Glad no one was hurt, but I would have charged him regardless of whether or not it was an accident. He obviously doesn’t understand the responsibilities and liabilities of carrying. A gun with a short barrel like that could have easily been pointing at someone’s foot/ thigh or whatever.
He also does not understand basic physics either based on his claim that this happened when he was pulling the gun up and out of his waistband.
Not to bash LEOs but if this had been a non-LEO what would have been the consequences? I am hoping this will be dealt with through channels (rather than the legal system) so that the Officer is provided with additional training.
Buckaroo
Maybe back in the day they did.
While the officers on scene did not charge him, I feel they should at least notify accidental discharge officer’s superiors so they know what is going on.
I’m not big on putting charges on people if other effective control options exist. That’s the beauty of officer discretion. Hopefully, he was humiliated and learned a lesson. A call to his CoC would work well here.
I suspect that if he has anything resembling a decent policy manual, he’d have to report his ND to his CoC anyway.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that anything would come of it, but it would be an option.
Sounds like he was pulling it “up and out” by the trigger…
I have a P32. The trigger is not a Glock/M&P type trigger but it is not that heavy. If you grabbed it wrong it could easily go off.
Sorry - never got a reply notification here.
It was a bolt on clip.
I wasn’t in the room, so the story is as presented to me.
As a follow up his department was alerted by the local department - apparently they went back later to take pics and recover the round.
Guarantee you if it had been a lowly commoner, they would have been charged with something, at the least discharging a weapon in city limits…
I don’t think that’s a guarantee. I’ve seen a number of news article where someone negligently discharged a firearm in public and as far as I could tell faced no charges for doing so.
lol I guess that would work eh? :rolleyes:
Buckaroo
Guarantee your wrong.
Apparently almost his as a matter of fact. Glad no one was hurt.