Cop’s .45 Bullet Goes Down Barrel of Suspect’s .40 Cal

You hear about one-in-a-million shots, like the famous case of a sniper firing a bullet right through an enemy sniper’s scope, which has been argued about and tested ad nauseum. LINK But this story out of Colorado has to be a one-in-a-billion shot if there ever was one. And good luck trying to duplicating it.

According to this story from wnd.com, Deputy Sheriff Jose Ramon Marquez found himself confronted with two armed individuals in January who drew their weapons, and that fact alone “would be sufficient for Deputy Marquez to draw and use his weapon to defend himself,” said an investigator. The bizarre details of what happened next have just been released by police.

This CBS story says Marquez was visiting his girlfriend’s apartment when the two suspects approached him in the parking lot with guns drawn. One suspect allegedly told Marquez to “give it up.”

There’s not much doubt that Jahil Meshesha was pointing his .40-caliber pistol at Marquez. The suspects fired on the deputy, who returned fire with his .45-caliber sidearm. One of Marquez’s .45s hit Meshesha’s gun exactly in the muzzle and traveled down the barrel.

That’s right. The .45 bullet actually went down the other gun’s barrel from the muzzle through the barrel, and collided with the round in the chamber, jamming it completely. From the photo, it looks like the round in the chamber of the suspect’s Springfield XDm had its bullet set back deep into the casing.

“This collision rendered the .40 caliber pistol temporarily inoperable. Thus, we can conclude that Meshesha fired three shots before this happened, based on the shell casings found at the scene, and that he was pointing his gun at Deputy Marquez when Deputy Marquez fired the shot that hit the gun, otherwise the shot from Deputy Marquez would not have gone down the barrel,” said Rich Orman, the chief deputy district attorney in Colorado’s Arapahoe County, which investigated the police-shooting case. “This collision rendered the .40 caliber pistol temporarily inoperable. Thus we concluded that Meshesha fired three shots before this happened, based on the shell casings found at the scene.”

The story says one suspect was wounded in the leg and arrested, and the other fled. Marquez was also injured in the firefight, having been shot in the shoulder and abdomen. He is still recovering from his injuries.