Violent and sudden. Through my eyes, what is the execution of the shooting squad like

Columbia, South Carolina (AP) – I’m now watching 11 men being executed in a South Carolina prison through glass and bar. None of the top ten made me watch the preparatory for Brad Sigmon’s shooting squad to die Friday night.

I’m probably unique among American journalists now: I’ve witnessed three different approaches – nine deadly injections and an electric chair to perform. 21 years later, I can still hear the th drop of the circuit breaker.

As a journalist, you want to prepare for your own homework. You looked at a case. You read this topic.

In the two weeks since I knew how Sigmon would die, I read about the shooting squad and the damage the bullets could do. I looked at the autopsy photos of the last man shot in Utah in 2010.

I also looked at his trial transcripts, including how prosecutors said how Sigmon hit his ex-girlfriend’s parents with a baseball bat and hit his ex-girlfriend’s parents nine times less than two minutes, walking back and forth between different rooms in his Greenville County home in 2001 until they died.

However, when some enforcement protocols are kept confidential, you don’t know everything, and it’s impossible to know what happens when you’ve never seen someone shoot in close range in front of you.

The shooting squad is sure to be faster and more violent than the lethal injection. This is even more nervous. After Sigmon’s lawyer read his final statement, my heart began to rush. The hood was placed over Sigmon’s head and an employee opened a black pull shadow that blocked the positions of three prison system volunteer shooters.

About two minutes later, they opened fire. No warning or countdown. The sudden crack in the rifle surprised me. The white target was Red Alki on his chest, standing out on his black prison jumpsuit, disappearing immediately as Sigmun retreated.

It reminds me of what happened to the prisoner who shocked his body 21 years ago.

I tried to keep track immediately on the wall to my left, with the right sigmon on the right, a small rectangular window, the shooter and the witness in front of me.

A jagged red spot appeared at the place where Sigmun was shot. His chest moved two or three times. Outside the cracks in the rifle, there was no sound.

The doctor came out in less than a minute and his examination took about a minute. Sigmon was pronounced dead at 6:08 pm

Then we walked through the same door we came in.

The sun sets. The sky is a beautiful pink and purple, contrasting with the fluorescent lights of the death room, the gray shooting chairs and the block walls, which reminds me of the doctor’s office in the 1970s.

The Death Room is just a five-minute drive from the busy suburban highway to the correction department headquarters. I always view the window on the drive from each execution. There is a ranch on one side, behind the fence on one side, and on the other hand, I can see the jail razor in the distance.

Armed prison employees are everywhere. We sat in the van outside the Death Room, which I guess was about 15 minutes, but I can’t say for sure because my watch, cell phone and everything else were taken away except for the mat and pen.

To my right, I saw the thin windows of the South Carolina death row. There were 28 prisoners there earlier Friday and now there are 27.

Declined from August 31 last year. The state resumed executions after 13 years of pause in South Carolina’s efforts to obtain a deadly injection of drugs. Prisoners can choose between injection, electric or shooting squads.

I witnessed Freddie Owens being sent to death on September 20. He stared at the room.

I saw Richard Moore die on November 1st and watch quietly at his lawyer who has fought for his life for ten years, crying.

Marion Bowman Jr.

I remember other executions, too. I’ve seen family members of the victim stare at a killer on Gurney. As she watched her son die, I saw a mother shed tears, almost close enough if the glass and the bar didn’t get in the way of the glass.

Like that thunk of the Brokener in 2004, I won’t forget the cracks on the rifle Friday and the target disappears. In my mind, too, is engraved: Sigmun talks or chats with his lawyer, trying to let him know that he is okay before the hood continues.

I may return to the Broad River Correctional Institution on April 11. Two more men on the death row did not appeal, and the state Supreme Court appears to be preparing to arrange their deaths at five-week intervals.

They will be the twelfth and thirteenth people I’ve ever seen killed by South Carolina. When it’s over, I’ll witness more than a quarter of the executions in the state since the death penalty has been restored.

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Collins is one of three media witnesses to the shooting squad executive Brad Sigmon. He has witnessed 11 South Carolina executions in nearly 25 years of the Associated Press.