The incident began early Monday when police were called out to a residence at which a 26-year-old man was threatening his parents with a knife. According to police, the young man's father told officers that his son was under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or both.
The first officers on the scene did an incredible job at de-escalating the situation and managed to convince the young man to drop the knife.
"The officers got there, they had to talk the subject down for a good amount of time. They were able to get the knife away from him. But then the subject went into a defense posture, an aggressive posture. The officers took him to the ground, had to be tased," Police Capt. Dan Brinkman said.
To recap, the 26-year-old man, who was "going after" his father, had been successfully disarmed and was being taken into custody by the officers who then tasered him when he resisted. During this struggle, another officer-who was not involved in the hands-on action-pulled his gun and fired off a round.
"During that hands-on period, another officer, who was not part of the hands-on handcuffing, uh firearm discharged, and it struck another officer in the leg," Brinkman says.
"This was an unintended discharge," said Brinkman.
Notice the language used by Brinkman in the press conference to try and portray a scene in which the officer had nothing to do with shooting his fellow cop. The cop didn't accidentally shoot a fellow officer but, rather, the "firearm discharged."
Luckily, the officer who was shot was not seriously hurt and he was subsequently treated and released from the hospital.
The status of the officer whose gun "accidentally discharged" is that he is not facing any charges as of yet for shooting a cop. However, the chief noted that he is "shook up."
As is standard procedure, the Wisconsin Department of Criminal Investigation has been called to help with the "investigation."
Aside from the above the law treatment of the officer, the excuse of the weapon accidentally discharging is nothing short of asinine.
Guns do not fire themselves.
Weapons companies spend a significant amount of time and money making sure their guns don't simply 'go off.' While it is entirely possible for older single action revolvers, which required the hammer to be cocked, to go off when dropped, the idea of a modern pistol accidentally firing without someone pulling the trigger is simply absurd.
There are more guns than people in the United States. It is estimated that Americans own around 357 million firearms. If these weapons were so prone to accidentally firing, there would be a lot of dead Americans. However, that is clearly not the case.
The reality is that these cases of guns "accidentally firing" most always involve police, who are entrusted by the public to responsibly carry weapons, failing miserably at their jobs. You could rest assured that if a mere citizen were to shoot and injure another person 'accidentally,' they would be cast out by the anti-gun crowd and plastered across the mainstream media. They would also be in jail.
However, if your job is to carry a firearm for a living to ostensibly protect society and you shoot your own colleague while doing this job - you are immediately presumed innocent and given special treatment.
Just over a year ago, TFTP reported on three instances in a single week in which officers accidentally fired their weapons. Some of the unintended victims were not as lucky as the cop in Sturgeon Bay.
At a Halloween party in October 2016, a cop in North Carolina shot and severely injured her own daughter as she showed off her service weapon. She has not been charged.
Prior to that shooting, a cop in Ohio fired his weapon into a daycare center - while it was fully occupied.
Just after those two shootings, a 20-year veteran deputy of the Fresno County Sheriff's Department was shot and killed by his fellow officer. Officials immediately ruled it an accident and began the narrative that the gun somehow just went off on its own.
Deputy Sgt. Rod Lucas was having a conversation near the Fresno Yosemite International Airport about how to carry backup weapons when one deputy's weapon was discharged striking Lucas in the chest.
Lucas was in the room with two other deputies, and, according to Mims, there was no dispute at the time - ironically, just a conversation about weapons safety.
"The detective had his weapon out. During this discussion, the detective's weapon discharged," the sheriff said. "Sgt. Lucas was struck by the bullet in his chest, and he dropped to the ground."
Case closed.
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