The Only Ones Who Don’t Follow The Four Rules

The NYPD Emergency Services Unit is considered amongst the very best of SWAT/Rescue police officers in the world. They are highly trained, elite members of the NYPD who perform rescue, SWAT and other high risk tactical, counter-narcotic and counter-terror operations.

But they still need to work on the Four Rules of Gun Safety.

ESU Detective Andrew McCormack, an 11-year NYPD officer, managed to violate at least two of them in an early morning drug raid on 21 January, when he “fired an errant shot while adjusting a small flashlight attached to his 9-mm. Glock semiautomatic handgun.” The victim was the 76-year-old father of the raid target, who is now in stable condition in the hospital and is expected to survive.

Well. What issues do we see here? A highly trained veteran police officer was fiddling with his weapon light after the raid started. Shouldn’t that have been prepared before they went in? That same highly trained veteran officer let his finger contact the trigger (#3) while he wasn’t paying attention to where the muzzle was pointed (#2, 4) (unless you’re a conspiracy theorist who assumes that all NYPD officers have it in for all minorities).

Detective McCormack is on administrative leave pending the investigation, of course. His mother, whose NYPD ESU husband was killed in the line of duty 18 years ago, said, “Never did I think another issue like this would arise,” apparently referring to more of the alleged equipment deficiencies she blames for her husband’s death, rather than the lawbreaker who fired the shotgun. I think the issue here is not on equipment, but on training. Or are the Only Ones already highly trained enough?