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00:08At the Dallas Pistol and Revolver Club in 1991,
00:12Trey Cooley, a young spectator,
00:14was watching a shooting competition
00:16seated behind an air gun range.
00:20He was struck and killed by a stray bullet.
00:25This is how ballistics, lasers,
00:28and forensic animation solved the riddle of the magic bullet.
01:0614-year-old Trey Cooley.
01:08Look at him and you see the all-American boy.
01:11Trey attended Bowles Junior High School
01:14in Arlington, Texas, near Dallas.
01:16He played cello in the school orchestra,
01:19played baseball, and was a Boy Scout.
01:22At that age, every kid has the whole world open to him.
01:25He could have done anything he wanted to do.
01:28Most of all, he enjoyed spending time
01:30with his family.
01:32Trey and his father, Butch, were best friends.
01:35We did everything together.
01:38September 29, 1991.
01:41Butch Cooley woke early that Saturday morning,
01:44then went to wake Trey.
01:46The two shared a passion for shooting.
01:48Butch was judging a competition.
01:50He gave Trey a choice to sleep in or tag along.
01:54Trey chose to go with his father.
01:59Trey started shooting when he was seven.
02:13He enjoyed it.
02:15He shot his first deer when he was eight.
02:18He wanted to be a pistol competitor.
02:22And he was pretty good at it.
02:25At the Dallas Pistol and Revolver Club,
02:28Trey volunteered to help out by running results
02:30from judges to the official scorer.
02:33In between assignments, he sat in the air gun building
02:36to get out of the hot Texas sun.
02:38He sat just inside the door near two women
02:41who were working as scorers.
02:43But behind people shooting air pistols,
02:46nothing more than pellet and BB guns.
02:49Then, a blood-curdling scream.
02:54Trey Cooley slumped to the floor,
02:56blood flowing from his temple.
02:58His baseball cap had a tiny but tell-tale hole.
03:02Butch Cooley was outside the building,
03:04just a few yards from his son when he heard the screaming.
03:08Although Butch Cooley spent 21 years as a state trooper
03:11and was trained to handle emergencies,
03:14no training could prepare him for what he saw next.
03:18When I got there, I saw that he'd been shot.
03:20I checked his pulse.
03:22I knew it wasn't good.
03:24Butch walked in, and I asked him,
03:27what are you doing home?
03:29And I said, well, where is Trey?
03:32And then he came in, and he told me, he said,
03:35there's been an accident.
03:39And I was thinking, you know, well, he's cut his foot,
03:42cut his hand, or broke his arm, you know.
03:44And I said, well, that's okay.
03:46He's, he'll be okay.
03:48Trey was rushed by ambulance to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas.
03:52He was just lying there.
03:54He was breathing, or the machine was breathing for him.
04:00His little hands were still warm.
04:03And he just looked like he was asleep.
04:07Six hours later, Trey died.
04:11I just wanted to tell him that I was very, very proud of him.
04:15I loved him dearly.
04:19My only son.
04:24My best friend, my fishing buddy, my hunting partner, just a void.
04:34Trey Cooley was seated in the club's designated safety area.
04:38It was an accident that shouldn't have happened.
04:43Detective Tom Pease and crime investigator David Taylor
04:47had a tough job.
04:48To figure out where the bullet that killed Trey Cooley came from.
04:52And to determine if the shooting was accidental or intentional.
04:58Butch Cooley spent two decades as a state trooper.
05:01Was it possible the shooting had something to do with an enemy
05:04he possibly made during his tenure?
05:07Or had the bullet come from outside,
05:09from one of the outdoor shooting ranges?
05:11Or possibly the nearby railroad tracks
05:14where kids had a history of taking shots at the air gun building?
05:18The biggest problem with this range, or this seam,
05:21was the size of it.
05:23It wasn't contained inside a house, inside an apartment.
05:26It was outside, and it covered several hundred feet.
05:29The bullet removed from Trey's skull
05:32would provide some answers and raise new questions.
05:35The bullet was small, about half an inch long, but lethal.
05:40Larry Fletcher is the firearms expert
05:43who conducted the ballistics examination.
05:45The bullet was not that damaged.
05:48The bullet was in rather remarkable condition.
05:52This is a .45 caliber bullet after striking a cement wall.
05:56It is badly mangled,
05:58especially when compared to the bullet that killed Trey Cooley.
