Update: Police name suspect in Blooming Grove police shooting
Peter Barnes took a seat at the stand and stared 100 yards down range at this target. He pressed his .308-caliber rifle to his shoulder, aimed and pulled the trigger three times.
Three deafening cracks followed, and if the 64-year-old target shooter from Dingmans Ferry hadn’t been wearing ear protection, the ringing in his ears might have thrown him off balance Tuesday at a firing range off Route 6 near the state police at Blooming Grove barracks.
“If you wanted to kill somebody, this is the round to do it” Mr. Barnes said.
State police at Dunmore said Monday that an assassin used a .308-caliber rifle to kill Cpl. Bryon K. Dickson II and wound Trooper Alex T. Douglass during Friday night’s ambush at the barracks.
They said the killer took the shots from the woods across the barracks on state Route 402, but did not say how far away from the front of the barracks he was.
Mr. Barnes, who often target shoots with a .308-caliber rifle and is very familiar with the weapon and the ammunition used, said a highly trained shooter would be able to hit a target from 300 to 400 yards using the gun with relative ease.
“You could kill someone out a mile with that gun if you had a lucky shot,” Mr. Barnes said.
State police have not specified what kind of .308-rifle was used to kill Cpl. Dickson.
Hunters will use a bolt-action .308-rifle. An automatic rifle, like the kind Mr. Barnes fired Tuesday, is more lethal because of its increased firing speed.
At 100 yards, Mr. Barnes’ three shots went about a foot high of the skull-sized bull’s-eye. It wouldn’t be tough to adjust and hit the mark, he said.
Contact the writer: jkohut@timesshamrock.com; @jkohutTT on Twitter