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Top police gun prone to accidental firing
The Detroit News ^ | December 15, 2003 | Melvin Claxton
Top police gun prone to accidental firing
But Glock gags those who have settled suits
By Melvin Claxton / The Detroit News
When police Officer Randall Smith was accidentally shot in the head by a fellow officer with a Glock semiautomatic pistol in 1995, he sued the gun maker, claiming the weapon was defectively designed and unnecessarily dangerous.
Glock settled the lawsuit. But for the rest of his life, Smith, whose injuries left him permanently brain damaged and cost him his police job in Birmingham, Ala., is barred from talking about the case or revealing any details he learned about Glock before the settlement. His lawyer also is barred from talking, restricted by a confidentiality agreement that is a standard policy for Glock when settling lawsuits.
Glock’s and other gun manufacturers’ insistence on confidentiality agreements is common in product liability settlements. The agreements have kept critical information about the safety record of the gun from the public and are a prime example of how the gun industry actively conceals information about injuries and fatalities connected with its products. The industry has done so with the help of Congress and the powerful National Rifle Association lobby.
Like other gun makers, Glock is not required to report complaints and injuries to any federal or state agency. And Glock cannot be compelled to inform gun buyers of problems others have had with its weapons.
The News documented more than 50 lawsuits against Glock in the past eight years. In those with confirmed settlements, Glock insisted on confidentiality agreements.
Despite the agreements, Glock pistols, the weapon of choice for more than half the nation’s police departments, have earned a reputation among some gun experts as a firearm with too few safety features and that is too quick to fire. Its reputation is directly linked to its design, which ignores important safety features.
The no-frills, lightweight polymer-frame semiautomatic pistol forces the user to handle the gun with extreme caution. The Glock will fire if the trigger is moved less than a half an inch, compared to twice that distance for most other police guns.
And some Glocks will shoot with as little as 3 1/2 pounds of pressure on the trigger — light enough for a 5-year-old to fire the gun. Glock started offering optional trigger pulls of up to 12 pounds in the mid-1990s after the New York City Police Department — plagued by a string of police shootings — demanded a heavier trigger.
The gun has no manual safety to prevent it from firing if the trigger is accidentally pulled. In fact, the gun’s safety features — extremely effective in preventing discharges if the gun is dropped or hit — automatically are turned off every time the trigger is depressed.
In addition, most Glocks have no indicator that shows the guns are loaded and no magazine safety to prevent them from firing when the ammunition clip is removed. And unlike many other guns, the Glock is always semicocked and ready to shoot. This inner tension in its firing mechanism increases the likelihood of discharge if the trigger is accidentally moved, some gun experts say.
"What you have is a gun that is almost too eager to fire," said Carter Lord, a national firearms and ballistics consultant. "I think it may be an appropriate weapon for highly trained paramilitary officers in a SWAT team, but not for most police officers and certainly not for civilians."
Gun’s sensitive trigger endangers police officers
With so few Glock victims able to talk freely, details of injuries must often be obtained from police reports, eyewitness statements and court documents that haven’t been sealed. These sources paint a picture of a gun that has severely injured police officers.
In many instances, the injuries are devastating and permanent.
Take the case of Jimmy Pope. The former Jackson, Miss., police officer was shot in the face when a Glock being cleaned in another room by his roommate and fellow officer, Von Ware, accidentally discharged. The bullet went through Pope’s bedroom wall and the headboard of his bed before hitting him.
Pope lost an eye in the 1993 shooting and suffered extensive facial injuries.
Detroit police have had their share of Glock injuries, although police officials insist there have been very few instances of unintentional discharges with the gun.
Within two years of switching to the Glocks in 1992, two officers shot themselves in their legs and another was shot in the buttocks. And in July, Detroit Officer Michael Allen, 22, was shot in the leg, the bullet hitting the bone. His Glock accidentally fired as he tried to put it under the seat after his car was pulled over by customs inspectors on the Canadian side of the Ambassador Bridge.
Police shooting themselves in their legs with Glocks is so prevalent, said firearms consultant and former Guns and Ammo editor Whit Collins, that gun experts describe the phenomenon as "Glock leg."
The list of Glock victims includes veteran police and experienced gun handlers — people like former U.S. Border Patrol agent Michael Roth, 66, a small-town sheriff and marksman with extensive gun training.
In March 1996, Roth was tightening his belt in a mall restroom in Buffalo, N.Y., when the Glock tucked in his waistband accidentally discharged, striking him in the leg.