06:01That lack of damage could be telling,
06:04except for one thing.
06:06This was not a typical .45 caliber bullet.
06:10This particular bullet is a hand-loaded or hand-made bullet.
06:15It's not a commercial-made bullet,
06:16in which they can add other materials to the lead
06:20and make it much harder.
06:22It can withstand a lot of damage upon impact.
06:26Who makes and uses these types of bullets?
06:30Butch Cooley knew.
06:32Competitive shooters like to load their own ammunition,
06:37the primary reason being the cost savings.
06:41Most of the competitive shooters on the outside ranges that day
06:45were using handmade bullets,
06:46so there was little doubt that the bullet came from somewhere here,
06:50rather than from kids on the railroad tracks.
06:54Police collected the weapons and ammunition samples
06:57from the shooters in the competition.
06:59When Larry Fletcher examined the bullets used that day
07:02on the outside ranges, he noticed something else.
07:05The powder charge,
07:08which increased the velocity of this particular type of bullet.
07:12Basically, the shooters used bullets with more gunpowder,
07:16more gunpowder means these bullets travel farther and faster
07:20than a regular .45 caliber bullet.
07:26Fletcher's next task was to match the bullet that killed Trey
07:29to one of about a dozen guns.
07:32Each of the guns from the shooting competition
07:35were test-fired and compared to the bullet
07:37taken from Trey Cooley's skull.
07:40Fletcher had trouble getting an exact match
07:43because the extra gunpowder created extremely high temperatures
07:47during the firing of the gun,
07:49actually melting some of the distinguishing marks.
07:53But Fletcher noticed a red wax on the bullet that killed Trey.
07:58All shooters use a lubricating wax,
08:01but only one of the guns used a red wax.
08:05Larry Fletcher found the gun that fired the fatal shot.
08:09At that point, I was pretty much convinced.
08:12A pistol competitor named Dan Smith
08:14was using that gun on the day of the competition.
08:17And he was firing on this outdoor range
08:20just behind the air gun building.
08:23But Smith told police he couldn't have fired the fatal shot.
08:27He felt that all his shots had made the target,
08:30that there were no errant rounds.
08:33But something just didn't add up to Butch Cooley.
08:36He spent his entire life around guns
08:39and won awards for marksmanship and gun safety.
08:43He knew shooting ranges are supposed to be safe.
08:46Accidents aren't supposed to happen.
08:49It just didn't make sense.
08:55Police were satisfied that Trey Cooley's death was an accident.
08:59The ballistics report said the fatal bullet came from a gun
09:02fired from an outdoor range during the competition.
09:05But how?
09:06The owner of the gun said he didn't miss a shot.
09:10And the range was designed to contain any errant bullet.
09:14First, there's a barrier between the air gun building
09:17and the firing range.
09:18It's called a berm.
09:20It's a small mountain of dirt about 12 feet high.
09:24The berm sits right behind the targets
09:27in the event a shooter misses either to the left or right.
09:31Directly above the targets are a series of wooden planks
09:34fastened end to end and side by side.
09:38These are called baffles
09:39and are designed to catch bullets fired a little high of the target
09:43before they leave the range.
09:46Then there are two additional sets of baffles.
09:49One just a few yards in front of the firing line
09:53and another called an eyebrow directly over the firing line.
09:58Ken Buster is a safety management consultant
10:01with years of experience as a shooter
10:04and with a special expertise in firing ranges.
10:07Between the eyebrow, the baffles, and the height of the berm,
10:12the vast majority of any stray bullet would be stopped.
10:16Safety should be the number one priority in everybody's mind
10:19any time that you participate in marksmanship as a sport.
10:25But something was wrong there.
10:28Butch Cooley began a personal crusade to learn the truth.
10:32He needed to know how a bullet could bypass the range's safety features
10:37and kill his only son.
10:39Butch hired attorney Mike Schmidt to find out where
10:42or if the safety system had failed.
10:46Schmidt put together an investigative team.
10:48Steve Irwin was the first member.
10:51As an accident reconstructionist, his job was to create an exact,
10:56computerized, three-dimensional scale model of the air gun building
11:00and the firing ranges.
11:02Using laser technology, precision measuring devices,
11:06and sophisticated computer programs,
11:09Irwin would also uncover the path of the bullet.
11:11You wind up starting at, unfortunately, the young boy getting shot
11:17and then working your way backwards.
