In Detroit, a woman has died in a bizarre accident where a hug with an off-duty officer led to an accidental discharge of his weapon and the death of Adaisha Miller, 25.
The accident occurred during an outdoor event at 12:30 a.m. when Miller embraced the officer from behind. Police say that the hug caused an accidental discharge. It is hard to see how that would happen. Yet, the bullet punctured Miller’s lung and hit her heart. She was celebrating her recent birthday on Monday.
Even if dropped, most service weapons would not discharge. The question is whether there was an element of negligence in how the weapon was secured in the holster or whether the officer grabbed the weapon to try to stop it from falling.
Source: WPTV
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Modern pistols will not fire unless the trigger is pulled and held back while the hammer is falling or the striker is moving forward. Simply pulling the hammer back and letting it go will not strike the firing pin or will not go forward far enough to strike the firing pin.
Something else went on here.
Most modern 1911-style semi-auto pistols have a firing pin safety. They will not fire if dropped.
I only carry “cocked and locked”. It’s crazy not to. How could you get a shot off if your opposite arm was held, pinned, injured and unable to rack the slide? No thanks. It’s old school training to carry with an empty chamber.
As far as the “accident” . . . my BS meter is twitching something fierce.
Is that a Gun in your pocket or are you just happy ….
Pat 1 said:
“It sounds like the report of an internal investigation, finding NO FAULT WITH THE OFFICER OF COURSE.”
Pat –
I think you might be surprised at how seriously a lot of cops shops take misbehavior. Here’s a pretty impressive resource:
The Cato Institute’s “National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project.”
Incidentally, health care has a similar societal “Big Brother” called The National Practitioner Data Bank. That’s the good news.
Of course the bad news is, the NPDB enlightens the American public not at all, because the data any citizen needs to know, in order to sidestep criminal physicians, to is kept secret.
Darren, that went way beyond an “OOPS” moment.
Otteray
I think your practice of having an empty chamber is certainly not a bad one, fear of dropping the gun is one of them.
i had an incident where we were about to serve an arrest / search warrant on a drug house. One of the drug task force guys and I were gearing up to go in and were facing each other, about an arm’s length or so away. He went to put his 1911 pistol into a holster on the tactical vest he was wearing and it slipped out his hand. He tried to catch it but he dropped it.
When it went out of his hand all I could think of was it landing on the hammer and shooting me. I actualy saw the pistol fall toward the ground and turn over and over as it went along in slow motion. When it hit the ground the sound was loud and I thought for a moment it discharged. That was a bit of a rush.
Pat.
Again, I have no access to the evidence of this case and as I said I was just speculating. I also made no reference to whether or not this constituted negligence because again all the facts are not available to me. I was suggesting possible causes based on what I read about this incident and what has been my training and experience with these matters.
Whether or not it was negligent to not observe precautions that could have prevented this discharge from happening again I do not have enough evidence to accuse a person of negligence.
I didn’t offer any conclusion of fault in this because it would not be merited and no I am not just protecting the officer.
Jason, I am always uncomfortable with one in the chamber. Maybe it was my early training. Lessons taught early in life tend to stick.
I’ll wait til some one else embraces the nuances of this accidental discharge…….
@OS:
“I am thinking there was one in the chamber, the hammer was pulled back some and snapped the cap. An acquaintance of mine observed that Plaxico Burris would not have missed so many paychecks if he he did not have one in the pipe.”
Plaxico wouldn’t have done time if he’d had an inexpensive holster rather than rely on the waistband of his jeans. Or known not to grab at a falling gun. He would have known both these things if he’d had the slightest bit of gun safety knowledge, we’re talking stuff that can be covered in less than ten minutes.
“When I was learning to shoot, my Dad taught me to never transport a firearm with a round in the chamber. There are way too many things that can go wrong.”
When traveling? Sure, though the likelihood is low, there’s no reason to transport one with one in the chamber. But assuming the person isn’t an idiot (has a proper holster, knows the Four Rules) there is nothing wrong with carrying in that state.