Investigators believed the gun’s trigger caught in his clothing, causing the gun to fire. Roth sued Glock, blaming the gun’s light, short trigger pull and lack of a manual safety for the shooting.
Glock settled the case, but again killed any publicity by demanding Roth and his attorney sign a strict confidentiality agreement barring them from talking about the shooting.
For some police officers like Terry Turner of Beaumont, Texas, such shootings prove career-ending. Turner had his leg amputated last year after he was shot in the thigh when his Glock accidentally discharged as he placed it in his holster.
Accidental firings hurt suspects, bystanders
It isn’t just police officers who are getting hurt in accidental Glock shootings. Suspects, innocent bystanders and even spouses sometimes are caught in the line of fire.
That was the case in August when Woonsocket, R.I., police Lt. Walter Warot accidentally shot himself in the buttocks and slightly wounded the person sitting next to him.
Warot, who was sitting on a granite bench outside Providence Superior Court at the time, was adjusting a Glock tucked in his waistband when it discharged. An employee of the attorney general’s office sitting next to him was nicked by flying fragments of granite from the shot’s impact.
Other victims of Glock shootings have not been so lucky. Elroy Gonzalez was shot in the head and seriously injured in 1996 while being arrested by a Kentucky police officer for allegedly possessing a small amount of marijuana. The officer said he didn’t intend to fire his gun.
Ronnie Earl Kimbrell was shot in the back by a South Carolina state trooper in 1995 while being arrested for an alleged traffic violation. The trooper said he was trying to handcuff Kimbrell when he accidentally fired his gun.
James Lancaster was killed Aug. 8, 1996, after a sheriff’s deputy unintentionally shot him. At the time he was shot, Lancaster was being forced to the ground after a 20-mile car chase. The officer said he didn’t intend to fire the weapon.
Company holds gun users responsible for safety
One of the biggest safety criticisms leveled against Glock is the company’s refusal to put a manual safety on its guns. Glock developed a safety for its guns years ago, but never made it available to the public.
Glock built the safety for guns manufactured for the Finnish military, the gun maker’s general counsel and vice president Paul F. Jannuzzo revealed in a deposition. He said the company made 50 such pistols.
Like so many things about Glock, information about the manual safety remains shielded from the public. And despite the benefits many see in the feature, no agency has the power to compel the manufacturer to add it to its guns.
In 2002, Glock introduced an optional safety feature — a built-in safety lock — for some of its guns.
In announcing the locks, Glock acknowledged that gun manufacturers can design firearms with features that make them safer to keep in homes with children.
"The beauty of the Glock locking system is it is simple and safe," an article in last year’s Glocks Autopistols magazine stated. "It is the perfect system for someone without a strong background in firearms training and is dealing with the conflict of having young children in the home while feeling a great need for a tool that would enable them to maintain control when physically threatened with criminal intrusion."
But the gun maker’s Web site states the company’s philosophy that firearms safety is ultimately the responsibility of gun owners.
"Firearm safety is up to you, the end-user," Gaston Glock states in a message to customers on his company’s Web site. "The safe handling of firearms, like morality, cannot be legislated into existence. Only firearms users can make the safe use and storage of firearms a reality."
Weapon easily converted into full automatic mode
One of the Glock’s most frightening attributes is its ability to easily be converted into a full automatic weapon capable of firing at the rate of 1,000 rounds a minute.
Glock has issued no warnings and made no changes in its design that would prevent its weapons from being converted into submachine guns.
Experts say the problem can be corrected with minor changes in how Glock pistols are made.
A full automatic Glock will fire 33 bullets in seconds with one trigger pull. And the gun can be quickly converted to full automatic mode for as little as $10 with homemade parts. It is a well-documented danger known to law enforcement.
"In some regions of California, police are treating any Glock they encounter as a machine gun until proven otherwise," states an advisory on the Association of Forensic Firearm and Toolmark Examiners Web site that lists dangerous or defective guns.
"The conversion from standard to fully automatic is fast and simple, requiring no technical expertise. The conversion is accomplished merely by swapping one piece for the other. A ‘real pro’ can make the switch in 15 seconds."
The easy conversion is no surprise, experts say. Gaston Glock, who designed the gun that bears his name, relied heavily on the technology behind the German Heckler and Koch VP 70 submachine gun when creating his weapon, Glock’s 1990 U.S. patent shows.
