Detroit woman killed when "hug" discharges firearm

The grieving mother asks: "If you’re at a party, why do you need a weapon with a round in the chamber?”

That is a good question.

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The only time there's not a round in my chamber is if the slide is locked back or I'm doing cleaning/maintenance on it. I believe if you carry, you should carry everywhere. So, if I were ever at a party (I don't party at all), I would have a loaded weapon.

It's an odd sort of gun that goes off when nobody has pulled a trigger... and an odd sort of holster that leaves the trigger exposed when the gun is holstered and concealed. A "hug" made it "go off"? I'm tapping out BRAVO SIERRA on that one... somebody's not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but...

Whoever heard of something bad happening at a party?

Sorry, but that's a bit like saying "Who needs seatbelts when you're just in the Walmart parking lot" or "Who needs medical insurance when you're sleeping in bed" or even "Who needs a gun when you're shopping for groceries, just going to the bank, sitting around at home and watching television?"

You carry always and you carry in the same manner, trying to remember if you chambered a round or didn't in the middle of being attacked is likely not to end well.

Please remember this was an off-duty LEO....

Can you say "Cover Up?"

JerryC said:

Very weird for a gun in a waistband holster to go off and shoot someone in the heart. She must have been dancing low.

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I can visualize at least one scenario, and it's NOT very High Road...

I would guess there's "more to the story" that we'll never really know.

Party... 0030... Hmmmm.... No chance of horseplay gone wrong I suppose.

When I read the first story about this earlier today my first thought was, "someone isn't telling the truth"... but then I thought.. hug from behind, heart lung shot, discharge by contact... maybe a striker fired pistol in one of those spandex shirts with the underarm pockets. I could see a trigger getting pulled in one of those things.

... But IWB? I'm back to "someone isn't telling the truth"

Detroit is pretty close to Chicago in terms of corruption in its city gov. so I would doubt that there will be a clear resolution soon, maybe in a year or two if someone files a FOIA request but by then nobody will care.

I was thinking the same thing 303tom when I heard it.

Assuming that both

- everyone is telling the truth, and
- the article attempted to tell the story as accurately as they could understand it


I can envision a scenario where that might happen.


The Officer is grabbed from behind by a person he doesn't know. She makes contact with his gun and it begins to come out. He interprets this as an assualt, a gun grab. He does what his training dictates as an immediate response. She gets thrown to the ground as he shoves the gun back in the holster to retain it. And the gun goes off in the process.


I could also see that scenario as:

- hard to explain to a gun-stupid media;
- hard to tell the mother of this dead girl that her daughter was a little too flirty with a stranger, who was dancing with his wife at the time, and she ended up getting shot when her frisky behavior was interpreted as an assault..

Good scenario bullfrog. Although I think even the gun-stupid media would understand him responding by throwing her, I think its a fact they would have left out.

Of course, as Dr. House says, "everybody lies."

This one reeks of misinformation.

Perhaps I phrased it wrong.


I don't mean to say he threw her to the ground.


But his response to an act he interpretted as an assault could have knocked her down and that's where she was at the moment the gun went off.


Perhaps the police spokesperson decided not to comment on that, wisely discerning ahead of time that someone would take this story and run it as the police officer intentionally throwing the girl to the ground, but shooting her unintentionally. That's a hard sell.

And the spokesperson is left with trying to explain that it was all just a big misunderstanding, that the officer mistook her playful grope as an assault, and his proper, justified response to a misunderstood touch ended her death. That's a real hard sell.


Perhaps the media reporting the story got the facts wrong. Happens all the time. I've seen stories reported about me personally, and if I wasn't there I wouldn't have recognized the news report from the facts of the day.


Who knows. The best way for the police spokesperson to play it right now is to not comment much on the specifics; let the internal investigation run its course; and let their report describe how it happened.

Soft material holster?

New news:

Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee said Monday the gun was in a waist holster made of soft material that would have allowed the trigger to be pulled. He says there's no evidence the officer fired the gun. The chief believes the gun discharged after Miller hugged the officer around his waist.

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Full text (which isn't much more): http://www.wgme.com/template/inews_wire/wires.national/3746c11f-www.wgme.com.shtml

ETA: And more:

"I don't think I'm giving anything away by saying this but for the sake of transparency, it is possible for the trigger to be manipulated with that type of holster," Godbee said. "Typically the barrel is facing down, but the preliminary investigation indicates that there was some manipulation along the officer's waistline that he did not control and subsequently the weapon discharged."

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http://abcnews.go.com/US/detroit-wo...ischarging-gun/story?id=16740721#.T_sx-ZG3Mgc

that the officer mistook her playful grope as an assault.