11:18Police had already identified some important clues.
11:22The outside wall of the air gun building
11:24was riddled with bullet holes from all angles.
11:28Irwin needed to know exactly which one was the culprit.
11:32Police also found bullet holes inside the building.
11:36In a sheetrock strip to protect a lighting fixture
11:39and in a wall that separated the indoor range from a storage shed.
11:44There was also a fresh gouge in an ordinary ceiling tile.
11:49Irwin's laser survey equipment traced the bullet's path
11:52from where Trey was sitting through all those points,
11:56from Trey, through the sheetrock strip,
11:59off the ceiling tile, and through the back wall.
12:02It seemed unlikely, but it matched the evidence.
12:06It was roughly a straight line.
12:08But I couldn't see from the interior wall to the exterior wall.
12:12And it wasn't until we got it back to the office
12:16and got it mapped that it formed this remarkably straight line.
12:20A straight line that led directly to one of the bullet holes
12:24in the aluminum siding,
12:25then down to the shooting range behind the air gun building.
12:30It led to the range where Dan Smith was shooting,
12:33but oddly enough, not to the firing line.
12:36The laser pinpointed a path that landed 10 yards in front of the firing line.
12:43When Ken Buster was brought into the investigation,
12:46he immediately inspected the firing range
12:49to see if there was any way a bullet could get past
12:52all of the range's safety features.
12:55Buster delivered a scathing report.
12:58At the time and now, I still think that was the worst range that I have ever seen.
13:03He found dozens of potentially deadly safety flaws.
13:07The berm separating the back range from the front range
13:11was not the standard height, which is supposed to be 20 feet.
13:14The berm behind the air gun building was only 12 feet high.
13:19The baffles were far below standard.
13:21The wooden planks should have had a steel or concrete backing.
13:26And look closely at the planks themselves.
13:29They had separated, leaving big gaps.
13:33A bullet could easily pass through.
13:36In this case, the baffles might well have not been there
13:39and served no purpose at all.
13:41And Buster was appalled by the bullet holes in the back of the building.
13:45Several of these holes had been plugged.
13:48That means to me, as a safety person, as a range person, as a long-time shooter,
13:53that they knew that bullets were getting out of that range
13:56and they accepted that fact and continued to shoot.
14:00The laser analysis projected the bullet path
14:02to the middle of the outdoor range,
14:05well in front of the firing line.
14:07How could this be?
14:09It was due to a monumental blunder.
14:12During the competition, shooters were required to fire from several distances.
14:19First, from the firing line at 25 yards.
14:22Then they moved forward to 20 yards.
14:26And finally, to 15 yards.
14:29The laser study showed that the fatal bullet was fired from the 15-yard line.
14:35The architectural model shows the problem clearly.
14:39By firing from the 15-yard line, shooters had to move in front of the eyebrow
14:45and the first set of protective baffles.
14:48And Irwin's computer also showed another frightening reality.
14:52From the 15-yard line, you could see the back of the air gun building.
14:58If you can see it, you can shoot it.
15:00And any projectile that might leave the range in that area was going to hit that building.
15:08The laser showed the bullet flew under the last baffle,
15:12over the berm and into the building.
15:15It involved a bizarre trajectory.
15:18It meant that the shooter missed the target high and to the left by more than five feet.
15:25A terrible miss.
15:27How could a trained marksman miss a target by that much from only 15 yards away?
15:33Part of that answer was found in the gun itself.
15:37Close examination revealed it had been modified.
15:41It's like taking a standard car and making a hot rod.
15:44Some competitive shooters file down parts of the gun
15:47to make it easier to pull the trigger quickly.
15:50They've got it set to where they go off so easily
15:54when they fire two rounds instead of one, it feeds so fast.
15:57The result is called doubling,
15:59which sometimes occurs as the gun recoils.
16:02A recoil is the backward force created by the explosion
16:07pushing the gun up in the air.
16:09Each type of gun recoils differently.
16:13A .45 creates a recoil up and to the left.
16:17Kirk Parks had the task of producing the computerized proof,
16:21a fact-based animation of what happened.
16:24His firm specializes in forensic animation.
16:28Parks videotaped hundreds of .45 caliber pistol shots
16:32using the same type pistol and ammunition.
16:35He used this footage to create an exact,
16:39computerized reproduction of the recoil for the animation.