The Detroit News ^ | December 15, 2003 | Melvin Claxton
Top police gun prone to accidental firing
But Glock gags those who have settled suits
By Melvin Claxton / The Detroit News
When police Officer Randall Smith was accidentally shot in the head by a fellow officer with a Glock semiautomatic pistol in 1995, he sued the gun maker, claiming the weapon was defectively designed and unnecessarily dangerous.
Glock settled the lawsuit. But for the rest of his life, Smith, whose injuries left him permanently brain damaged and cost him his police job in Birmingham, Ala., is barred from talking about the case or revealing any details he learned about Glock before the settlement. His lawyer also is barred from talking, restricted by a confidentiality agreement that is a standard policy for Glock when settling lawsuits.
Glock’s and other gun manufacturers’ insistence on confidentiality agreements is common in product liability settlements. The agreements have kept critical information about the safety record of the gun from the public and are a prime example of how the gun industry actively conceals information about injuries and fatalities connected with its products. The industry has done so with the help of Congress and the powerful National Rifle Association lobby.
Like other gun makers, Glock is not required to report complaints and injuries to any federal or state agency. And Glock cannot be compelled to inform gun buyers of problems others have had with its weapons.
The News documented more than 50 lawsuits against Glock in the past eight years. In those with confirmed settlements, Glock insisted on confidentiality agreements.
Despite the agreements, Glock pistols, the weapon of choice for more than half the nation’s police departments, have earned a reputation among some gun experts as a firearm with too few safety features and that is too quick to fire. Its reputation is directly linked to its design, which ignores important safety features.
The no-frills, lightweight polymer-frame semiautomatic pistol forces the user to handle the gun with extreme caution. The Glock will fire if the trigger is moved less than a half an inch, compared to twice that distance for most other police guns.
And some Glocks will shoot with as little as 3 1/2 pounds of pressure on the trigger — light enough for a 5-year-old to fire the gun. Glock started offering optional trigger pulls of up to 12 pounds in the mid-1990s after the New York City Police Department — plagued by a string of police shootings — demanded a heavier trigger.
The gun has no manual safety to prevent it from firing if the trigger is accidentally pulled. In fact, the gun’s safety features — extremely effective in preventing discharges if the gun is dropped or hit — automatically are turned off every time the trigger is depressed.
In addition, most Glocks have no indicator that shows the guns are loaded and no magazine safety to prevent them from firing when the ammunition clip is removed. And unlike many other guns, the Glock is always semicocked and ready to shoot. This inner tension in its firing mechanism increases the likelihood of discharge if the trigger is accidentally moved, some gun experts say.
"What you have is a gun that is almost too eager to fire," said Carter Lord, a national firearms and ballistics consultant. "I think it may be an appropriate weapon for highly trained paramilitary officers in a SWAT team, but not for most police officers and certainly not for civilians."
Gun’s sensitive trigger endangers police officers
With so few Glock victims able to talk freely, details of injuries must often be obtained from police reports, eyewitness statements and court documents that haven’t been sealed. These sources paint a picture of a gun that has severely injured police officers.
In many instances, the injuries are devastating and permanent.
Take the case of Jimmy Pope. The former Jackson, Miss., police officer was shot in the face when a Glock being cleaned in another room by his roommate and fellow officer, Von Ware, accidentally discharged. The bullet went through Pope’s bedroom wall and the headboard of his bed before hitting him.
Pope lost an eye in the 1993 shooting and suffered extensive facial injuries.
Detroit police have had their share of Glock injuries, although police officials insist there have been very few instances of unintentional discharges with the gun.
Within two years of switching to the Glocks in 1992, two officers shot themselves in their legs and another was shot in the buttocks. And in July, Detroit Officer Michael Allen, 22, was shot in the leg, the bullet hitting the bone. His Glock accidentally fired as he tried to put it under the seat after his car was pulled over by customs inspectors on the Canadian side of the Ambassador Bridge.
Police shooting themselves in their legs with Glocks is so prevalent, said firearms consultant and former Guns and Ammo editor Whit Collins, that gun experts describe the phenomenon as "Glock leg."
The list of Glock victims includes veteran police and experienced gun handlers — people like former U.S. Border Patrol agent Michael Roth, 66, a small-town sheriff and marksman with extensive gun training.
In March 1996, Roth was tightening his belt in a mall restroom in Buffalo, N.Y., when the Glock tucked in his waistband accidentally discharged, striking him in the leg.
