I am privileged to be one of a handful of persons with combined experience in both forensic and criminal investigations with hands-on involvement in literally thousands of cases from septuple homicides to defective design.

47 total years in ballistics and firearms including 23 years in forensic shooting reconstruction and investigation.

Former Commanding Officer of the Massachusetts State Police Firearms Section and member of the Firearms Review Board for officer involved shootings.

During  25+ years with the Massachusetts State Police, I have investigated, supervised, or assisted in every type of shooting incident;  the crime lab averaged 1200-1700 cases annually for 350 cities/towns and all state and Federal agencies except the FBI.

In 2002, I combined a lifetime of education, training, and experience with shooting incidents, firearms, ballistics, gunshot wounds, shooting dynamics, crime scenes, forensics, and criminal investigation into private consulting  in areas of:

             Homicide – Suicide – Wrongful Death – Accidental Discharge

            Police Involved Shootings

            Shooting Incident Reconstruction

            Daubert/Frye Consultation

            Crime Scenes

            Ballistics (Internal, External, and Terminal)

            Gunshot Wounds

            Trajectory Analysis

            Tool marks & microscopy (firearms identification)

            Catastrophic failure resulting in death or serious injury

            Design flaws

            Hunting protocols and firearms safety

Most common deficiencies in shooting incidents:

• The investigator has insufficient forensic expertise.

• Investigators often rely on technicians to collect evidence who lack investigative experience and critical information at the scene is overlooked.

• Evidence is submitted to a crime lab, often a state or county agency, where months later still more detached examiners have minimal, or no knowledge at all, of the incident and what tests should be conducted.

• The correlation of test results, the alleged version of events, and conclusions conflict.

• Evidence, which should have been present, is not even considered and therefore never part of the conclusion.

• Cases are prosecuted on faulty theory & evidence does not support the charges.

• Attorneys frequently lack the forensic and criminal investigative expertise to defend their client.

The typical result:

The investigation is compartmentalized with a significant gap in inter-communication;  scientific test results are disconnected from the actual evidence interpretation which existed at the crime scene;  needed tests to resolve conflicting results are not done.

Lab technicians/criminalists often share time performing non-firearms work and are restricted to the field of firearms identification (tool marks, etc). 

The final case file is littered with omissions and misconstrued conclusions which is then reviewed by people who have little technical, forensic and/or investigative skills. 

Contact:     ronaldscott@azballistics.com  
                   623-764-6371