Experts Find Glocks Prone To Accidents

When a Syracuse man was struck last week by a bullet fired through the ceiling of his apartment, it marked the third time in eight years that an Onondaga County probation officer had unintentionally discharged one of the department-issued Glock pistols.

Those three incidents, and similar cases in Central New York and elsewhere, come as no surprise to Joseph Cominolli. Cominolli was a Syracuse police sergeant in 1987 when he was assigned to find the best semiautomatic handgun to replace that department's revolvers.

The hot new Glock pistol that other police agencies were then buying had two drawbacks that caused Cominolli to reject it. The Glock had no manual safety switch and no magazine safety that made the gun inoperable when the magazine was removed.

A Glock is a safe weapon, Cominolli said, but only if the person handling it knows how to use it. If the gun is unloaded in the wrong order, for example, a round of ammunition can be left in the chamber without the user realizing it, he said. With no manual safety, the gun will fire if the trigger is pulled.

"Even with good training, people forget," he said. "And guns are not forgiving."

On July 30, Stacey Nunn, a probation officer for about a year, was unloading her .40-caliber Glock when it fired into the floor of her second-story apartment at 1904 James St. The bullet struck her downstairs neighbor, Michael Chapman, in the chest as he was making dinner in his kitchen. Chapman's condition improved from critical to serious this week at University Hospital.

Nunn had removed the magazine from the gun before the weapon fired, according to police.

In 1994, probation officer Susan Beebe shot herself in the knee while unloading her Glock. In September 1998, a firearms instructor for the probation department unintentionally fired his Glock into a wall while teaching a class how to remove the weapon from a holster. The shot put a hole through a classroom wall at the Elbridge Rod and Gun Club.

The gun's inadvertent firing in the hands of a gun expert caused concern, Probation Commissioner Robert Czaplicki said.

"We took a look at what went on," Czaplicki said. "We had a group of people look at it. It raised some red flags."

The firearms instructor is still teaching probation officers, said Czaplicki, who would not identify the instructor.

Cominolli, who is retired from the police, has designed and patented a manual safety device that can be added to Glock pistols. Last year, he talked to Czaplicki about adding the device to the probation department's guns.

Czaplicki said the county then talked with Glock officials about having the device installed. But the county rejected the idea after Glock said it would void the warranty on the guns if the safeties were added, Czaplicki said.

Czaplicki said his department is reconsidering the safeties in light of last week's unintentional discharge that injured Chapman.

Cominolli said he knows of dozens of "unintentional discharges" of Glocks in Central New York over the past 15 years, and estimates there have been thousands across the country. He won't refer to them as accidents because that implies the shootings could not have been prevented.

No national statistics are available on which manufacturer's handgun has the most unintentional firings. The Washington Post reported in 1998 that District of Columbia officers, who use Glock 9mm handguns, unintentionally fired their weapons more than 120 times over 10 years.

In 1988, the FBI issued a report on Glock handguns giving them low marks, citing a "high potential for unintentional shots," according to the Post. The agency will not release the report, according to an FBI spokesman in Washington, D.C.

Last week, a Queens corrections officer fatally shot his son while the officer was unloading his 9mm Glock handgun in his home, according to Newsday. A police chief in Coral Gables, Fla., accidentally fired his .40-caliber Glock last month into his locker at a health club, according to The Miami Herald.

The Onondaga County Sheriff's Department, which has used Glocks since 1992, has had at least three unintentional discharges with the weapon, according to Lt. Thomas Morehouse, a firearms instructor. A deputy fired a shot that grazed his hand in 1992. A detective fired a round into the floor of his patrol car a few years ago. And a deputy accidentally pulled the trigger three years ago and fired a round into the ground at the training range, Morehouse said.

In December, an Oswego County sheriff's deputy accidentally fired his Glock handgun into the foot of a security officer at a nuclear power plant.

Cominolli, a nationally known firearms expert, said he's gotten dozens of calls from lawyers representing police officers who'd shot themselves with Glocks. He tells them he's never heard of a case of the gun malfunctioning. It's always operator error, he said.

That's why he designed the safety device and is marketing it to police agencies and private gun owners across the country. With the safety on, the trigger bar inside the gun can't move.

"If you have a brain fade and pull the trigger, it won't go bang," Cominolli said.

Newly hired probation officers in Onondaga County must carry a firearm after undergoing 35 hours of training on the shooting range and 14 hours in the classroom, Czaplicki said. Veteran officers in the department have the option of carrying a gun. Probation officers are trained by the department's two state-certified firearms instructors, he said. Forty-one of the county's 84 probation officers now carry a gun on the job. All carry Glocks.

