The first thing Dan and I said when we heard that multiple police officers were injured during the infamous shootout with the brothers Tsarnaev: “friendly fire.” OK, we didn’t exactly call it that. But there was no doubt in either or our minds that cops shot each other. The chances that Tamerlan Tsarnaev wounded the po-po with one handgun were lower than Liz Hurley’s neckline. And now the truth comes out about the incident. Well, some of it. Here are the bullet points from “two police sources” quoted by cnn.com . . .
— Police fired nearly 300 rounds of ammunition within five to 10 minutes as they confronted the suspects — 100 more than initially reported. And that included one round that nearly killed Massachusetts Transit Police Officer Richard Donohue. (Others bullets struck the Tsarnaev brothers, seriously injuring Dzhokhar and contributing to the death of Tamerlan.)
— Tamerlan was the only brother armed with a handgun. The only other weapons they had were the homemade explosives that police say the brothers tossed out of the hijacked vehicle, including a few that detonated.
— Police accidentally fired on an unoccupied black SUV during the mayhem. “In the chaos, an officer or trooper (or some combination of personnel) mistook it for one of the two suspect vehicles,” David Procopio of the Massachusetts State Police told CNN.
Now you could say fog of war, exigent circumstances, etc. But I’m not gonna. Not until I see the official police report on the shootout. Which could be never.
“That shoot review, which is ongoing, will include examination of any potential friendly fire incidents,” [Massachusetts State Police spoeksman [David] Procopio said. While Donohue was the only officer seriously injured in the Watertown shooting, another officer was also grazed by a bullet.”
As far as we know.