Potential drone shooters should recall 1975 death of Chatham Twp. man

The people, including some members of law enforcement, who would use a high-powered rifle to shoot drones out of the sky should consider the death of Jean Pierre Boulanger on July 4, 1975.

While working on the roof of his home in Chatham Township, he was killed by a rifle bullet fired from miles away in Loantaka Park in Morris Township.

The bullet hit him between the spine and right shoulder blade and he fell, mortally wounded, to his porch roof. There had been no sound and his wife inside had heard nothing. He was eventually seen by a passing motorist, who called police.

Because Boulanger had a history of heart trouble, the initial thought was that he had had a heart attack. But before the body was taken to then-Overlook Hospital in Summit, two policemen noticed a blotch of blood on the back of his shirt. They thought it was from a cut in the fall and applied a Band-Aid.

A subsequent autopsy by the Morris County Medical Examiner in then-Morristown Memorial Hospital revealed a collapsed lung and an accumulation of blood - symptoms not normally associated with a heart attack.

Eventually, a rifle slug was found in the body that was determined to have been fired from a 303-caliber British Enfield Mark I rifle, a World War I weapon. That led to the obvious question: From where had the weapon been fired?

The investigation into the death involved many law enforcement jurisdictions. Detailed forensic and ballistic investigation estimated the slug on impact had been traveling at 425 feet per second on a 20-to 25-degree vertical path through the body’s soft tissue. The distance of the firing point from the house was estimated at between 7,000 and 14,900 feet, or 2.8 miles.

Within the month, the rifle was tracked to a Morris Township man, 42, who had been at a July 4 party at Loantaka Park attended by about 10 people. During the party, a rifle had periodically been fired into the air during the timeframe in which Boulanger was shot, witnesses recalled.

The site of the party was 2.57 miles from the Boulanger home.

Anyone shooting at a drone wouldn’t know what a bullet will hit when it comes down.

(Boulanger’s death was widely reported at the time and covered by many newspapers and other media. The account related in this letter is from the archives of the New York Times in an article dated Feb. 29, 1976.)

Kent Roeder

Sparta