Border Agents Luis Aguilar and Robert Rosas got killed.

8 posted on 09/26/2010 10:33:33 PM PDT by Ajnin
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To: Oldexpat

Well, the cartels are business people, who would of thought? Perhaps you can explain why they keep trying to kill me and my fellow agents. Since you know more than me I eagerly await your explanation.


9 posted on 09/26/2010 10:44:11 PM PDT by Ajnin
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To: McGavin999

He claimed 30 shots were fired at him from the ambush - what a bunch of myopic drug runners. Then the police helicopter was supposedly shot at which was later admitted to be false.

Of course you can believe that the people crept up behind him and stood so close as to give him powder burns on his back but being careful only to graze him and that the other 29 shots missed him.

Then the Investigators have been criticised for failing to send Puroll’s shirt to a crime lab for chemical analysis.

I am collecting money to build a Shrine at that place to commemorate the “Miracle in the Desert,” I am sure I can count on a donation from you.


10 posted on 09/26/2010 10:51:15 PM PDT by Cardhu
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To: Ajnin

So, what’s up with this?


11 posted on 09/26/2010 11:02:27 PM PDT by dsc (Any attempt to move a government to the left is a crime against humanity.)
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To: Cardhu
No, you can't count on me. Sorry, I'm not big into conspiracies. I've seen too many people killed by these creeps. You can make excuses for the drug runners if you want, I'm sure you were all for Bush keeping the two border patrol agents in jail for shooting a drug runner.

What's the matter Bubba, afraid the cops will cut off your drug supplies?

12 posted on 09/26/2010 11:08:58 PM PDT by McGavin999 ("I was there when we had the numbers, but didn't have the principles"-Jim DeMint)
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To: Cardhu

Post the rest of that paragraph.

” “After a review all of the evidence in this case, the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office has closed this criminal investigation and concluded that it occurred as Deputy Puroll reported it.””


13 posted on 09/27/2010 5:04:28 AM PDT by stilloftyhenight (Don't make me use uppercase.)
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To: McGavin999
What's the matter Bubba, afraid the cops will cut off your drug supplies?

Thanks for the thoughtful, logical point. /s

14 posted on 09/27/2010 7:31:50 AM PDT by Fundamentally Fair (If exercising the right to free speech invites violence, then girls in short skirts invite rape.)
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