Talk:Shawn Nelson (criminal)/Archive 1

Throw a Track

I've read on one or two sites that people have noticed the tank "threw a track." That's a term used when one or more tracks come off the wheels, one or two links: [1][2]. When this happens a tank (or any kind of armored vehicle) is immobilized, a "rampage" or whatever ends at that moment. It seems that this happens prior to Nelson being shot, not by much, but before. If an officer had noticed the track spinning off, and tried to notify the officers on the turret, he or they must have been unsuccessful.

Does anyone remember if he can have a clear and unobstructed view of the driver's seat from the TC hatch?--76.212.149.187 (talk) 01:22, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

I did some looking around and found a forum with a large number of photos of various models of Pattons. I sorted through them and found some pictures of the gunner's seat (1,2 on sourcefor1&2), which can be seen into via the top hatch, and some of the driver's seat viewed from the exterior (3, sourcefor3, 4, sourcefor4). The conclusion I draw from this is that the driver's hatch and the gunner's hatch are not the same, as the gunner's (and commander's) hatch is located on top of the turret and the driver's seat is located at the front end below the turret with the hatch just below the barrel if the turret is at 12 o'clock. I assume with the driver's seat being so far forward from the other two seats it is a separate compartment either in part or entirely partitioned off from the rest of the tank. I hope this helps, despite me not knowing what you meant by the "TC" hatch. Skeletos (talk) 17:51, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

You're right. That's what was meant by "TC Hatch;" the turret hatch, which is a different hatch from the driver's. Your observations are correct.

Now, the hatches are locked from the outside by padlocks when the vehicles aren't in use. These are exterior locks, they are accessible by hand and bolt cutter. But internal locks on American armored vehicles included "combat locks," small levers located by the hatches that, when activated, securely locked the specific hatch from external tampering; they couldn't be forced open by someone trying to gain uninvited entrance. I know armored personnel carriers (APCs) had these; I seem to remember tanks did, too. If Nelson was a veteran of an armored unit, wouldn't he have used these once he gained access to the tank? That would have been second nature. If he was having some kind of flashback that would have been his first action as he would have felt secure from just such an intrusion as the SDPD gained.

In San Diego all acts of lunacy are blamed on crazed drug addicts. Sometimes you wonder.--76.212.148.119 (talk) 04:50, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Mining

This is likely wrong:

, even though he was not required to because his backyard was private property.

You normally do not automatically own the mineral rights under your (surface) property. You also normally need to file for a permit to dig a hole greater than a certain depth. I am removing this part of the sentence. -Athaler (talk) 02:28, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

'Ammunition in another building"

No ammunition is stored at a National Guard armory, let alone ammunition for a tank's main gun. The firing mechanism of the gun would have been stored in the locked arms room of the armory, so the main gun could not be fired. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.69.166.178 (talk) 15:50, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Restoring to a previous version

The last two revisions I reversed were due to two issues:

1) The older revision seems to be an accidental mobile edit, as chunks of the starting sentence were cut off 2) The revision to "correct" the errors were done manually and was incomplete. It created a starting sentence that made no sense

ZirePhoenix (talk) 01:59, 5 April 2016 (UTC)