I have a long email from John R. Boyd (Lt., APD, Ret.) which give a substantially different account of the Whitman shooting. Lt. Boyd states that there were, in fact, six other Austin officers in the tower stairwell that day (Houston McCoy, Jerry Day, Philip Connor, Harold Moe, George Shepard and Boyd).
It further states, in part, that: "Martinez and civilian Crum forced their way out onto the deck while the other officers were removing two dead citizens and two wounded citizens and before the team was ready. This caused McCoy (the only officer with a shotgun) and Day to follow. The door opening onto the deck was on the South side. Whitman was crouched in the NW corner. Martinez and McCoy went around the SE corner while Day and Crum made their way toward the SW corner. As Martinez and McCoy reached the NE corner, Crum accidentally discharged the lever action .30 cal rifle he was carrying (narrowly missing Day who was in front of him) and jammed the rifle trying to eject the shell. This directed Whitman's attention to the South as Martinez and McCoy came around the NE corner. Martinez fired all six rounds from his .38 cal. service revolver, missing all six times ( the distance is about 50+ ft). Five rounds hit the west wall where Whitman was sitting and the other round apparently went over the wall. As Whitman was turning, rifle in hand, McCoy fired two rounds of 00 buckshot to his head/neck killing him instantly and taking out both eyes at the same time. Martinez threw down his service revolver (we are trained to reload when empty), grabbed the shotgun from McCoy, ran to Whitman and fired a round point blank into his left shoulder (basically shooting a dead man).
It is important to note that at this time it wasn't known if there was more than one sniper at work that day. McCoy drew his service revolver and began looking for more snipers who might have been there. At that time Martinez ran past McCoy and back into the reception area where we were, shouting 'I got him, I got him'.
All of us are eternally grateful that Crum was not the first person to come back into the reception room. A man in civilian clothes carrying a rifle into a room with four police officers who had just heard a volley of shots from the observation deck would have surely been shot to death. When we got onto the observation deck where our portable radio would work again, Moe radioed for the police to stop shooting from below and ask the police dept to notify the media to ask the armed citizens (there must have been hundereds by that time) to cease fire too. Martinez eventually returned to the observation deck, retrieved his service revolver from McCoy and left again. At that time, as far as we (other than McCoy) knew Martinez had shot Whitman; after all he said he did. In his state of mind, he may have really believed that he did. The autopsy would tell quite a different story."
This is just another example of how differently people who participate in or witness high stress events can differ in their perceptions.
Bob
