The City of Edmonds is reviewing the accidental discharge of a service weapon by Edmonds Police Chief Michelle Bennett while she was inside her assigned vehicle earlier this year.
According to a statement from Edmonds police spokesperson Cmdr. Josh McClure, the incident occurred around 7:45 p.m. March 11 when Bennett was inside the vehicle at the city’s fleet refueling facility, located at the Edmonds Public Works Building.
“The chief was not handling her holstered weapon then but was retrieving an item from the bag it was stored in during her commute,” the statement said. “While maneuvering items in the bag, a key had become wedged between the trigger guard and space in the holster. When force was applied, the weapon discharged.”
No one else was around at the time of the incident and there were no injuries, McClure said, although there was damage to the inside of the vehicle. A damage report was sent to the police department’s safety committee.
According to McClure, Bennett promptly informed the on-duty Edmonds police commander, who immediately initiated an investigation. The commander then notified an assistant chief, who informed Edmonds Mayor Mike Rosen. In addition, Bennett sent a message to the entire police department staff, advising them of the incident and encouraging firearms awareness, care and caution.
A report on the incident was forwarded to Rosen. The mayor said Saturday that he is reviewing the report “and based on that will make a decision about any potential outcomes.”
Not quite sure what to think about this mis-handling of a gun by our police chief. She was rummaging around in her bag where the gun was, she pushed the contents of the bag onto the gun, and it went off. That’s a bad day at work… I think we have an honest Chief of Police.
The Chief ignored, or was unaware of basic rules of firearm carrying, handling. The result of this could easily resulted in injury or death to the Chief, or anyone in the vicinity. I’m sure that she is well aware if this. I’m hoping that the Chief, as well as the rest of the department will take a lesson from this, and always practice gun safety. I wonder if sometimes, people who carry weapons everyday, might get a little too casual about it. Something to consider.
I am so glad our Police chief was not injured. I am assuming that the gun wasn’t holstered so was the chief off duty and out of uniform? I agree with Theresa up there and I have never doubted that our police chief or any of the officers are anything but honest with we citizens. Mandatory reporting I would guess? I also would guess that any officer of the law has a license to carry and conceal whether on or off duty? Hey Chief…Get a bigger bag haha. Or hey I am downsizing my accumulation of nice handbags. One I bought in two colors. Black and Brown. You may have your choice of these as a gift from me. They can be carried or used as a backpack type of large purse. I bought them about 8 years ago at Nordstroms. Never used either one of them. I do that haha. So, call me and stop by for a look. Thank you for being such a great police chief and person (I was told by a friend who knew you years before what a great person you are. This person who doesn’t live in this county or city said you had a heck of a good sense of humor too. I agree. I have never met you but would love to meet you.
Anyone with just basic knowledge of firearms in general knows that virtually all firearms have a safety mechanism that should always be engaged unless the actual intent is to fire the weapon. In other words you never take the safety off on the weapon unless you intend to fire it and even then just before you intend to fire it. Honesty aside she needs to be reprimanded for improper storage of her weapon. That’s what would happen for sure to anyone below the rank of Chief in any well run police department. There is no valid excuse for this ever happening and she knows that.
@clinton Anyone with basic knowledge of firearms knows that Glock pistols, the most popular pistol manufacturer in US police departments, have a trigger safety only. The article indicates that her weapon was holstered. So what constitutes “improper storage”?
Ken, since you are schooling me (and I do frequently need to be schooled), why would the weapon be stored in some sort of a bag with a set of keys that got jammed against the trigger making it fire and causing damage to a police vehicle that we now have to pay to fix while we are basically broke as a city? I’m no expert on Glocks but could this weapon not have been stored without the bullet clip in the handle and/or no live round cocked into the chamber? No one is saying she should be fired, but she does need to be reprimanded for failure to properly handle her service weapon. Property was damaged and she could have been harmed or killed or a bystander could have been harmed or killed. This is no small thing, in other words.
You’re now taking issue with the condition of the pistol during concealed carry. What she was doing was no different from a CPL holder with a ready-to-fire pistol in their bag or purse which is legally valid. I personally would always have it in a holster but that’s a preference. If you are arguing that our LE folks should be carrying their service pistols chamber-clear, magazine-(not clip) clear while in transit to/from work, I strongly disagree. LE folks are always expected to act as LE, even when off-duty. If you speak to any LE, they might say “You could be loading that gun for the rest of your life.”
That said, it’s still a negligent discharge that caused property damage. She should be held to whatever department policy is for such a thing. Conceptually it’s no different to me than having a collision while driving a cruiser.
You and I disagree that she did anything “improper” or should be punished.
I’m glad Ms. Bennett is fine and no one else was impacted by this accident.
For the folks asking about how could something like this happen. Some pistols (e.g. Glock) have the safety embedded in its trigger. It’s safe enough that it will not fire unless the trigger is pulled and the article’s description indicates that that was the case. The Glocks’ trigger safety has been tested and stressed for years and is a very reliable mechanism. Somehow the holster allowed something to get inside and activate the trigger. Probability like of a winning lottery ticket.
I’m sure that Ms. Bennett is experienced enough and likely already identified the cause and corrected it. In engineering we run FMEAs (failure mode and effects analysis) where we evaluate what and anything that can go wrong in a product or process when checking for its safety. This is something I do even for many daily personal routines. I believe that the police has similar procedures.
I appreciate her honesty and candor; BUT why wasn’t the safety engaged???!
How long does it take, or how inconvenient would it be to just take out the clip and eject the chambered bullet, restore the clip and have a safe weapon to transport that could very quickly be made able to fire if needed? When I learned how to hunt in the mid-west it was illegal to even have a loaded gun in a vehicle while being transported since road hunting was a major no-no. Different context for sure, but guns are guns and always potentially dangerous if not handled properly.
Myself personally if I were to have my gun in bag with other loose items. I probably would have done it different, first I wouldn’t have a gun with a chambered round in a bag with other loose items, that’s just me. Certainly after a accident one might start to reconsider how they are doing things. Of course my assault rifle doesn’t fit in a bag very easy so most of the time I hold it with the barrel resting on the edge of a open window to help keep the trigger form being accidentally pulled.
Ken, all I’m saying is she needs to have the same reprimand and punishment (if there is such a thing in any police department) that she would be expected to execute toward anyone below her rank in her department. I would argue that what the citizens (who pay her salary and have to pay to fix that police car) want is total accountability as to what the incident has cost the city and what was done about preventing such a thing from happening again. I seriously doubt that having that bullet chambered and ready to fire when the gun was not on her person and was just being transported was good and common police practice, but we can agree to disagree on that one I guess. She’s a good chief and a good person and I suspect she will make some sort of lemonade out of this lemon because that is who she is.
I agree that she should be subject to whatever is the procedure for a negligent discharge, and it looks like that’s happening.
We disagree that having a loaded, chambered pistol in her bag was improper which is what you said. The law for CPL holders and LE differ from the general law that guns must be transported unloaded. I want every LE person to be enforcing the law on-duty and off, and want them to have the full protection of their arms while they’re doing that.
Okay, you win. I just wonder if you would be so glib or matter of fact about it just bring a “negligent discharge “ if she had been wounded or killed or if someone else had been?