In a truly bizarre arrest, St. Louis police officer Nathaniel Hendren, 29, has been charged with allegedly shooting fellow officer, Katlyn Alix (left), 24, in a game of Russian Roulette. The third officer was involved in the bizarre crime.
Hendren was on duty with the third officer but were in Alix’s apartment during their shift at 1 am. It was Hendren who allegedly removed all the bullets from the gun and put a single round back. He then spun the cylinder and pointed it away and pulled the trigger. Alix then reportedly took the gun, pointed it at Hendren and pulled the trigger. The gun did not fire either time.
Hendren’s partner insisted that he said that they should not be playing with guns and was leaving when he heard the fatal shot by Hendren.
So many questions remain unanswered about why they would play such a game and whether they were under the influence of alcohol or drugs. There is also the question of why the two officers were in the apartment on duty or why the third officer could not act to stop the game.
Hendren reportedly head-butted the back windshield of a police SUV parked nearby and broke the windshield — suffering injuries requiring hospitalization.
What we know is that Alix was struck in the chest and the other two officers called for medical assistance.
The initial investigation described the incident as a mishandling of a gun and Police Commissioner John W. Hayden Jr. called it an “accidental discharge of the weapon.” I am not sure Russian Roulette qualifies as an accidental discharge. The discharge is the focus of the game. Moreover, the chance of surviving is 83 percent, but there is still a 17 percent likelihood of ending with the fatal cartridge.
Hendren is now charged with involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action.
There is a great deal of victim responsibility in any voluntary Russian Roulette death or injury. Seems more like a suicide game. Whatever the charge is for two suicidal people carrying out a suicide pact with each other, and one of them survives, should be applied here. I also agree with the depraved indifference suggestion.
What were 3 cops doing in her apartment, on duty, unless it was to briefly use the bathroom? They need to investigate drugs, alcohol, and any other motivators for this insane behavior.
I can’t think of any drugs that would make cops so stupid. But alcohol is certainly a possibility.
A few years back, after the incident in Ferguson, I learned that Saint Louis does not pay its cops that well. It’s a non-union force where a lot of the officers are moonlighting in security jobs. Perhaps ‘lack of pay’ was a factor here.
What’s next a circular firing squad?
The gun went off by mistake. Yeah, they were pointing at each other. Went in dumb, come out dumb two. That is “two” not “too”. Both were dumb.
This conduct should be charged as 2nd degree murder. Involuntary manslaughter implies no intent to kill. For example, cleaning a loaded weapon which accidentally fires. In Russian Roulette, the killing is not accidental however unlikely. The more you play it, a killing becomes inevitable because if there is a chance that something may happen, eventually it will.
Want to play Roulette with Nicky?
reminds me of playing baccarat at the average american casino.
if you play much then you will know what i mean!
the scene with walken and deniro and the viets that is, not the story in the article
Playing games with life
Russian roulette isn’t “an accidental discharge”. It’s the intentional gamble that whatever you point a weapon at will, or won’t be struck by a gunshot.
It may also be distilled essence of “depraved indifference” toward human life – not a crime of passion, but its opposite, murder done as the result of a needless risk in which the killer literally gambled on taking another’s life for no discernible reason at all. The element of mens rea is so distorted in depraved indifference killings that some law review articles advocate that the Model Penal Code be modified to discard “depraved indifference” as a legal concept in favor of an assessment of the actual frame of mind leading to such a kiilling.