This from a paper that so often tells us that "average citizens" can't be trusted with guns... Hmmmph! 
And the worst part about it is that the "average citizen" is footing the bill for these clowns.
From the Journal Sentinel:
And the worst part about it is that the "average citizen" is footing the bill for these clowns.From the Journal Sentinel:
Officer's gunplay may force good old Milwaukee to pay
Posted: Jan. 24, 2007
Cary Spivak &
Dan Bice
From the annals of the Milwaukee Police Department, we bring you another chapter in the continuing saga of Stupid Cop Tricks.
Today's tale even has a moral or two:
Play with guns, and people - or careers - may get hurt.
And the city just might get caught up in a lawsuit.
The previously unpublicized story, which we assembled from city and police records, begins back in 2004, when Officer Christian Hlavinka, 28, was sitting at a desk in the District 5 station doing some paperwork in a room full of police. To Hlavinka's surprise, Officer Ryan Heidemann snatched Hlavinka's .40-caliber Glock from his holster.
Advertisement
Horseplay with a loaded weapon - you know this isn't going to end well.
Apparently wanting to teach a fellow cop a thing or two about the proper maintenance of a department-issued firearm, Heidemann, 29, started taking Hlavinka's gun apart.
"Heidemann had disassembled the weapon into at least 10 parts, well beyond the four parts authorized by the Department, when Sgt. (Stephen) Chin entered and stood at the end of the table," Hlavinka told investigators. "Heidemann was having some difficulty putting it back together, and there was quite a bit of discussion as to the various parts and whether or not it was properly assembled."
Jim Gatzke, Hlavinka's lawyer, said his client did what he could to retrieve his weapon.
"What are they going to do, wrestle for it?" Gatzke said. "He said, 'Give me my gun back,' and Heidemann laughed."
Heidemann declined comment Wednesday.
Records say Hlavinka wanted a weapon he could trust before he hit the streets that night, so he told Heidemann the two should switch guns for the night.
Heidemann rejected the suggestion.
The two bantered about the semiautomatic's firing pin. Hlavinka then handed the gun back to Heidemann, presumably so he could prove that he did reassemble it properly, according to disciplinary charges filed by Police Chief Nannette Hegerty with the Fire and Police Commission.
"One of the two officers removed the magazine from the gun but failed to eject the chambered round," stated the charges, which were written in a just-the-facts mode. "Officer Heidemann attempted to disassemble the gun a second time but failed to ensure that the weapon was clear of any ammunition and had the gun pointed in an unsafe direction."
Uh-oh. Betcha know what happened next.
"When Officer Heidemann pulled the trigger, in order to remove the slide, he shot both himself and Officer Hlavinka, causing injury to their hands."
Here ends Act I in this comedy of errors.
Next, the police brass tried to figure out who should pay for the mess on their hands.
The first party hit with a bill: the taxpayer.
Hlavinka, the son of a cop who joined MPD in 1997, will likely never work as an officer again, Gatzke said. That means the city is paying Hlavinka tax-free duty disability of $43,188 a year - 75% of his pay as a cop.
That, however, is only part of the potentially growing tab.
Hegerty initially ordered that Heidemann, who joined the department in '96, be fired but later switched that to recommend he receive only a 60-day suspension, a penalty that was imposed by the Fire and Police Commission in December 2004. The chief told the commission to let Heidemann keep his shield because he admitted his misconduct, apologized and showed remorse.
Heidemann, however, wasn't so full of remorse that he and his lawyers didn't look for a way to ease the pain. They asked that the suspension be spread over several months so he would not lose his city health insurance.
The commission rejected that request.
Faring better on this score was Chin, the sergeant who was allegedly supervising the troops that fateful night. He also was hit with a 60-day suspension, but, unlike the street cop, he was allowed to serve it over a number of months. The commission rejected Hegerty's request to strip Chin of his stripes.
And then just last month, Hlavinka filed a federal lawsuit against the city as well as Hegerty, Chin and Heidemann. The action seeks an undisclosed amount of punitive damages, plus lost wages and pension benefits.
Gatzke said his client, now a part-time college student, is going after the city because he feels it had a responsibility to supervise Heidemann to prevent the incident.
Sounding like he was practicing his summation, Gatzke moaned, "He can't do the one job that he always wanted to do."
Yeah, there's that - and the city has some pretty deep pockets too.