So many maybes, ifs possibilities and excuses, sounds to me like pure negligence would be be the correct terminology for most of the last post. It sounds like the report of an internal investigation, finding NO FAULT WITH THE OFFICER OF COURSE.
I will assume given this was reported as being a Party, there were witnesses to this, otherwise it would be as suspicious as the “I was cleaning the gun and suddenly it went off, killing my estranged wife.” type of issue.
While not having any more facts than you do, and just speculating, it would seem to me the offier carried a shoulder holster with the handgun facing rearward (cross-draw fashion). Again more speculation, I would assume the pistol is a semi-auto and more likely he was right handed. If he was right handed the woman probably approached him on his left side and being cross draw that would be the gun side for a right handed person. It might also account for the entry from left lung to heart.
Most semi-autos have a thumb activated safety, often it will be on the left side of the pistol to account for a right thumb activating it. A “Single Action” pistol is often carried “Cocked and Locked” meaning the action is armed, a round is in the chamber and the gun is locked with a safety. In this position the hammer is back as well as the trigger. If the safety is released, it takes minimal pressure to fire the trigger, as opposed to a revolver or double action pistol where the trigger must be pulled back under much heavier load to both compress the mainspring and pull back the hammer. A Glock Pistol is somewhat of a hybrid of this.
Two possibilities I speculate. The first the officer had a single action semi-auto and kept it in the cocked and locked setting, but when he went to place the pistol in the holster a possibility existed he rubbed the left side of the pistol against his body or the holster in a slightly upward manner, this would have released the safety from the safe to the fire mode and when it went into the holster the trigger might have been pushed back very slightly (which would not have happend if the safety was engaged). When the woman came up to him from behind and hugged him it might have been just enough to release the trigger from the movement. I would also specuate the officer might have instinctively pressed his arm against the back of the gun when someone unexpectedly grabbed hold of him to trap the gun to prevent it from being snatched away from him. This would have further pushed back the gun and if there was something against the trigger, this would have aided it the discharge. Officers are taught to hold the arm against their handgun if someone tries to grab them. Or at least I was.
The other possibility was the holster or a fold of the shift protruded into the holster and when the officer loaded the holster the fold held the trigger while the officer pushed the gun into the holster, creating a condition where the trigger was in a critical position and the hugging movement put it over the threshhold. Glock pistols have the external safety on the front of the trigger, if that tab is pushed it will allow the trigger to be pulled back. There was a model of leather holsters made for the Glock that had to be recalled because the design allowed the leather to wear and when this happened the leather made its way into the trigger guard and there was a person who had an accidental discharge because the holster folded and when he placed the pistol inside it pressed the trigger back to this critical point. It later discharged when he was I believe moving around in the seat of his pickup truck.
Again, I am just speculating, a tradgedy certainly. Hopefully they will get to the bottom of this and prevent it from happening again.
bettykath, I just realized my slang term for a gunbarrel was an unintended double entendre.
OS, I do hope that’s an attempt at humor or sarcasm or something.
I am thinking there was one in the chamber, the hammer was pulled back some and snapped the cap. An acquaintance of mine observed that Plaxico Burris would not have missed so many paychecks if he he did not have one in the pipe.
When I was learning to shoot, my Dad taught me to never transport a firearm with a round in the chamber. There are way too many things that can go wrong.
Michaelb, that is CT stuff. Forensic crime scene technicians have reconstructed how everything happened, and in what sequence. Use of laser pointers helped immensely. And that rifle can really shoot that fast in the hands of a former Marine marksman.
Same way one bullet hit three people in 1963
I am trying to figure out what kind of contortion it would take to be hit in the chest by a sidearm. If he were grabbing at it to keep it from falling, that means it was not secured in its holster. If it were in an underarm holster the angle would be easier to explain. The story said he was off duty, so he may have been carrying it in a shoulder or underarm holster. What is left to understand is how it went off. Modern pistols are resistant to rough handling, and as the story mentions, should not go off even if dropped.
And I’m guessing that’s his story. Kinda’ like the George Zimmermann fiction, I suspect that the story will be greatly expanded in a day or two.