“Police were called to the 100-block of Thomas Drive for a reported domestic dispute Sunday just before 7 p.m,” pittsburgh.cbslocal.com reports. “Upon arrival, several women were waiting outside, and told officers that Jody Martz, 52, had assaulted them and was still inside. The officers announced their presence and knocked on the front door.” The who’s there? arrived in ballistic form.
Martz then allegedly fired a hunting rifle from the inside of the home. The bullet traveled through the wall and struck an officer’s right front breast pocket, “damaging his uniform.” He was not injured.
“We were this close,” said Chief Otto, showing an inch worth of distance with his hand. “Sometimes you’re lucky, sometimes you’re blessed, at the end of the day I don’t care which one we are as long as we go home to our loved ones.”
Yup, it’s ye olde “as long as we get home at night” routine. Still, thank God.
Officers interviewed 10 or 11 women who were inside the home for a party. They said Martz pushed or punched one woman in the back, punched his wife in the head, pushed another woman to the ground and finally choked another guest.
Uh, weren’t there any other men at the hoe-down? I wonder what was going on behind those closed doors . . .
This is a perfect example of the importance of knowing the difference between cover (the bad guy can’t shoot you) and concealment (the bad guy can’t see you). An important lesson for anyone planning on practicing home defense.
Sounds like a great night until the cough medicine took over…
Watched too many Jason Borne movies.
I deer hunt through wall. Me and Chuck.
Why are these wall penetrating cop killer bullets even legal?!?!?!
SSSSHHHHH! /SarcOn, Some have NO IDEA that that really is No Idea.
Obviously this was mis-reported. A Fudd-rifle could not do such damage… only a high-load, assault weapon could penetrate a wall. But then, I guess an assault weapon would not have only penetrated the wall, it would also have gone through the cop, his car, two young Skittle shoppers, and an LGBT conference.
He must have had a Remington chambered in a completely traditional hunting or varmint caliber, like .308 or .223, and accidentally loaded it with hyperdeath assault rifle rounds out of an AR10 or AR15.
I live in Penn Twp, and have friends in the department. They are all great guys, very solid 2A supporters. Jeanette is a low income rust belt town, on the slide to nowhere and fraught with drugs and alcoholism. From what I hear it was a .30-06 round and it did leave a nice hole in the officers shirt. I once had a ricochet 7.62 knock me down so I can relate.
The snark about going home at night? editorialize much? don’t we all want that? I don’t want to be going to the funeral of my 10 year old’s friends father.
“Don’t we all want that?”
Not at the expense of a police state, no. Citizen’s rights are more important than “officer safety”. If they have a problem with that, they are welcome to either put their big boy pants on or leave.
And when was the last time you were shot at? or had a shotgun pointed at you? or had a a high as F@#k asshat take a swing at you? This isn’t a police state here in semi rural Pa. These weren’t Pittsburgh cops. They were twp. cops where half the force work part time at two or three local police departments to make a decent wage. You need to get off your high horse and realize that’s the bulk of the cops outside of urban centers.
When was I last shot at? 2005, right around Mosul.
Do we really want to have this pissing contest? Because I have been shot three times in my lifetime. (Once center mass and am only alive because SAPPI plates kick ass.)
The problem is not these particular cops. The problem is the attitude that permeates departments where “coming home at night” is all that matters. No fucktard, ACCOMPLISHING THE MISSION is all that matters. Part of your mission is not alienating your community by acting like an occupying army and having the same attitude. Hell, I was PART OF AN OCCUPYING ARMY and if I did what some of these cops pull every day, I would have been up on charges by the end of the day.
Do they issue revenue gaining citations? Is their job to protect people from unlawful damage done to their body or property, or is it to collect extra money from people for “offenses” that cause no one damage or harm but the overlords in charge say that the peons are not allowed to do it. I realize that they were called to this scene to protect, but it seems that a lot of hate comes from the collection of fines for piddly garbage laws.
Police officer’s lives are NOT more important than construction workers, sales people, business managers, etc. I’m tired of black lives matter, blue lives matter, and all the other labeling BS. ALL lives matter! I don’t care if you’re urban, rural, whatever. You do the job that you have chosen. My life is no less important than anyone else’s, and I have loved ones to go home to just as much as a cop does. It’s no disrespect to law enforcement, but don’t for a minute think you can shoot me just because you think it makes your life safer. MY life matters! So both sides of this back and blue lives matter debate had better get their priorities straight. Riots and drug fueled gang banging is not the answer. Neither is police militarization and corruption.
Well thank you for your service, pswerge, and you are right they should not be acting like an occupying army, and by and large they do not. At least local to me. I had a discussion with the one of the full time officers about the whole BLM movement. It was his opinion it would eventually blow over and he was very even keeled about it, until Dallas, and then your attitude begins to change.
They are not a revenue generator as I see it. And as for all lives matter, that’s why I carry.
All respect where it’s due, but even football coaches said many years ago, “If you don’t wanna get hit then go play tennis.”
I can have respect and hold no sympathy at the same time. Cops volunteer to deal with the dregs of society. “Doublethinkers” are another breed.
Pwrserge – thank you for your service. I don’t know any cops that have a harder job than you guys did. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge supporter of the military and equally huge supporter of those majority honorable police officers. We fly a law enforcement flag just below the Stars and Stripes at home. But we can’t just blindly go along with the crime and corruption that continues to destroy this great country. I’m a reasonably intelligent person and I understand what the Constitution is all about.
