Russian Roulette

Yet more evidence that humans are too stupid to survive comes from this news story of two police officers playing Russian Roulette. According to the story:

Alix was off duty at the time of the shooting, police said. Hendren and his partner were on duty. All three were in Hendren's apartment shortly before 1 a.m.

Hendren took all the bullets out of a revolver and then put one back in, police said in a probable cause statement. He spun the cylinder, pointed it away and pulled the trigger, but the gun did not fire.

Alix then took the gun, pointed it at Hendren and pulled the trigger without discharging a bullet, police said.

Hendren’s partner told Hendren and Alix “that they shouldn’t be playing with guns and that they were police officers,” police said in the statement.

“He felt uncomfortable with them playing with guns and didn’t want to have any part of it and started to leave."

Hendren took the gun back and pulled the trigger.

“As [Hendren's partner] left the room but before leaving the apartment, he heard a shot," police said.

Alix was struck in the chest.

She died, of course, and Hendren has been charged with involuntary manslaughter - a ridiculous charge since it was clearly first degree murder, even though she was apparently a willing co-conspirator.

The story doesn't mention whether the cylinder was spun between rounds, and it does matter. If I do the arithmetic right, and the gun was a six-shooter, the odds of somebody getting shot in the first three rounds would be about 42% if the cylinder was spun each time 1-(5/6)^3. If one assumes that the cylinder was not spun after each round, and there was no mention of further spins in the story, those odds increase to 72% (1-(5/6)*(4/6)*(3/6)).

That cop should hang. His partner needs to be charged with dereliction of duty.

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