Investigators believed the gun’s trigger caught in his clothing, causing the gun to fire. Roth sued Glock, blaming the gun’s light, short trigger pull and lack of a manual safety for the shooting.
Glock settled the case, but again killed any publicity by demanding Roth and his attorney sign a strict confidentiality agreement barring them from talking about the shooting.
For some police officers like Terry Turner of Beaumont, Texas, such shootings prove career-ending. Turner had his leg amputated last year after he was shot in the thigh when his Glock accidentally discharged as he placed it in his holster.
Accidental firings hurt suspects, bystanders
It isn’t just police officers who are getting hurt in accidental Glock shootings. Suspects, innocent bystanders and even spouses sometimes are caught in the line of fire.
That was the case in August when Woonsocket, R.I., police Lt. Walter Warot accidentally shot himself in the buttocks and slightly wounded the person sitting next to him.
Warot, who was sitting on a granite bench outside Providence Superior Court at the time, was adjusting a Glock tucked in his waistband when it discharged. An employee of the attorney general’s office sitting next to him was nicked by flying fragments of granite from the shot’s impact.
Other victims of Glock shootings have not been so lucky. Elroy Gonzalez was shot in the head and seriously injured in 1996 while being arrested by a Kentucky police officer for allegedly possessing a small amount of marijuana. The officer said he didn’t intend to fire his gun.
Ronnie Earl Kimbrell was shot in the back by a South Carolina state trooper in 1995 while being arrested for an alleged traffic violation. The trooper said he was trying to handcuff Kimbrell when he accidentally fired his gun.
James Lancaster was killed Aug. 8, 1996, after a sheriff’s deputy unintentionally shot him. At the time he was shot, Lancaster was being forced to the ground after a 20-mile car chase. The officer said he didn’t intend to fire the weapon.
Company holds gun users responsible for safety
One of the biggest safety criticisms leveled against Glock is the company’s refusal to put a manual safety on its guns. Glock developed a safety for its guns years ago, but never made it available to the public.
Glock built the safety for guns manufactured for the Finnish military, the gun maker’s general counsel and vice president Paul F. Jannuzzo revealed in a deposition. He said the company made 50 such pistols.
Like so many things about Glock, information about the manual safety remains shielded from the public. And despite the benefits many see in the feature, no agency has the power to compel the manufacturer to add it to its guns.
In 2002, Glock introduced an optional safety feature — a built-in safety lock — for some of its guns.
In announcing the locks, Glock acknowledged that gun manufacturers can design firearms with features that make them safer to keep in homes with children.
"The beauty of the Glock locking system is it is simple and safe," an article in last year’s Glocks Autopistols magazine stated. "It is the perfect system for someone without a strong background in firearms training and is dealing with the conflict of having young children in the home while feeling a great need for a tool that would enable them to maintain control when physically threatened with criminal intrusion."
But the gun maker’s Web site states the company’s philosophy that firearms safety is ultimately the responsibility of gun owners.
"Firearm safety is up to you, the end-user," Gaston Glock states in a message to customers on his company’s Web site. "The safe handling of firearms, like morality, cannot be legislated into existence. Only firearms users can make the safe use and storage of firearms a reality."
Weapon easily converted into full automatic mode
One of the Glock’s most frightening attributes is its ability to easily be converted into a full automatic weapon capable of firing at the rate of 1,000 rounds a minute.
Glock has issued no warnings and made no changes in its design that would prevent its weapons from being converted into submachine guns.
Experts say the problem can be corrected with minor changes in how Glock pistols are made.
A full automatic Glock will fire 33 bullets in seconds with one trigger pull. And the gun can be quickly converted to full automatic mode for as little as $10 with homemade parts. It is a well-documented danger known to law enforcement.
"In some regions of California, police are treating any Glock they encounter as a machine gun until proven otherwise," states an advisory on the Association of Forensic Firearm and Toolmark Examiners Web site that lists dangerous or defective guns.
"The conversion from standard to fully automatic is fast and simple, requiring no technical expertise. The conversion is accomplished merely by swapping one piece for the other. A ‘real pro’ can make the switch in 15 seconds."
The easy conversion is no surprise, experts say. Gaston Glock, who designed the gun that bears his name, relied heavily on the technology behind the German Heckler and Koch VP 70 submachine gun when creating his weapon, Glock’s 1990 U.S. patent shows.
