Cop Who Shot Off His Own Finger Points the Finger at Gun Shop

alloutdoor.com ^ | 1/14/2015 | Russ Chastain

[Jed Eckert]

His careless gun handling resulted in unemployment, medical bills, and a lawsuit against someone else.

A police officer walks into a gun shop, asks to see a 380 pistol, shoots off a portion of his anatomy with said pistol, becomes former cop, and then sues gun shop.

Yeah, that’s right.

The former officer is reportedly suing for negligence on the part of Barren Outdoors, the gun shop where the incident occurred.

We all know that guns in display cases should be unloaded and safe. We also know that the gun shop employee should have checked the gun to be sure of that before handing it to customer Darrell Smith. But we also know the customer should have checked it himself, and furthermore should not have allowed the muzzle to point at himself or anyone else.

This is the most basic of all gun safety rules: Always point a gun in a safe direction, especially when it’s cocked or being cocked! Period. End of story

The officer’s attorney, of course, lays the blame on the gun shop rather than the fellow who pulled the trigger. It’s the same old story of personal accountability or the lack thereof. Because Smith’s own actions caused him to lose his job and incur medical expenses, he and his attorney are seeking to hold another party accountable.

“He’s permanently disfigured. He went through a lot of pain and suffering. He’s gone through several surgeries. He’s got a lot of medical bills that have to be paid. It ended his career and he’s going to have a lot of lost income.” – Smith’s attorney Alan Simpson

In the uncensored video (below) in which Smith shoots himself, the store employee not only fails to check the gun, he too violates the first rule of gun safety when he offers the pistol to the customer with the muzzle pointing at himself. If the gun had been fired as the customer took it, it appears that the bullet would have penetrated his hand, wrist, and arm.

So yeah, the employee showed a distinct lack of smarts.

The officer, though, did much worse. Most of the time he handled the gun, he held his hand and fingers in front of the muzzle. He also pointed it to his left – toward at least four other people.

He worked the pistol’s slide without paying attention to whether he was chambering a round, and then he pulled the trigger with his finger in front of the muzzle and with the muzzle pointed towards those folks!

I cringed repeatedly as I watched the video. This guy could easily have injured or killed one of those people with his careless handling of the firearm. No wonder he was subsequently relieved of his job. I feel thankful that nobody else was hurt in this senseless incident. I sincerely hope that Smith’s case is dismissed and that he and the employee both learned a lot about gun safety from this.

**Note: Couldn't get the video to play at the site so try this direct link for the video:

Video: Cop Shoots Off Own Finger At Gun Shop

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

I would say that one of the other customers could sue the ex-LEO.

[BCW]

Can you imagine that you are a victim and that cop showed up to do the investigation....???

Scary!!!!

[V_TWIN]

I believe the “Swiss cheese model” applies here, if anyone cares to take the time:

“Every step in a process has the potential for failure, to varying degrees.”

I see several steps that obviously failed.

http://patientsafetyed.duhs.duke.edu/module_e/swiss_cheese.html

[Vaquero]

Cluster F*** Sir

Two major errors. The cop and the shop.

A shooting acquaintance and safety officer for a cowboy action club I belonged to, working part time at a gun shop.....he showed a customer his own gun after racking the slide back and removing the mag. The customer looked then handed it back. The clerk re-inserted the mag and let the slide go forward. After that it gets sketchy as to what happened . He was using the counter as a safety blockade and somehow the round in the chamber fires. And of course the wood and glass counter was not bulletproof and the round winds up in the potential customers leg.

No such thing as being too safe. This accident put the store out of business... Back to the original thread..as wrong as the cop was, the store should not have handed him a loaded weapon. I assume in a fair world any monies given to the cop will be half of what he would have gotten if he had checked the gun himself first and still got shot somehow

[nuconvert]

Everything the cop did was stupid. But it's still negligence on the part of the shop worker

[ThunderSleeps]

Yeah, I’m thinking his career is over not because of a missing finger, but because of how it turned up missing. One of his higher ups said thank God he didn’t kill anyone, we learned what we needed to know. ... Call it a very serious performance evaluation - that he failed.

