An off-duty FBI agent shot a bar patron in the leg after he did a dance move in the Mile High Spirits Distillery and Tasting Bar that allowed his service weapon to fall to the floor. When he picked it up, it discharged striking the patron. This could make for an interesting tort action.
The accidental shooting occurred around 12:45 a.m. on Saturday night. The near lethal dance move was a back handspring.
As an off-duty agent, it is unlikely that the FBI would face a lawsuit absent some prior incident or knowledge of a problem with the agent. The question is whether it is negligent for the agent to due a back handspring with a gun in a back waistband. I am frankly unfamiliar with such waistband holsters.
However, an obvious battery action seems a strong possibility. It appears that dancing is becoming a dangerous past-time for professionals. We just discussed a surgeon whose dancing numbers are being scrutinized after injuries.
I firearm just doesn’t acidently fire like that, this idiot must have had a round chambered which doesn’t make sense unless he was going to shot someone. I guess there was a Black dude walking a block away because that’s close enough for a White policeman to feel threatened.
Ya never know, maybe the black was headed toward home to get his gun, and the police had to stop him!
That said, there are plenty of videos in which a person became a victim because the weapon was not ready to shoot, and also the opposite, the fact the weapon was ready to shoot saved the shooter life.
One could make a long list of reasons why the chamber should be loaded. A guy in Utah at 2am left his pizza job, was attacked by an insane person wearing a mask, wielding a machete, knocked the victim down, and the victim just barely had time to get his weapon and shoot the man on top of him. No chamber loaded, he’d be dead, 100% sure. The weapon was absolutely inaccessible to his non-shooting hand.
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Looks like the FBI has been taking lessons from the Secret Service again. Expect drunken fraternity shenanigans with prostitutes next.
Looks to me like he panicked when the gun appeared in public and grabbed at it, pulling the trigger in the process.
That’s ‘pilot error’ any way you look at it.
I am not sure if the FBI’s policy is for agents to have a round in the chambers of their semiautomatic pistols. But of course, the agent was off duty, and the weapon could have been a personal revolver.
Anyhow, let us assume a semiautomatic weapon. I have never carried a pistol with a round in the chamber, because I do not see that as a good idea. Had the agent being operating under my thinking, there would not have been an accidental discharge. And yes, there is no way dropping the weapon could have caused the slide to move back and load a round in the chamber.
Watch the many videos online, of persons who became victim because the chamber was empty, and persons who successfully defended themselves because the chamber was filled.
Off duty law enforcement almost always concealed carry in case they are made, or if they need to respond to an emergency.
I am unclear if the weapon was secured in a holster at all or just shoved down his waistband. It clearly was not secured in a manner that could handle 360 degrees of rotation. Safety appeared to be off. Plus his immediate reaction was not to rush to render aid.
He is responsible for this.
It’s bad enough this idiot had a round chambered and the safety off, but it’s his immediate reaction to the accidental discharge of his weapon that is telling of his “other” training. His concern for where the round went and anyone that may have been hit was not as important as mugging for the camera and crowd with a gesture of oops, my bad.
he is cute. If a girl went out with him, she would at least be safe from these thugs
http://www.thedailygouge.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Black_Thugs_article-small_16898.jpg
how do I get a hold of him for a date?
FBI Agent Shoots Bar Patron After Weapon Falls From Pants During Dance Move
What was the highly trained law enforcement agent doing in a bar with a loaded firearm?
Following the career-advancement paradigm already in place at FBI (ie fail upward) the loser at the bar will be promoted to director FBI.
You may be confusing him with the FBI sniper at Ruby Ridge, who shot a mother in the head, who was committing the crime of carrying her baby in her arms. He was quickly promoted.
The country’s in the best of hands.
Most of the off duty cops who accidently fired a gun in a “gun free” club or bar were drunk. They had to turn in their gun & badge & then were fired.
This FBI guy is federal government employee who may have been intoxicated with a loaded gun & a round in the chamber doing stunts. The only way for the FBI to avoid more bad press, is to fire him.
TJ – Please, have some respect. You are talking about the new head of the FBI for goodness sake!
Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen.
In Carmel, IN, an FBI Special Agent in Charge was carrying and driving under the influence of alcohol in 2015 when his car collided with a motorcycle, injuring the other driver.
Last I heard, the agent was on admin leave from the FBI. He’d been sentenced in Hamilton County court to three years’ probation and had his licence endorsed with a ban for driving other than to and from work.
Do handguns not have safeties anymore? Was there some reason he needed to have a bullet chambered and the safety off? Maybe he had just been showing it to women he was trying to impress? This “man” is an infant and needs to be put back in the nursery where he won’t harm anyone with his juvenile antics. Who hires these guys? What are their criteria? “The successful candidate will only watch movies in which multiple cars flip in the air.”
If the agent was carrying either of the two pistols now issued by the FBI, both Glocks, then no, Glocks do not have external safeties. They are striker-fired and so internal safeties keep the firing pin from engaging the primer during external impacts. The only external safety on a Glock is the training and gun safety awareness of the person carrying it.
I’m familiar with “small of back” holsters, but I don’t see one. The way he tucks it back into his waistband is also wrong for that type of holster, which stores the grip up against the back, not down against the buttock. I’m not tort expert, but carrying an unholstered gun is negligent, as is carrying while consuming alcohol (some states allow carry in bars/restaurants but explicitly ban carrying while drinking, all others ban carrying where alcohol is served). If he was off-duty, then clearly he wasn’t there on the job, which would provide the only exception for an agent to be armed in a bar.
That he was released without charge is proof positive we live in a tiered society where government employees have more rights than the rest of us. anybody else would still be locked up.
That’s what I was wondering -if he just shoved it down the back of his waistband.
If this was in fact a case of not using a holster it is against law enforcement training to carry a pistol in the waistband without a holster. The only time I can immediately think of is a case when, for example, making an arrest of a suspect on the ground and you take a pistol away from him. Having no place or other person to secure the pistol (and if there are bystanders preventing you from throwing the pistol out of the way) temporarily putting the gun in your waistband until you handcuff and contain the suspect is reasonable.
An unholstered pistol in a waistband on a long term basis is simply asking for trouble. First, it is difficult to secure if someone tries to take it away from you, as opposed to an S3 security holster that requires a few simultaneous steps to remove the gun, making it difficult for someone to snatch it away. The other is the fact that it could fall out easily. There might be exceptions for undercover work but when I did I carried mine usually in a hidden pocket and it wasn’t going to fall out. The waistband carry is too risky.
It cannot be a battery. The shooting was unintentional.
Vince Jankoski – he can be seen carefully holstering his weapon before the dance move and it appears on my screen that the gun goes off by itself. 😉
When I said there was no battery, I did not mean to imply that there was no liability on the part of the agent. A case could be made that it was negligent for the agent to do a backflip while carrying a loaded firearm (however holstered) in a crowded room. My guess is that his superiors at the FBI would strongly recommend against it.
Vince Jankoski – my guess is his superiors at the FBI cannot do any of those dance moves. 😉
that the gun goes off by itself.
They issued him a surplus pistol they bought from Claudine Longet?
I saw the agent pick the gun up before it went off.
Given the internal safeties on Glocks, I find it less probable that the weapon went off than that the agent carelessly inserted his finger inside the trigger guard and somehow engaged the trigger, firing the weapon.
Illegal Discharge of a Firearm – Penalty, C.R.S. 18-12-107.5
(1) Any person who knowingly or recklessly discharges a firearm into any dwelling or any other building or occupied structure, or into any motor vehicle occupied by any person, commits the offense of illegal discharge of a firearm.
(2) It shall not be an offense under this section if the person who discharges a firearm in violation of subsection (1) of this section is a peace officer as described in section 16-2.5-101, C.R.S., acting within the scope of such officer’s authority and in the performance of such officer’s duties.
(3) Illegal discharge of a firearm is a class 5 felony.
is one possible charge under Colorado state law.
