Thank God we have people in our biggest cities — the police — who are carefully trained and qualified to handle dangerous, only-meant-for-killing weaponry. Can you imagine the mayhem if we had, say, everyday civilians fat-fingering the infernal things? This little trip down the rocky road to a negligent discharge began when a Republic Airlines flight attendant who has a concealed carry license forgot she’d had her heater in her TravelPro yesterday and tried to go through security at Philly International . . .

TSA officers noticed the gun and alerted Philadelphia police officers, who responded quickly, police spokesman Lt. Ray Evers said.

No real news there, though. As we’ve noted, this happens just about every damn day. But we’ll let philly.com take it from there:

A female police officer, whom the department declined to name, tried to make the weapon safe by removing the bullets but instead accidentally fired it, Evers said. The bullet that was discharged hit the ground and did not injure anyone.

Oopsie! Nothing’s trickier to unload than a revolver, right? Especially if your fingers are covered with that ooey gooey Cinnabon icing.

The Philly cop shop had no problem releasing the name of the flight attendant – Jacqueline Luby – but was somehow more reluctant to finger the incompetent officer.

And whaddaya know! When Philly’s Action Six news reporter canvassed airport travelers for a little vox populi reaction to the incident, they couldn’t find anyone with a bad word for the poor unsuspecting officer who was victimized by a gun that “just went off.”

Not to worry, though, the Philly PD is taking Officer Triggerfinger’s gun-handling skillz — or conspicuous lack thereof – very seriously.

“She will go back to training for handling weapons,” Evers said of the patrol officer who accidentally discharged the gun. “She will be off the streets for a period of time.”

And Philadelphians city-wide will sleep better in that knowledge.

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36 COMMENTS

  1. NY Daily News article states bullet entered a TSA break room where an employee was sitting but not struck. Article also states was a S & W .38 Airweight.

  2. Just, wow…A cop who couldnt keep the booger hook off the bangswitch long enough to empty out the things that go bang.

    • I don’t know why, but your comment seriously caused me to shoot milk out of my nose. Think it was “booger hook.” I’m going to steal that one.

  3. No mention that it was the cop’s ND in the broadcast. Curious. How hard is it to unload a revolver? There are too many people on the force that have NO business being in uniform. And there are too many news outlets that do an even worse job of reporting the news. I wonder if the PPD pressured the news outlets to squash the cop being responsible for the ND. And how come, if it’s someone in blue, the gun “just went off”? Or is that anti cop? Again the FOP blue curtain comes down.

    • “I wonder if the PPD pressured the news outlets to squash the cop being responsible for the ND.”

      Been my experience, not naming a suspect, or person in question is common.
      Won’t be long untill we all know who he is, as if I care.

  4. To all the people (including myself) who say we should show a little more respect for LEOs on this blog, all I can say in this case is that this LEO deserves all the humiliation we can give her.

    Accidentally discharging a firearm in a public place, and a revolver too! How negligent can you get?

    • If they can release the gun owners name, why can’t we have the cops name too?

      This is the double standard I hate and why we have a lot of cop bashing comments sometimes.

    • A few other blogs I’m lurk on have had a recent spell of cops whining about being disrespected. It’s been pretty much the same response, double standards, thin blue lines, us vs. them, etc.

      This is just another example of where a citizen would be treated far differently than “law enforcement”.

  5. Yet another example of the double standard existing between the praetorian class and we mere mundanes.

    ND by regular person: Jail, trial, fines, prison, probation.
    ND by state-sanctified enforcer: more training, possible paid vacation.

  6. Luv that airlines spokesman, ” why would she have a gun or need to carry it?”
    He’s probably not experienced what it’s like for a woman to walk through a parking lot in the middle of the night alone.

    And the reporter” The gun suddenly went off!”
    Yeah, that hammer goes back without warning just sitting there on the table.

  7. Guns accidently go “off” all the time, they are EVIL I tell you! Evil things possessed by demon spirits. (Tongue FIRMLY in cheek here) Apparently the officer thought she might empty the revolver one bullet at a time?

  8. Personally, the only woman I’d ever want backing me in a CQB pistol gunfight is my own wife. I trained her; I know she’s not careless, and loves me enough to stand her ground no matter what. Moreover, with a gun in her hands, she’s just plain better than a lot of men I know. Women cops scare me. I know they’re politically correct and big government loves them; but, I don’t want one of them either standing next to me, or, ‘covering my six’ in a gunfight. Socialism and politics are one thing; gunfighting is another. (I know; I know: I’m not a good Socialist.)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aSJgcpqePk

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Lynch

    • Depends on the woman. The one place you don’t want to stand when my wife is shooting is in front of her in line with the target. Beside the target is safe.