[Drew68]

Some people should never had been issued badges...

And others should never work at gun stores. There's plenty of stupidity to go around in this article.

[Crazieman]

Dad knew how to teach.

Rule #1. The gun is always loaded.

[George Varnum]

During my training to be an NRA certified Range Safety Officer, the Instructor told us that anti gun anti freedom useful idiots were going to gun shows and when no one was looking sneaked live rounds into guns they were “looking at” hoping to cause just such an accident in order to advance their agenda.

I have very little doubt but what they prowl around gun shops as well.

Don’t put anything past these shills, and counter them with obsessive compulsive SAFETY procedures at all times!

The left has an Army of highly motivated shills out there, to include most of the “Students” in the academic gulags. If you are ever in a Gun Shop and see someone of college age hanging around, keep a close eye on them!

[CAluvdubya]

I agree with you....they're both at fault. Can't imagine a gun shop keeping a loaded firearm in the case.

I also can't imagine testing a gun without checking to see if it's loaded. I always check when I'm testing a gun and I'm not a cop! (and I still have all my fingers! LOL)

[camle]

whenever i’m in a gun shop the clerk always clears the firearm before letting me get my grubby hands all over it ;-) should they fail to to this simple thing, then i either won’t accept the gun, or i’ll clear it meself.

[P-Marlowe]

Leaving a round in the chamber before handing it to a customer was a wreckless act. Certainly anyone hurt by the incident has a good lawsuit. They are lucky no one was killed. Just because the injured party was a cop does not diminish the negligence of the store.

[G Larry]

I’ve never been in a shop that would allow a live round NEAR a weapon in the store.

Unless there’s an attached range where you can test certain weapons????

But, then, there’s a pretty serious process for that too.

[thefactor]

Idiots all around. Who loads a gun with live rounds in a gun shop??? And doesn't check it before putting back into a case?

I won't even take a gun from a clerk without an open slide. And I don't think I've ever had one try to give me one without an open slide.

But that officer made too many assumptions He racked the slide in the correct manner but wasn't paying attention at all. The responsibility lies with the one handling the weapon, but he'll get some money out of this.

[RJS1950]

I was always taught that regardless of the assurance that the weapon is cleared, YOU SAFELY CLEAR THE WEAPON YOURSELF before handling it.

[showme_the_Glory]

"about half the cops can’t shoot and don’t care to learn."

I would be surprised if it wasn't much higher than 50% that are non-shooters.

[Skepolitic]

My training — given by my father when I was about ten — was that there is simply no such thing as an unloaded gun, and that the safety should always be presumed to be non-functional. Even if metaphysically and apodictically certain that the gun was unloaded by having checked and re-checked for a chambered round, it was never to be pointed — much less dry-fired — at any object whose destruction would cause grief.

Cop was dumb, and trained less well than I was in 4th Grade.

However, the gun shop is liable. They have a responsibility to all customers — regardless of how stupid they are — to handle their firearms with reasonable care.

The only way I think the shop should escape liability would be if the cop put the round in himself.

[umgud]

380? Likely a subcompact. He should have checked a buntline.

[SpeakerToAnimals]

The responsibility lies with the one handling the weapon,

Lots of good replies, but this is the best. The person handling the weapon during the negligent discharge is at fault.

[USS Alaska]

The gun shops I go in...

The gun shop I go in...everyone in the place is carrying and all weapons are loaded.

The staff and customers all carry and treat every weapon as if it were loaded.

Anyone that puts part of his body in the line of potential fire, and then pulls the trigger, gets what he deserves.

The jury should give the ex-cop a Darwin award and send him to an NRA safety class.

Dumb and dumber.