In response to last week's shooting, the department is reviewing its training procedures, Czaplicki said. He wouldn't comment on details of the shooting, except to say it's certain that the trigger on the gun must have been pulled. Initial police reports erroneously said the gun had fired when the officer dropped it.

Mark Doneburgh, Glock's district manager for the Syracuse area, was an Onondaga County sheriff's deputy 14 years ago when he first looked at Glocks. He questioned whether they could hold up because they're made of plastic, so he took the gun up in a helicopter and dropped it to the ground. It didn't break and didn't fire, he said.

Glock doesn't fit its guns with manual safety switches because the guns have three internal "passive" safeties, Doneburgh said. Those safeties automatically disengage when someone pulls the trigger, but they prevent the gun from firing when it's dropped or when the trigger gets bumped from the side.

Glocks are popular with police because the revolvers they replaced had no manual safeties, he said. The fear was that officers would have trouble getting used to having to turn off the safety in a gunfight, Doneburgh said. He studied the Glock for the sheriff's department.

"We needed a gun that we could easily transition my people with and that they could feel confident with," he said. "It's a draw, point and shoot gun."

Onondaga County Corrections Commissioner Timothy Cowin said he would not outfit his officers with Glocks until they were fitted with Cominolli's manual safety last year.

"I've been in this business a long time, and I can tell you there are many, many accidental discharges that never get reported," Cowin said. "When people are holstering or drawing that weapon, they automatically put their finger in that trigger guard without even thinking about it."

With training, officers not accustomed to turning off a manual safety can make it a habit, Cowin said.

Cowin said it's unclear whether the added safety means Glock will no longer honor its warranty. He said he decided to make the change anyway because the weapon is unlikely to need any repairs that the correction department's own armorer can't fix.

Many accidental Glock discharges involve unloading. Doneburgh, who teaches gun safety courses at Onondaga Community College, said he always demanded perfection from his police recruits when they unloaded guns during firearms training.

"I used to tell them, No. 1, 'mag' out," he said of the need to remove the magazine before clearing the chamber. "I told them, 'Put your finger on the trigger and I'm going to take a knife and cut it off.' And they believed me. Hopefully, that's going to stay with them for 20 years."

Glock doesn't fit its guns with safeties because many police officers are used to not having to switch them off and because the company has never been found liable for any unintentional shooting, Doneburgh said.

"We've never lost a lawsuit," he said. Doneburgh said he didn't know how many lawsuits the company had settled, and a lawyer for Glock could not be reached for comment.

Cominolli said he's sold between 600 to 800 of the safeties to police agencies and private gun owners in the first year and has orders for more. He charges $75 a gun for law enforcement agencies. Local Glock owners can buy the device at Ra-Lin Discount in Syracuse.

The Kenmore Police Department, near Buffalo, wouldn't have bought Glocks without the added safeties, Cominolli said.

Twelve of the 17 police departments in Onondaga County, including the sheriff's department and state police, issue Glocks to their officers. The only ones that don't are Syracuse, DeWitt, Baldwinsville, North Syracuse and East Syracuse, Doneburgh said.

DeWitt police Capt. Bruce Wahl said he chose the Smith & Wesson semiautomatic partly because it has a manual safety and another safety that makes the gun inoperable without the magazine. Officials at other police agencies, such as Camillus, said they've never had an unintentional firing of a Glock.

"The Glock is accepted by 70 percent of law enforcement agencies in North America," Doneburgh said.

He said he's heard reports of a Glock being unintentionally fired, and each time it's because someone messed up; the gun itself has never malfunctioned.

"We're in a society where we're making inanimate objects responsible for our stupidity," he said. "You have to put warnings on things. You can't put your dog in a microwave oven to dry him. Common sense has to take over here."

Two of the last three guns that we took were Glocks. One guy was a drug dealer that tried to run over one of our detectives. He tossed his Glock during the car chase and it was found the next day.

I took a Glock off of a guy at a drug/prostitution house yesterday. That was interesting.

Then the woman who was doing robberies to support her crack cocaine habit had a foreign made .380 gem that the officer had a ND with.

She admitted to hiding in the closet and smoking her last rocks of crack when she saw the cops pull up in her driveway LOL.

When I got my mod 22, it already had what I thought was at least an eight pound pull. I will confess to thinking (for a moment) that a 3-4 pound trigger might be a bit skinny

Standard Glock 22's have a 5.5 pound trigger pull: http://www.glock.com/g22.htm. If it is more than that, it's probably a "New York" trigger (8 pounds).