  9. In South Africa, at least in the old days, there were clearance bays by the luggage check-in in in the domestic part of the terminal at Jan Smuts international. Maybe we should put some of those in at US airports by the X-Ray machines so the cops can have safer NDs?

    • Clearing barrels. 55 gallon drums full of sand. Actually witnessed a ND at the amory. Bullet went into the sand and no further. Young man got extra duty and a good smack to the back of the head.

      • Good deal for him. Even doing that with a blank round on an exercise in the 1990s Canadian Army would have been worth a hatless dance and a few hundred bucks off the next paycheck. For a first offense.

  10. Wonder how many people had to change their drawers–besides Officer Twitchy Finger. Good thing the trained officer got it away from the untrained civilian before “it went off”.

  11. Well!! Such stupidity deserves to be rewarded!!!
    Why don’t we send that poor traumatized young officer a ticket to …… Oh I don’t know, maybe grade school??? Perhaps she will learn something the second time around??!!
    Oh wait. We can’t do that. The other kids might pick on her for being such a dumbass!!!
    Could end up violating her civil rights!!

  12. AHH….you are ALL missing the point…..have you not paid proper attention to how this type of incident is reported in the news?

    My God!!! Did you not know the flight attendant is criminally negligent. She actually felt UNSAFE walking in the airport parking lot, AT NIGHT! And to bring a firearm into an airport?? Where we are all kept safe and comfy by our well trained TSA personnel……….

    Compounded by bringing an instrument of evil, yes…..invented by Lucifer himself, in her purse……A GUN!!!!! We all know what is REALLY at fault. YES!!! The evil instrument of Satan himself. Lying in wait to spring up and take the life of an innocent person. THANK GOD this one missed it’s target.

    I am now checking all of Satan’s creations in my gun safe……yep, none are creeping out to do harm……….yet.

    • Oh crap!!! Your’s do that too??? Mine have been sneaking out at night doing God know’s what.! I bet they are meeting other evil guns out in the woods and reproducing so there will be more and more of them!!!
      We are not safe!!!!
      Aaaaarrrrrgggghhhhhh!!!! They got me…………………………

  13. Barley a mention of the idiot who made this new worthy…sad.

    The flight attendant did nothing but make an honest mistake.

  14. People have, by honest mistake, handed me guns they thought were unloaded which, in fact, were loaded and ready to go. It becomes habit in this business to never trust any gun you haven’t personally cleared. I don’t care if I just saw you clear a gun in front of me…. please don’t be offended if I clear it again with my own hands and my own eyes. It’s just habit.

    Then there are the “special” times when a ‘smith is handed a gun where a live round is somehow wedged into the action/chamber and you can’t clear it normally. Some shotguns can have this happen, where one has to start disassembling the action to get the two rounds out without damaging the action to force an unload. One shudders to think what a typical LEO would do with this situation…

    • I’m not convinced that out of a nationwide force of 6-800,000 we’re hearing about the typical leo’s any more than holmes was a typical gun owner. The posters at this site tend to paint with as broad a brush as the grabbers do.

  16. It turns out that it wasn’t an ND. The airport cop saw a double-amputee in a wheelchair with a pen and, well, you know the rest.

  18. It would be interesting to know exactly which model of S&W Airweight the pistol was. If the Standard model, the hammer is fully exposed. If the Bodyguard, the hammer is shrouded but can be thumbed for SA and DA fire. If the Centennial, the hammer is fully shrouded and DA only fire. Depending on which it was determines the ID10T factor of the PO who discharged it “accidentally”.
    If either of the first two, she gets extra points for not noticing the hammer was cocked. If a Centennial she gets double extra points for pulling the trigger to see if it was cocked or not. In all cases she gets triple extra points for pulling the damned trigger in the first place apparently having a high suspicion it was loaded. Had she been looking down the barrel to see if a bullet came out when she pulled the trigger she loses the whole game…
    I don’t recall ever handling one where the cylinder release was on the right side, but maybe Ms. Luby had a left-handed version, if S&W ever made them.
    Maybe this PO was just unfamiliar with Revolvers, since most PD’s use magazine loaded semi-autos these days. I have met people who have never owned a wheel-gun and don’t get how they work. which takes about three minutes to remedy.
    You can always see the case rims in a loaded S&W revolver, and even if all rounds have been discharged, you can see the rims….so, there’s just no way to understand how this PO could have made such an extreme FUBAR, except that she had no idea what she was dealing with and was too egotistical to say so and get help from a fellow Officer….in which case she wins the ID10T Triple Crown.

  19. My local nbc broadcast last night didn’t even mention the officer involved. Made it seem like the gun jumped out of the bag in the security line and shot at the tsa break room. Simply amazing.

  20. If the need arises, call cops and take cover. Yell at the threat, “I have called the cops”, he/she will vacate immediately, they know they could get shot by mistake.

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