Page 2 - Zip Gun News Today

♪ homemade weapons the inmates have made from bed springs or melted down plastic. i mean, theyre truly ingenious. but theyre deadly, as well. >> at californias san quentin state prison, we saw how sophisticated some inmate weaponry can be. this homemade pistol is known as a zip gun. >> this portion is filled with ground up matchheads. the two holes here, inmates insert a wick. the inmate takes a plunger, pokes shrapnel in the open end, pieces of metal, ground up zippers. when the target walks ...

Without warning, he was shot in the back. mario survived. but he couldnt describe his attacker. three weeks later there was a similar incident a few blocks away. 34-year-old factory worker herman montenedro was walking home after a serious night of drinking when somebody shot him in the back. he, too, survived, but he didnt see the gunman either. police recovered the .9 mm bullet. >> there were no grooves on the bullets. and were probably dealing with a zip gun type of homemade rep. >> two month...

Neighborhood, being already bit by the gang bug, we just exported the gang life out there. >> randalls gang activity led to his incarceration at the youth facility and soon after, prison. there he joined a militant gang called the black guerrilla family. >> ended up in 15 years solitary confinement. tried to get back into the main line, but it was kind of hard. after facing walls for 15 years and handcuffs everywhere i went, i didnt adjust too well. i still became more assaultive, more combative...

They use this strap for getting underneath the bed, because weve found shanks there and had to fish them out. >> success rate, thats hard to say. sometimes it goes in spurts. we might find a lot of shanks one month and the next six months might not find any. >> this is numerous contraband weve found throughout the years here at the penitentiary. this is a zip gun. stick a .410 shell in there. we have a screw in there. a shank made out of a pen barrel and a nail. these are nonlethal but they put ...

The ones you dont really see. when a guy carries something like this, he really means business. he wants to hide it. very sharp, very pointed. this is what wed call a .22 zip gun. shoots a .22 round. put your bullet in there. screw it down until its tight. made in one of the shops. if a guy didnt know this, if this wasnt together, he had this piece laying on one bench and this piece laying over here, you really wouldnt know what it was. >> the c.e.r.t. team constantly trains to respond to any in...

>> a tool mark is a characteristic left behind during the process of using a tool to either cut, grind, file or polish a piece of metal. >> there can be hundreds of microscopic tool marks in a pipe used in a homemade gun. when ballistics experts compared the bullets from the victims to those fired from sedas zip gun, the tool marks were microscopically similar. finally police asked seda for a blood sample for dan testing. dna matched that of the letter from the zodiac killer. detectives had the ...

Confiscated by staff. ♪ homemade weapons the inmates have made from bed springs or melted down plastic. theyre truly ingenious, but theyre deadly as well. >> at californias san quentin state prison, we saw how sophisticated some inmate weaponry can be. this homemade pistol is known as a zip gun. >> this portion is filled with ground up matchheads. the two holes here, inmates insert a wick. the inmate takes a plunger, pokes shrapnel in the open end, pieces of metal, ground up zippers. when the ...

For my prison activities and conduct. tried to get back into the main line, but it was kind of hard. after facing walls for 15 years and handcuffs everywhere i went, i didnt adjust too well. i still became more assaultive, more combative, more violent. >> after 25 years of incarceration, randall had plenty of violent episodes to share. >> i had threw a bomb in an inmates cell and blew his toilet off the wall and blew a patch of his leg off. an officer came to my door. i made a zip gun out of som...

>> "lockup" crews are regularly exposed to the tools of a deadly trade. >> every prison we film in, theres always a shank museum, a place where the authorities display all of the weapons that are confiscated by staff. homemade weapons the inmates have made from bed springs or melted down plastic. theyre truly ingenious but deadly as well. >> at californias san quentin state prison, we saw how sophisticated some inmate weaponry can be. this homemade pistol is known as a zip gun. >> this portion i...

Magazines rolled. this is a spear. and as you can see, its pretty rigid. this inmate lodged a metal screw for the tip. when the officer or inmate walks by the cell, the spear is thrust out. >> you wouldnt think that a rolled up newspaper or magazine would be -- make that good of a handle and it does. very effective. >> this is known as a zip gun. this portion of the zip gun is filled with match heads, ground-up match heads. a plunger is used to push shrapnel, pieces of metal, ground up zippers, ...