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But this was a party....why would there be an assault at a party? ~

Hmmm...k-frame's article seems to make Bullfrog's explanation not fit; it looks like the chief is saying her actions pulled the trigger. Doesn't explain the trajectory.

Bullfrog, I wasn't saying it like he threw her to the ground and fired. My response if someone grabbed me from behind would be to lock my arm over theirs and roll them over my hip (if they grabbed my arms, I would drop, elbow, and then roll over my shoulder). This would result in them being on the ground, but not necessarily because I intended to throw them on the ground.

Who knows what exactly happened. I can tell you we're not going to get a good explanation from the media telling us what they thought they heard as it wait explained to them in the first few hours of the investigation.


We won't know the explanation this anytime soon.


I'll wait to hear the results from the internal affair investigation.

When I first read this, my only guess was that he was carrying a Nambu in a Miami Vice shoulder rig, only way a pistol could shoot itself when hugged from behind.

I think all the evidence is there, bullet hole entry angle & any scorch marks from possible contact-distance shooting in the deceased, along with the scorch marks in LEO's clothing from the discharged weapon and any propellant residue on his hands if he really fired the weapon.

Just a matter of proper forensic analysis of the evidence to determine what really happened.

I think all the evidence is there, bullet hole entry angle & any scorch marks from possible contact-distance shooting in the deceased, along with the scorch marks in LEO's clothing from the discharged weapon and any propellant residue on his hands if he really fired the weapon.

Just a matter of proper forensic analysis of the evidence to determine what really happened.

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Evidence can easily be covered up.

Years ago, when Glocks were first coming onto the scene, I was working the ER. We had a Sheriff's Deputy come in with a .45 Black Talon round on the lateral condile of his right knee from his issue Glock 20. He claimed that the "Gun without a safely just went off". After some Morphine for the pain, and the additional fact that the guys working on him were more familiar with the Glock than he was, we got to the root of the problem. IA just happened by about the time that the Morphine was really kicking in as well.
The holster he was using had a retention safety strap designed to go around the rear of the slide when the gun was securely holstered. The Deputy was re-holstering his weapon, in an office mind you, when upon meeting resistance, he pushed down harder. The retention strap had entered the trigger guard and engaged the trigger. Add the extra downward force and BOOM! Hello knee surgery. He managed to engage the bang switch without even using his booger hook.
There are ways where the "holstered" M&P.40 in question could have gone off but they are extreme, as in the case above and, it points out that it doesn't happen without somebody making it happen.
As to how the round traveled UP from a waistband holster is another mystery all together. With Detroit style law enforcement in action, we should promptly have all the facts in about 120 years.
Doc

The grieving mother asks: "If you’re at a party, why do you need a weapon with a round in the chamber?”

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Because people get attacked at parties all the time? Because (perhaps? Don't know relevent dept policy) his Department might require off-duty officers to always be armed? Because an unloaded gun is a poor club?

That is a good question.

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Not really. I feel very sorry for the victim's family, but just carrying a loaded weapon at a party did not lead to this tragedy. The question isn't why an LEO was carrying off-duty, the question is what did he, the victim or someone else do to cause the weapon to discharge.

.45 Black Talon round on the lateral condile of his right knee from his issue Glock 20

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How did he shoot a .45 out of a 10mm pistol? This story is also of a gun being fired while being holstered, as opposed to being fired while holstered. Two different scenarios. One must always take care there is nothing in the way as you holster the pistol (a reason why I am wary of retention straps).

I'm still a little curious as to how the gun would have turned at such an angle to shoot her in the chest. Even if she's 5'0 and he's 6'4, the gun would still need to turn more than 90 degrees from standard IWB position to get that kind of trajectory. That's an aweful lot of "manipulation".

ETA:

Because (perhaps? Don't know relevent dept policy) his Department might require off-duty officers to always be armed?

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Pretty much every article said that officers are allowed, but not required, to carry while off duty.

I'm still a little curious as to how the gun would have turned at such an angle to shoot her in the chest. Even if she's 5'0 and he's 6'4, the gun would still need to turn more than 90 degrees from standard IWB position to get that kind of trajectory. That's an aweful lot of "manipulation".

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He could have been bent over 90 degrees to his legs.
It said she hugged him around the waist. If he was tall and she was real short, this could have positioned her chest area right around his beltline.
I've actually had a woman grab me around the waist from behind, in just such a manner, and when she did she pulled me backwards which made my upper body go parallel to the floor. Had I been wearing a holster with a forward cant, the muzzle might have been pointing right at her chest.

Time to go an try some reenacting....

Oops...... Model 21.
Doc

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using Tapatalk 2

I forget that a lot of you ol' duffers wear your belt a bit higher than I wear mine. When I bend over, the gun shifts, but about half-way between my legs and torso.

Yeah?

Well pull your pants up, young man.