it is not for no reason…
the initial report from the Congressman may be wrong about which shot hit the stock, and I am not the only one who finds it remarkable how that stock got damaged…
if bullet 9 damaged the stock, crooks’ right chin should show serious damage, given the angle from which the SWAT officer took that shot (the bearing between crooks’ line of sight is about 12 degrees off that of the line of fire from the SWAT officer)… so, if shot 9 damaged the stock, the right bottom of crooks’ chin should have gone too…
but if you look at the following picture, it makes much more sense that shot 10 took him and that piece of stock out:
I do not know who fired that round, but in this position, it makes perfect sense that a bullet coming from the rally area leads to an entry wound in front of his left ear, exit wound around the back of his right chin and blowing away the upper rear part of the stock…
given this picture, it looks like he is turning to the crowd, indeed, AND the stock is at a cheeky position, which leads to the observation that bullet 10 makes much more sense to have damaged the stock AND taken out crooks…
this scenario would also explain
- why he was still able to function after he got shot at with bullet 9 (I do not know whether crooks even got injured by this bullet!)
- the long blood trail, as these entry/exit wounds would not have killed him on the spot, but have allowed
- his carotid arteries to pump out vast amounts of blood before he died, and this may also be an explanation
- why the first responders handcuffed him at arrival (no pictures/video of this event, so this is an informed guesstimate):
- if he had not yet bled out sufficiently, they may have observed some signs he was still alive leading to the handcuffing…
as you point out, it was the initial report from the Congressman that mentions shot 9 and the stock.
let’s wait and see whether the final report confirms this, because the damage does not match that bullet if it came from the SWAT officer…