Assault is another, more serious possible charge,
Of the three charges that can be brought against someone who accidentally shoots another person,
Third degree assault causing “bodily injury” ‘s a Class 1 misdemeanor, while
Second degree assault which “recklessly causes serious bodily injury to another person by means of a deadly weapon” in the circumstances visible in the footage is a Class 4 felony.
First degree assault requires intent to injure.
Yes, but it sounds like all of those ways of committing an assault or a battery involve an intentional discharge of the firearm. Giving the agent the benefit of the doubt, the discharge was accidental.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/NNEZz8qifsg/hqdefault.jpg
Was it negligent? Of course it was! Good grief. It’s hard to believe this would be a question. This individual has no business being in the Secret Service or any other profession wherein he is allowed to carry a gun. Apparently even with training there are no “responsible gun owners”.
The nonchalant discussion of this incident is disturbing.
” Apparently even with training there are no “responsible gun owners”. ”
Jeez, just a little over reaction. Get a grip.
Let’s see. One trained gun owner screws up – therefore there are no responsible gun owners. Hmmm, by the same logic there are no anti-gun people who can think straight.
Exactly.
Justice Holmes – evidently doing backflips with a holstered gun are not covered at the Academy. BTW, the guy has got some moves and should be on the next Dancing For the Stars.
Most of us who carry and own guns are responsible. Many millions who own and use guns safely, versus a few hundred in 2016, according to the CDC, who accidentally discharge them.
We have over 400 million guns in private hands, mostly untrained or under trained; nevertheless despite having the highest rate of gun ownership on the planet by a wide margin, our rate of firearm violence is about half the global average. In essence, the fact that our gun violence is disproportionately low compared to our gun ownership says that guns are actually safer in American hands.
In his defense, it was a pretty sweet dance move.
Weapon safety 101 for armed government police agents…Safe, proper, and efficient method to pickup a hand gun: insert forefinger (trigger finger) into the trigger shroud. Squeeze the trigger to apply pressure to pickup the hand gun.
If you accidentally discharge the weapon, just return the weapon to your carry position, smile, and walk away like it’s OK. Do not check where the bullet landed. If the bullet kills or injures an innocent bystander, especially the public, ignore it and just go ’bout your bith’ess.
/sarc off
Part of the every police oath: “I shall solve no crime, till there’s overtime.”
If you’re a protected class agent, just blame whitey.
Obviously we don’t from the information presented know the type of holster, if one was used, or the type of handgun used (which could be pertinent). But there is the possibility he might have not properly snapped the holster and it came out. Not snapping the holster happens to all of us at some point.
Keeping that in mind accidents happen when holding any object, whether it be a pair of scissors or a chainsaw. We can minimize the problem by due care and caution but there is no cure for making something foolproof or completely fault tolerant.
Nearly every law enforcement agency will experience an accidental discharge of a weapon. It is an eventuality. There are ways to control this through measures but it happens. A coworker of mine accidentally shot himself in the leg during range time when he attempted to holster his pistol and he missed the mark on inserting it in. Apparently the trigger caught on something and as he pushed downward he shot himself. The others were benign, other than the bullet hole they left in a wall or desk.
I had a close call myself. We were gearing up, preparing to raid a drug house one time at work and it turned out to be a rather interesting experience. One of the task force guys was standing facing me. And when he went to put his model 1911 pistol into a holster on his vest, it slipped out of his hand and he tried unsuccessfully to catch it. In an instant I envisioned the gun landing on the floor and going off. I actually experienced time slowing down and I could see the pistol slowly tumbling down toward the floor and hitting with a loud snap. and I stood there with what seemed a long time waiting to see if the gun went off before it finally fell on its side. Luckily it didn’t but it was strange going through the time warp as it seemed.
Again, I don’t know from the facts on whether this FBI agent acted negligently in retaining his pistol but do know that mistakes happen. It is outcomes that makes them matter.
What a scary close call!
I am sure Mueller will find the patron obstructed justice.
I had to have been in the cocked and locked position or even cocked and unlocked. What was he doing in a bar with a ready for combat weapon on duty or not on duty. Well….. depends on who got hit … these days…. the outcome that is. Somehow the embarrassment must be covered up.