16:43We shot the video from the top of the weapon
16:46and we shot it from the side and we shot it from the front.
16:50Next, Parks created wireframe models
16:53of a competitive shooter in action
16:55and then animated Irwin's laser studies of the firing range
16:59and the bullet path to complete the picture.
17:02It produced the exact results necessary
17:05to generate the bullet path that was surveyed up and to the left.
17:08I can't say for sure that the gun doubled,
17:11but all of the evidence seems to indicate that it did
17:15and it fired during the uncontrollable recoil.
17:18This forensic animation was able to show
17:21what happened to Trey Cooley
17:23on the morning of September 29, 1991.
17:26But the animation showed that the bullet took a remarkable journey,
17:32one which almost defied belief.
17:37When Trey Cooley entered the Dallas Pistol and Revolver Club
17:41on September 29, 1991,
17:44the range was a tragedy just waiting to strike.
17:48Outside on the firing range behind the air gun building,
17:51Dan Smith, one of the last competitors of the day,
17:55steps up to the 15-yard line.
17:57This moves him in front of two sets of safety baffles.
18:02Using a modified gun,
18:04Smith takes aim and squeezes the trigger.
18:07In a fraction of a second,
18:09another shot is fired during the recoil phase of the original shot.
18:14It happened so quickly,
18:15the shooter doesn't know it left the gun.
18:17The bullet misses the target, high and to the left.
18:21Traveling upwards,
18:23it passes underneath the last set of protective baffles
18:26and just three inches over the berm.
18:29It's speeding at 1,200 feet per second.
18:32The bullet blasts through the aluminum siding,
18:36goes through a storage room,
18:38misses a broom and some pipes by less than an inch,
18:41and then breaks through a second wall,
18:43entering the air gun range.
18:45Then, the bullet does something unbelievable.
18:50It strikes an ordinary ceiling tile,
18:53and for some unknown reason,
18:55it doesn't blast straight through into the roof.
18:58Instead, it skids along the tile for seven inches
19:02before mysteriously changing direction,
19:06making a 10-degree turn and begins a downward path.
19:11It slows to about 900 feet per second,
19:13penetrates a plaster wall
19:15and enters Trey Cooley's head.
19:46The Cooley's head is a very strong,
19:48filed a negligence suit against the gun club
19:51and individuals involved with the competition.
19:54The judge who presided over the civil case
19:57was impressed with the visual and computerized evidence.
20:00I've been on the bench six and a half years,
20:02and I would say that's in the top two or three or four
20:07in terms of just the professionalism
20:11and the effectiveness of the demonstrative evidence brought into court.
20:17The Cooley's attorney says the forensic animation and model
20:21explained this tragedy in a way nothing else could.
20:25I could not have possibly gotten the result that I got
20:29on behalf of the Cooley family without them.
20:32The animation also helped Butch Cooley understand
20:35what had happened to his son.
20:37But there is still little peace for Trey's dad.
20:41What's peace?
20:48You just take it the day and the time.
20:51Change just one thing,
20:53and Trey Cooley might be alive today.
20:56The range.
20:57It wouldn't have happened
20:59because I would not have allowed that competition
21:02to occur on that particular range.
21:06The gun.
21:07They may not even be aware
21:09that it's double firing or slam firing on them.
21:11They may think it's properly functioning.
21:13The bullet.
21:15If it had been a softer bullet,
21:17they may not have ricocheted as much,
21:20would not have had the velocity.
21:22Or if the shooter had been standing
21:24at the proper firing line,
21:26the shot would have hit the baffle
21:28or flown over the building.
21:30But why did this fatal bullet change direction
21:34as it hit the soft ceiling tile
21:36instead of blasting straight through
21:39as it did with the hard walls?
21:41Bullets can do incredible things,
21:44things they're not expected to do.
21:45These thoughts haunt Butch Cooley.
21:48No explanation can ease the pain felt by a father
21:52who woke his son early one September morning.
21:56I should have let him sleep.
22:34I should have let him sleep.
22:35I should have let him sleep.
22:37I should have let him sleep.
22:43I should have let him sleep.
22:44I should have let him sleep.
22:44I should have let him sleep.
22:45I should have let him sleep.
22:45I should have let him sleep.
22:45I should have let him sleep.
22:46I should have let him sleep.
22:48I should have let him sleep.
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