After every shot, the killer had to manipulate the action of his pistol, which was equipped with a suppressor; in addition to spent shell casings, live rounds were also disgorged from the weapon. Was the weapon unexpectedly malfunctioning, or were the between-the-shots manipulations a part of its regular operation? What kind of weapon was it? Even the reports of experts have been contradictory and confusing. Let's try to bring some order out of the chaos.

Suggested reasons for a semiautomatic pistol to jam are "limp wristing," use of subsonic ammunition, and failure to use a "booster" with the suppressor. When the frame of a semiautomatic pistol is held in a firm grip, the slide flies all the way back, causing the spent casing to be ejected and a new round loaded when the slide returns to its forward position. Held in a weak grip—"limp wrist"—the frame is pushed backward by the recoil, and the slide can't catch up with the moving frame to reach its full rearward position; the spent casing either doesn't get ejected all the way out, or if it is, the new round doesn't get pushed all the way forward into the chamber. The slide has to be pulled back to clear the jam or pushed forward to seat a new round in the chamber.

Some pistol rounds travel faster than the speed of sound, so even if the noise of the muzzle blast is suppressed, there is still a "sonic crack" as the bulled breaks the sound barrier like a miniature jet plane. When the same round is loaded with less powder to slow the bullet to subsonic speed, the round has less recoil, the recoil sometimes reduced to such a level that it can't push the slide all the way back.

In some semiautomatic pistols, the barrel and slide are mechanically linked in such a way that when the slide is pushed back by the force of the recoil, it tilts the barrel slightly upward, this movement necessary for the proper cycling of the weapon. But if the end of the barrel has a suppressor attached to it, the weight of the suppressor can be too much for the force of the recoil to overcome, so both components stall, the slide no longer moving back, the end of the barrel no longer moving up toward its maximum tilt position. This can be corrected by a spring-loaded "booster" in the suppressor that screws onto the end of the gun barrel. The force of the muzzle blast pushes the body of the suppressor slightly forward against the spring in the booster, and the spring in the booster then snaps the suppressor body backward into place. During the split second that the body of the suppressor is moving horizontally, it is no longer exerting downward dead weight on the end of the barrel, so the slide can keep moving back and tilting the barrel up. Another name for the contraption describes this function: "linear inertial decoupler" or LID. It is also known as a Neilsen device.

Legally sold suppressors come with boosters or can be ordered with boosters, but purchasing any kind of suppressor involves ATF paperwork, something any self-respecting assassin would want to avoid. Some have opined that the suppressor was a homemade job, and homemade jobs are less likely to include a booster because of the added difficulty of fabricating them and getting them to function properly. An old Paladin Press title, Home Workshop Silencers I, features on its cover a pistol fitted with a homemade suppressor, the rig looking very much like the one used by our man. In the video footage, he seems totally unperturbed by the "jams," as if he was anticipating them and was used to clearing them as a matter of course.