My Glock 35 has a 3.5 pound trigger: even lighter than the standard 4.5 pound for that model. But, I shoot it exclusively in competition.

The point was that there is much less margin for inattention when dealing with a no-safety 2 1/2 - 3 1/2 lb pull as opposed to a 12-14 lb DA pull.

As others have noted, the standard Glock does not have a 2-1/2 - 3-1/2 lb trigger pull. The standard is 5.5 lbs for typical duty weapons.

Competition models have lower trigger pulls (4-1/2 lb), and mine is even lower. But, they aren't intended to be used as duty weapons.

This happened to a friend of mine who's a policeman: The department issue pistol was a S&W 4059 that has the internal mag safety, ambidextrous mag releases, and a drop-free mag. He pulled it on a felon with warrants at a traffic stop, and the safety dropped to the ground before he even got it level. Even though he had a round in the chamber, he might as well been holding a banana.

A friend that owned a gun store told me a similar story. An officer bought a S&W semi-auto from him and subsequently got into a "wrestling match" with a perp, losing the magazine. The gun turned into a club and the officer had to finish the arrest without it.

He returned and exchanged it for something else. I don't remember what it was.

Do you have a source for this? I thought I recalled reading, re some previous case of a LEO's accidental discharge, that the NYPD Glocks were customized to have a LIGHT trigger pull -- which would go a long way toward explaining the high rate of ADs. Perhaps it was some other police department I'm remembering.

They also require a convoluted method to clear them

They do? The one Glock I have ever had experience with was no more difficult than my Ruger P90 to clear. What's so convoluted?

brain fade my ass. these stupid bastards shouldn't be let outside without mommy. they might be run down by garbage trucks.

i'll have to put a little more attitude into my response in a bit... i have to run outside right now, i think my G30 grabbed the keys to my SUV and is headed down to do a job on the quickie mart.

these morons need a gun that can't be loaded and a trigger that is welded in place... something GUARANTEED to be safe when they INADVERTANTLY PULL THE DAMNED TRIGGER. oh, and God forbid there should be A ROUND IN THE friggin CHAMBER when the piece is LOADED. DUH.

forget it. these morons should just be quietly put to sleep so they won't endanger the rest of us any more. bury them head first in the desert.

practice. carry. glock rocks.

Nope, never heard that. I have a number of poly holsters (Fobus, Uncle Mike's, Sidearmor, Galco) and never had a problem with any of my Glock and non-Glock weapons.

A big problem with any weapon is reholstering. People snag the trigger on threads, twigs, keys, and fingers while reholstering with a resulting negligent discharge. I personally always take my sweet time reholstering any of my weapons, mechanical safety or not.

And don't get me going on the Glock clip! (Anybody who puts THAT on their Glock then stuffs it unholstered in their pants is begging for trouble.)

I never blew up a locker but I blew a guy's whole day.

A jackhole on my first ship decided he wanted to draw down on the ship across the way with his .45 when we were in he Med. (about a 500 yds away) while he was standing Petty Officer of the Watch.

I told him to cut it out and don't aim it at anything he wasn't ready to shoot.

His response was something along the lines of go up to the chain locker and committ acts of self defilement contrary to the sodomy clause in the UCMJ.

Not one to do those things I let my duty section leader (also my Chief) know what was going on.

It took all of 5 minutes for him to be relieved of the Petty Officer of the watch, assigned every other Messenger of the Watch shift for the next three duty days until he requalified for POoW.

We never hung out together much after that. There something about 3 watches a day that really bothers some people.

He would but they've been deemed "too intimidating" and none of us can wear them anymore.

The round only went through the piece of material that I believe they refer to as the wind block, strip behind the zipper, so when he zips up the coat you can't see it.

He thought it was cool.

From the Washington Post, 18 Nov 98:

D.C. police officials repeatedly studied the phenomenon of accidental discharges, invariably concluding that there was no fundamental problem with the Glock itself – as long as users were properly trained. Officials chose not to modify the Glock trigger, as New York City police did in 1990, to require a more forceful tug to fire the gun. In 1994, D.C. police recorded more accidental discharges than the Chicago or Los Angeles forces, two far bigger departments, according to discharge records from the departments. Last year, the accident rate for D.C. police was 50 percent greater than that of New York police.

This problem has been around awhile, it all comes down to proper training.

P. Kasler's book "Glock: The Revolution in Handguns" has some comments regarding the NYPD trigger modification also.

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