A federal drug agent shot himself in the leg during a gun safety presentation to children and his bosses are investigating.
The Drug Enforcement Administration agent, whose name was not released, was giving a gun safety presentation to about 50 adults and students organized by the Orlando Minority Youth Golf Association, witnesses and police said.
He drew his .40-caliber duty weapon and removed the magazine, according to the police report. Then he pulled back the slide and asked someone in the audience to look inside the gun and confirm it wasn't loaded, the report said.
Witnesses said the gun was pointed at the floor and when he released the slide, one shot fired into the top of his left thigh.
Have some sympathy, will you? I see that smirk. Knock it off.
Posted by Walter at May 3, 2004 07:46 AMBwahahahahahahahaha! :-)
Thank goodness he's not seriously hurt, and none of the kids were hurt.
Kind of reminds me of my junior high science teacher, who decided to cut some wood for some project. He placed the wood in his lap, turned on the circular saw, and ripped right through his kneecap.
Posted by: Michael Ditto at May 3, 2004 11:05 AMIf I were his doctor I would refuse to give him any drugs because of his pain. If he complained I would tell him that DEA agents like himself told me that people are not really in pain and if I prescribe them medications to relieve their pain then the DEA will arrest me. That I am only a doctor, and the DEA is the only one who knows how much pain a person is in and how many painkillers are required for any injury or disease. Without guidelines from the government, how am I supposed to know how many pain killers I can legally prescribe and I don’t have the current guidelines for self inflicted gun shot wounds, so he should go to the store and get some Advil.
(This sounds extreme but I had an operation last year and that was what I was basically told by my Doctor, so I took advil and it didn't do crap for my pain but I just grinned and bore it. At least he was able to use an anesthetic during the actual operation as that is not yet made illegal, but give it time)
Posted by: severin at May 3, 2004 11:59 AMWell I can't say I have any sympathy for the guy.
I do wonder what the hell a DEA agent was doing teaching gun safety? & if you think the ATF should have been the ones to do it let me assure you that if an ATF agent had been doing the instructiing, odds are there'd have been a bunch of dead kids (Remember on the opening day of Waco where the BATF agents threw grenades at one of their own & then got shot by one of their own?)
But odds are what happened was the extractor didn't catch the round that was in the chamber, so when he pulled the slide back it didn't eject. The person who looked in the chamber obviously didn't look for a small circle of brass flush with the barrel (probably figured he/she would see a partially chambered cartridge) & pronounced it empty. But the DEA agent either had a faulty weapon (unlikely) or he had his finger on the trigger when he let the slide go home.
This would be properly called a negligent discharge as opposed to an accidental one.
Still, couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Hey, maybe we should give a bunch of kids bullet resistant vests & have the DEA & ATF give gun safety lessons across the country. I figure in 6 months attrition would solve most of our problems with these guys. :)
Posted by: Publicola at May 3, 2004 02:06 PM