Deputy accidentally shoots man

Status
Not open for further replies.
D

DoubleTapDrew

Member
Joined
Feb 23, 2006
Messages
5,356
Location
Oregon
http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/NW_062206WABtaserKC.b23c36c1.html

BREMERTON – A Kitsap County deputy is under investigation after she accidentally shot a man. The deputy thought she had her taser in her hand.


KING

Several Kitsap County deputies gathered under a tree in a Bremerton lot where a man – shouting and dressed only in underwear – refused to come down.

"I heard him say very loudly: 'I'm unarmed!'" said witness Kathy Norton.

Kathy and Tom Norton heard a shot and saw a female deputy pointing something at the man who was less than 10 feet up the tree.

"She dropped and was hurt. You could see she was scared. It wasn't like it was on purpose," said Kathy.

"As soon as the shot was done she walked over there and got on one knee. She was distraught," said Tom.

Tasers are often worn on the same leg as an officer's handgun, and the Sheriff's Department says the 5-year veteran deputy mistakenly grabbed her gun instead of the taser.

"It doesn't seem that the deputy was under immediate pressure to draw and fire right away. That will come out in the investigation. The primary deputy called for a second taser application. The deputy pulled out what she thought was a taser and fired a shot," said Deputy Scott Wilson, Kitsap County Sheriff's Department.

The deputy carried an older model M-26 taser with a similar grip and feel of her handgun.

The sheriff's department is phasing in new X-26 models, which are smaller and have a noticeably different feel than a handgun.

The man who took the unintended bullet was airlifted to Seattle's Harborview Medical Center with what sheriff's deputies say is a non-life-threatening wound to his leg.

The man has not yet been identified.

The Washington State Patrol is handling the investigation.
Click to expand...

Do officers really wear tasers THAT close to their primary weapon? Yikes.
I didn't realize it was SOP to tase someone in a tree, but I guess if they won't come down you can't handle it like you would a stranded cat :p
 
"She dropped and was hurt. You could see she was scared. It wasn't like it was on purpose," said Kathy.
Click to expand...

Huh?

Emotionally hurt?
The man was the one who was shot.

Does the witness mean, "She dropped [the gun] and was [filled with] hurt [feelings]" ?

:confused:

.
 
Sounds like they need to review the practice of carrying a tazer near their duty weapon and get the new model phased in ASAP.

I hope a good cop's career and life aren't destroyed by an honest mistake, but I expect it will.

I hate it when bad guys get rich like this.
 
I hope a good cop's career and life aren't destroyed by an honest mistake, but I expect it will.

I hate it when bad guys get rich like this
Click to expand...


Well, its a damn good thing that a "good cop" didn't shoot the guy then, isn't it?
 
This is an instance of where poor procedure and training may have turned against an officer. It's not that I don't fault the nut behind the trigger, "similar feel" is very misleading, and I can say that the taser does not have a feel like a real gun, especially the trigger (yes, I have used both, not on anyone, no I am not a cop).

This could be another argument for a manual safety on the officers' guns (ala HK, 1911 etc...), but it really should be a call for the various agencies that use both tasers and handguns to review the stupid procedure of them both being carried in the same area.

This cop's life will probably be impacted greatly, lots of emotional stress and trauma I am sure, but if she's held responsible by the PD, so should the agency and the folks that made the utterly stupid decision to allow both items to be carried in the same area.
 
Last edited:
Well, its a damn good thing that a "good cop" didn't shoot the guy then, isn't it?
Click to expand...

Are you saying you think she did it on purpose and the witnesses are lying to cover it up for her? Or are you saying there is no such thing as a good cop?

Good people do make mistakes from time to time. A honest mistake is just that, an honest mistake. This one just has severe consequences.
 
Good people do make mistakes from time to time. A honest mistake is just that, an honest mistake. This one just has severe consequences.
Click to expand...
Our legal system recognizes that negligence without malice is NOT a free pass for having caused serious injury or death to others. I suspect that's the basis of the pushback over the phrase 'I hope a good cop's career and life aren't destroyed by an honest mistake'.

It was NOT an honest mistake - it was a NEGLIGENT mistake. Understandable and preventable, but still negligent.
 
Are you saying you think she did it on purpose and the witnesses are lying to cover it up for her? Or are you saying there is no such thing as a good cop?
Click to expand...


I am saying neither.

I am saying SHE is not a good COP. She may be a wonderful sweet person, but that does not make her a good COP. Not every person who wants to be a cop should be a cop. This woman should not be a cop.
 
The city of Madera, CA had a similar incident where the acting watch supervisor decided to tase a handcuffed prisoner in the back seat of a patrol car. She center punched the prisoner with a pistol round instead and he expired.

The city's response was to sue the manufacturer of the Taser for not adequately training its officers.

Pilgrim
 
say what?

I hope a good cop's career and life aren't destroyed by an honest mistake, but I expect it will.
Click to expand...

I wonder what part of the story was left out? Like the part where a man up a tree in his underwear posed a direct threat to the officers below. Maybe he was such a threat, while up the tree in his underwear he NEEDED to be tasered! Or, maybe he really needed to be shot!

