Posted on 08/09/2016 9:02:24 PM PDT by grundle
A woman is dead after she was accidentally shot by a Florida police officer in a citizen training academy roleplay scenario gone wrong.
Mary Knowlton was one of two participants randomly selected from a group of 35 for a shoot-don’t shoot simulation during a two-hour training Tuesday at the Punta Gorda Police Department, Chief Tom Lewis told reporters at a press conference.
“During the first scenario, in a horrible accident participant Mary Knowlton was mistakenly struck by a live round,” Lewis said.
She was transported to the local hospital where she was pronounced dead.
“I am asking that if you pray, you pray for Mary’s husband and family and the officers and witnesses involved in this incident,” Lewis continued. “Everyone involved is in a state of overwhelming shock and grief.”
Florida Department of Law Enforcement is already on scene investigating.
“The Punta Gorda Police Department realizes that our community will have many questions about this incident. However, we are taking care not to jeopardize the investigation,” Lewis said.
He declined to answer any questions from reporters on scene and did not address why there were live rounds in the weapon.
The officer, who has not been named, is on administrative leave pending an investigation.
Punta Gorda is a city of 17,000 located on the Gulf Coast, located just over 20 miles northwest of Fort Myers.
Why the heck was there live ammo on the stage to begin with?
“I recall a story a freeper told where he was at his friend’s house trying out the new trigger in his friend’s handgun. They unloaded the weapon with the rounds sitting on the table. He squeezed off a few dry-fires at the water-cooler in the corner of the basement.
Then the friend’s wife called them up for dinner. The freeper went into the downstairs bathroom and when he came out, there was the gun and the rounds still out sitting on the table.
He picked up the gun to dry-fire at the cooler a couple more times before heading upstairs.
“BANG!”
At least it was just a water-cooler! For some odd reason his buddy had reloaded it with new rounds from the box, rather than just replacing the rounds he had taken out”
That story is mine but you got some of the details wrong. The main one is that there was no bang. I was pointing the gun at the water heater and had about 2# of pressure on The trigger but felt uncomfortable that I hadn’t checked that it was empty. The six rounds I saw my buddy remove we’re still on the table and I hadn’t been gone more than a minute. I was sure it was unloaded but decided to check anyway. I was stunned to find if had SIX LIVE ROUNDS. For some reason he had taken them from the box instead of putting in the ones from the table. This story is absolutely true and a good example of why you must always check any gun you pick up.
This was not "out on the streets" where then officer's life "hung in the balance" TM.
This was a arranged, planned-by-the-police, under their control, SIMULATION.
The person KILLED was chosen by the police.
They were known to be harmless.
And the policeman was playing the BAD GUY.
Therefore, not even in the role play, would the dead woman have PRETENDED to be a threat.
And, as a demonstration, there was no need, in this world or the next, for anything remotely resembling a real gun. They could have used hockey sticks or Pez candy dispensers.
Let alone having a real gun, LOADED.
And finally, multiple shots.
There is not even a putative reason for any of the elements of this killing to have occurred.
Fire and arrest the shooter and charge him with manslaughter. Strip him of retirement benefits and his family of pension benefits.
And find every member of the police force who helped plan this, and fire them and strip them of their pensions too.
If it had been a civilian, who had shot the policeman, under the EXACT same circumstances, they wouldn't be getting paid time off of work.
They'd already be behind bars, and fired.
JBT.
I see it going on around me. One twenty one year old whom I have known since he was twelve went to work as a corrections officer at the jail where I am told some of the prisoners called him “Barney” to his face and now has moved onto a gun carrying position with the sheriff’s department. He is an okay young man but I honestly don’t think he should be in law enforcement.
In my classes and any class I have taken, if someone picks up a real gun, they have to show that it is clear.
Clearly this was not done. Why were live rounds even in the classroom?
I guarantee it will be considered a good shoot. If you or I did it at the very least we would be charged with involuntary manslaughter. I'm sure the cop will get off with a reprimand.
> I thought they made blue plastic Glocks for this. Just damn. So sad.
Blue? I was examining a red rubber practice Glock only Friday. I’ll bet they come in lots of colors.
A gun is ALWAYS considered loaded.
You only pull the trigger.....wait, you only put your finger inside of the trigger guard, if you intend to fire the weapon.
I don’t know the exact circumstances in this case, but for myself, I could NEVER point my unloaded gun at a human being and pull the trigger. No matter how sure I was that it was unloaded, I just could never do it.
When I was a kid, three of us were out in the woods hunting squirrels and just having a good time. I was walking beside my friend with the shotgun and our other friend was walking directly ahead of us about 20 feet.
My friend with the shotgun leveled it and pointed at our friends back. Just as he was pulling the trigger, something told him to raise the gun, and he fired!
He was just as surprised as the rest of us that the gun went off. He was POSITIVE that the safety was on.
Something in his basic gun safety training or maybe the Lord intervened, but we all learned a valuable lesson that day.
“I didn’t know the gun was loaded” or “the safety was on” are useless pathetic excuses for reckless activity.
*****NEVER***** point a gun at someone you don’t intend to shoot!
“If a blue trainer wasn’t available, you damn-sure make sure the weapon is empty.”
How about just shaping your fingers like a gun? Nobody dies that way...
That would be a “puta gorda.” “Punta” is “point.” Like Grosse Pointe or West Point.
But I get your ... point.
They do, but having to yell “BANG!” all the time is so un-21st century...
Another article on the incident with picture of the deceased:
Though not stated in the article, I am beginning to think this was an improperly cleared weapon incident. That is, the live round was already in the chamber (as a part of on duty carry) but the officer failed to properly clear the weapon when the magazine with live rounds was exchanged for the magazine filled with blanks.
The officer had probably taught the class many times in the past. All that is needed is some small interruption/distraction to throw off the rhythm; the, by now, nearly automatic execution of steps to prepare the duty weapon for the demonstration and you end up omitting one. And the result is a weapon with a live round in the chamber and a magazine full of blanks.
Formula for disaster: complacency+rushed+improper controls+mixing live and blank ammunition. Yeah, what could possibly go wrong?
An earlier post mentioned blue rubber training pistols. In this case, you probably needed a blue painted functional pistol with a permanent plug in the breech. It would cycle like a real pistol with blanks but it would be impossible to fully load a live round. Not completely fool-proof (you could end up with a scenario similar to Brandon Lee’s death while filming “Crow”). But better than relying on procedures alone.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Lee
I am willing to bet everything I have that there is not 1 member of this police force who is not totally upset about what has happened here, and want to know why this happened and how this could have happened.
You can all pile on with your juvenile ad hominem attacks and call me a cop sucker et cetera, but you only expose your ignorance.
While there is obvious culpability on part of the police department with this citizen training exercise, whose feet does it actually lay at exactly, and where did the breakdown occur in protocol and safety? I want answers, because I never want to ever see another occurrence like this to be repeated.
“She was shot multiple times...
Can I get a WTF?”
Police are not trained to fire singles...
“How about just shaping your fingers like a gun? Nobody dies that way...”
And get kicked out of elementary school?
What could go wrong?
I’m referring to the cop who killed somebody, not the kids...
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