Cheney Shooting - Start sweating the doctors

This Cheney shooting story reads wrong on so many levels it is hard to know where to begin. Here's one suggestion: the police report.

Editor and Publisher quotes a Corpus Christi newspaper employee as saying they didn't get any word of the shooting during their regular beat calls to the police.

[Beth] Francesco, at the Corpus Christi paper, said she felt it was a bit odd that her newsroom had not received any information about the shooting since "we often call law enforcement in area, even on weekends. We checked in and didn’t hear anything about it." In some states, all serious shooting incidents must be immediately reported to police.

That is to say, all shooting incidents must be reported to the police by the doctor or hospital treating the victim, according to Texas state law.

Acts 1989, 71st Leg., ch. 678, § 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1989.

SUBCHAPTER E. REPORTS OF GUNSHOT WOUNDS AND CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE
OVERDOSES

§ 161.041. MANDATORY REPORTING OF GUNSHOT WOUNDS. A
physician who attends or treats, or who is requested to attend or
treat, a bullet or gunshot wound, or the administrator,
superintendent, or other person in charge of a hospital,
sanitorium, or other institution in which a bullet or gunshot wound
is attended or treated or in which the attention or treatment is
requested, shall report the case at once to the law enforcement
authority of the municipality or county in which the physician
practices or in which the institution is located.

If there was no report, then somebody at the hospital broke the law. If there was a report, and the cops lied to the paper about it, then it is fair to ask if there was an attempted cover-up. If the shooting was a legitimate accident, why cover it up at all?

This story has only just begun.