Renner- not all departments are created equal. Mine lists the priorities of life, as in whose matters most, like this-
1. Hostages
2. Bystanders
3. Officers
4. Suspects
The going home at night is supposed to come from superior marksmanship (I know, bracing for the jokes already, but the training here is pretty good) and solid tactics, not holding back Orlando style. Especially not from spraying bullets wildly into the city.
@Hasdrubal
That’s a good priority check. One problem is that sometimes cops have a hard time telling the difference between 2 and 4.
I think that too often agencies reverse 1 and 3. (See the the Dorner manhunt.)
The funny thing is that this was in no way in the context of the safety of police officers vs. the liberties of citizens. It was the guy just saying that he doesn’t care if he was lucky or blessed that he wasn’t ventilated.
Which is why it was a dumb and unnecessarily inflammatory thing to bring up in the article.
Exactly. I should have read through all of the responses first, to get to yours, before posting mine below. Everything above was just so far off the mark, though, that I didn’t see anybody even accidentally getting close to making this point. Good job.
You got it! That snide remark would have made sense if the officers had shot anyone but the suspect, or a dog or something. But Farago likes to appeal to his edgy cop hating readers, so he criticizes the officer for having the audacity to be happy to be alive.
I appreciate the courage that these men show for the good of the public. Please urge your freinds to use their priveleges judiciously and with proper respect and restraint.
Maybe the drunk perp is practicing the Slow Joe Biden defense-without a shotgun. Oh yeah it ain’t SNARK if we hear it every freakin’ day…
It’s SNARK when its plopped in the article for the sake of snarkiness.
1st time here John E? This so-called snark is pretty weak for RF/TTAG…
No I fully expect snark, but in the context of this article the snark felt misplaced. Snarky snarkiness for the sake of snark isn’t always the right snark.
Seriously? You are comparing your experience with a 7.62×39 with a 30-06? Bit of a difference, eh?
But I guess dead is dead if the heavy part cuts too close.
Not sure where you got 7.62×39, are you new to firearms? Besides 7.62×39, there are other 7.62 rifles, including .300 blk, .308, 30-’06, .300 WinMag, probably 100 more I have never heard of.
Maybe it was a tupperware party, and he was mad he didn’t get his free gift?
…and concealment isn’t even concealment if they can see you through the door.
Concealment? I carry open and often here in KY. Most folks never notice (including police.) This ain’t the boondocks either. I live in Louisville.
Those who do notice are fellow gun owners. Don’t let MA and CA confuse you. Freedom is alive and well.
I wasn’t talking about OC and CC, I was talking about concealment vs cover. Yes, a wall they can shoot through is concealment but not cover. But if you’re standing next to the door, and they can see you through a window in the door, you aren’t concealed either.
Either that, or he didn’t see the cop and was just firing a Biden shot.
And Biden shots are government approved, no harm, no foul, right?
Unless you live in a rebar and cement house there’s very few spots in the average home that will stop a rimfire, let alone the average hunting rifle.
In the average house going prone in the laundry room may be your best option for cover from incoming fire. Unless you have a basement.
That one shot ruined the cops shirt and his underwear.
The refrigerator’s motor is about the only thing inside a house that will stop a round.
Makes some sense. I said laundry room cause in my house it’s the most inside room of the house. The round has to come thru multiple walls to get there and we have substantial machines in there.
One thing about living in CA. No basements. My home in WVA had a full basement.
A healthy shelf full of books taken endwise is surely better than sheetrock.
That’s why I have lots of bookshelves. 😉
Wait. Doesn’t everybody have a Couch Bunker Safe?
A .308 through the face will prevent that round from being fired.
Large quantities of dirt will stop a round. Basements are a wonderful thing. Shotgun defense up above, rifle defense once they come down the stairs.
As an experiment, I popped a single .38 Special into a roll of carpet inside of a basement. It didn’t hurt my ears nor the floor. Never did dig the bullet out. 357 would be a different story.
“Yup, it’s ye olde ‘as long as we get home at night’ routine.”
This swipe was misplaced and out of bounds. The “as long as” in the original quote refers to the difference between being lucky or blessed. It doesn’t refer to the difference between police work carried out professionally and constitutionally, and that conducted disdainfully, with callous disregard for the citizenry, and exemption from proper consequences.
Interpreting the term identically, despite the difference in context, exposes TTAG’s anti-police bias, which directly contradicts the site’s mission to pursue the truth about guns.
A man’s home is his castle, but they’re pretty much made out of cardboard. Shoot through the walls if you need to.
Went I went through the police academy in 2007 I heard multiple times “make sure you go home at the end of the day”. As a retired military man I thought that attitude was so bogus and completely the wrong priority for policemen. When your duty is to protect the lives of others, self preservation is not the main focus. I think this “go home at the end of the day” mantra leads to unnecessary and excessive use of force. I know split second decisions are the difference between life and death but if the policeman lives by this “go home mantra ” , then “to protect and to serve” just went out the window. In the military we wrote a blank check to the US government with our lives as collateral and had a saying “you have to go out, you don’t have to come back”. Every policeman who doesn’t understand this should resign immediately and find another line of work.
I have a hard time believing a .30 cal rifle round would penetrate the wall and NOT perforate the officer.
SOMETHING is missing from this story.
Nothing was missing other than the bad guys aim. Officer is standing at an angle and the bullet, fired blindly thru the wall, skims along his shirt, ripping it but leaving him unhurt. Bullets, especially those that have alredy hit something like this wall do weird things.
Look at the 2 ladies in the Dorner fuck up in LA. The cops shot that Toyota to pieces and 1 lady was hit 1 time.
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