Behind the Badge - Covid-19, Gunshot Residue and Hand Sanitizer
Covid-19, Gunshot Residue and Hand Sanitizer
District Game Warden Greg Hastings
During the deer gun season, I was out on patrol when I got a call from a neighboring warden. He had a very upset landowner who called in about a deer being poached on his posted property. The problem was my neighboring warden had recently tested positive for Covid-19. He was past most of the sickness part of it but had been socially distancing himself at work and was driving around the countryside. To reduce the risk of passing any germs to the landowner and suspected poachers, I responded to help.
When I arrived on scene, the landowner had the poachers sitting in their pickup not far down the road. He claimed the male driver of the pickup had shot a buck on his posted land that was now running wounded on the property. We tracked the wounded deer and put it down to verify the landowner’s story. Once this was done, I moved into speaking with the hunters. I found them to be husband and wife, the latter of which was the one with the deer tag.
The wife was adamant she was the one who shot the deer, even though the landowner claimed the husband did. In checking out the husband’s background it was found he was not allowed to be in possession of any firearm due to a criminal past. This certainly ramped up the investigation a little more, but how in the world was I going to get the truth out of those two?
As I sat in my truck for a minute thinking, I came up with a longshot idea. When watching TV crime shows the investigators will test people’s hands for gunshot residue to see if they have recently shot a gun. I just happened to have some medical cotton swabs in my evidence kit I thought I could make work. I grabbed them and walked back over to the husband and wife to explain that I needed to collect samples to see which one had gunshot residue on their hands. The husband instantly stuck out his hands claiming he had just recently used hand sanitizer so there defiantly would not be any gunshot residue on his hands. The wife was a little more reluctant to provide a sample, but she eventually cooperated.
As I turned and was putting away the samples, I could hear the wife whispering something to her husband. I turned around and asked what was going on. The wife now looked like she was about in tears and said there wasn’t going to be gunshot residue on her hands either. The husband finally owned up to illegally shooting the deer and found out hand sanitizer doesn’t always get rid of gunshot residue like he thought.
Citations were issued, and the deer and gun were seized. I can only imagine the couple’s ride home was an interesting one to say the least. So, as usual, the normal day-to-day job of being a game warden is quite interesting to me.