Honest mistake, neglegent homicide or manslaughter? Put yourself in the officer's place and predict which charge you would face.

Whatcha wanna bet this officer will not face any criminal charges?

But what the heck, she meant well!
 
Still alive, right?

ProficientRifleman asked "Honest mistake, neglegent homicide or manslaughter? Put yourself in the officer's place and predict which charge you would face."

Hopefully neither one, unless the "non-life threatening injuries" were gravely misinterpreted :)

Not to make light of the incident, but it's like the joke about a plane that crashes right on the border of Canada and the U.S. (or whatever arbitrary place), wrt the proper place of burial for the survivors.

timothy
 
tasers

should be PDW sub-gun sized and be shaped SIGNIFICANTLY differenty, COLORED differently, and finally the sights should also be way different. something like crossbow sights comes to mind.

of all my rifle safeties, i like the mauser's the best. when it's applied, you KNOW before shooting that the safety is still on.
 
Well, here in Portland, officers carry their Tazer's on their weak side, in a thigh holster. Their Tazer's are BRIGHT yellow, and very easily differentiated from their duty weapons. Sounds like it's a training issue/equipment issue that just rose up to bite them in the butt (or leg, as the case may be).
 
But Don't Forget . . . .

THEY are the professionals. THEY are the only ones who can safely handle the Glock 40 * BANG!

:fire:
 
Last edited:
When I first read that,, all I could think about was Tackleberry getting that cat out of the tree on Police Academy. :eek:
 
I think it's an issue of someone not being trained very well and not being a gun-savvy person. Just someone "professhinal enuf" to carry one. I haven't handled a Taser but I doubt they feel just like an issue gun (I can understand a glock grip angle if that's the issue weapon). Even if your taser is holstered just ahead or behind your sidearm, with the spacing of the grip, etc. I can't imagine mistaking one for the other ("Hmm my taser is at 3 o clock today instead of 5 o clock, oh well, i'll just pull the trigger").
Either very very bad training or one serious brain fart.
 
"Are you saying you think she did it on purpose and the witnesses are lying to cover it up for her? Or are you saying there is no such thing as a good cop?

Good people do make mistakes from time to time. A honest mistake is just that, an honest mistake. This one just has severe consequences."

Dude, you have to admit you're a bit over-the-top. When you do something really wrong, really dangerous and really irrational with a firearm it's not an honest mistake, that applies across the board to all people in all walks of life.
 
I've never seen a Taser carried on the same side as the duty weapon. Ive always seen them on the opposite side in cross draw fashion.
 
Tasered in tree

I live in the next county over, and the local news is very vague about the details. If someone is tasered in a tree won't they fall out and possibly injure themselves? I also didn't know it was illegal to climb trees. They haven't explained why it was so necessary to get him down so quickly. There are references to him acting strangely, but people act strangely every day. Was he trespassing? Just thinking out loud.
 
torpid - one of our local cops accidently shot and killed a guy who was behind in his child support payments. He was shot in the back while unarmed and running away from the cop. The cop's pistol went off by itself.

This happened in public. The experienced cop immediately dropped to his knees and started to pray over the body of the dead guy. This act was brought up in criminal and civil court and was used as an example of how wonderful the police officer was compared to the low life who wouldn't/couldn't support his own children.

Anyway, the cop had a good act, the jury bought it and he got off. The PD lost about $2.5 million in a civil case.
 
Yup

I've never seen a Taser carried on the same side as the duty weapon. Ive always seen them on the opposite side in cross draw fashion.
Click to expand...

I work for Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, in Bremerton, so I see a lot of Bremerton police officers over the course of time, and EVERY officer I've seen has carried their Taser this way...weak side in a Thigh Holster.

I'm not saying that some don't carry the same side as their firearm, just NONE that I have seen.

Living out here, I have read a lot of different articles about this incident already and...wihtout being a police officer, let me just say I don't think this thing was handled right at all.

Let's see...we have a crazy guy(whether it's drugs, or other mental illness isn't known yet) in his underwear, UP A TREE babbling and yelling at folks. When resuce personnel showed up to try to get him out of the tree, he apparently became 'hostile' towards his would-be-rescuers.

At this point, the police officers on scene felt the right way to respond to this 'hostility' was to Taser the indvidual to get him out of the tree.

It seems to me that the officers just got impatient, and tried to take the easy way out. I mean...what if they HAD hit him withthe Taser, and he fell from the tree and broke his neck?

It just seems poorly handled all around.

Cases like this are just one reason I'm glad I'm not a cop...I'm very impatient and what happened here sounds like a solution that I would ahve come up with.

greg
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

T
  • Locked
Man dies after deputies use stun gun
Replies
1
Views
535
Jeff White
J
B
  • Locked
uuummmmm, oops.....
Replies
21
Views
1K
Vern Humphrey
V
T
  • Locked
Taser system put to the test
Replies
0
Views
712
TheeBadOne
T
A
  • Locked
Deputy Shot By Fellow Deputy's Gun
Replies
21
Views
2K
SodiumBenzoate
S
T
  • Locked
Deputy Shoots & Kills Suspect
Replies
4
Views
500
maundy
M
Back
Top