PUNTA GORDA, Fla. (WSVN) — A woman has reportedly been shot and killed by a police officer during a Citizens Academy class at the Punta Gorda Police Department.According to the Punta Gorda Police Chief, a woman was shot several times by a police officer in a role-playing scenario where the officer was playing the “bad guy,” and the woman was playing a victim.The officer was supposed to be firing blank rounds, but live ammunition was used instead.Florida Department of Law Enforcement officials have been brought in to investigate the incident.
This sounds like a Force-On-Force training gone absurdly wrong. There is a reason why FOF training is done with Airsoft guns: they can give you a nice bruise but won’t kill you. Heck, even blanks will kill (Brandon Lee) you or give you a nasty scar for life. And if the military has found this a long time ago, there is no reason to use blanks to train civilians.
There are some schools that train with Simmunitions but you better be ready to be strip searched and probed for real ammo before you touch a gun.
Punta Gorda PD better get ready to shell 7 figures on this one…. and well deserved it.
A better example of the urban myth of blanks being harmless is the death of Jon-Erik Hexum. Lee’s death was the result of a dummy bullet coming loose from the cartridge and moving into
the barrel. The blank round then propelled the dummy bullet.
Hexum got bored and played a little game of Russian roulette with a blank round likely thinking that a blank round wouldn’t hurt him.
BTW, military blank adapters are designed to blow off if a live round is fired through the weapons. There have been instances of soldiers dying when live ammo got mixed into blanks.
That is one reason there is normally an ammo shakedown inspection on live fire ranges before you’re allowed to leave the range. But it’s only effective as the people inspecting. I got to shut down training once when soldiers were found with live ammo in magazines after leaving the range.
As I recall from an article on the subject the Brandon Lee investigation showed that the production company hired a cheaper and less strict firearms crew. The day before, they shot the scene where the bad guy points a revolver at Lee and the director wanted the bullets to be seen. The armorer loaded bullets on cases without powder but with live primers. IIRC, the scene calle for the actor to pull the trigger and he recalls hearing a small pop. He told the armorer but apparently he ignored the warning and just tossed the gun in a case. Obviously a bullet was left inside the barrel.
The next day and in a hurry, they unloaded the revolver and loaded it with blanks, ignoring why there were 5 rounds and one empty case. The gun was given gain to the actor who on cue pulled the trigger… big bang and Brando got shot. The distance was close enough for the bullet to go inside his body and do damage enough to cause his death.
Don’t care what kind of training is going on, as a civilian, I see no reason why this woman would have allowed anyone to purposely point a gun at her and shoot at her, blanks, or airsoft, or anything. Why did she allow that in the first place?
Imagine, that some people shoot each other with airsofts for fun…
But in training it’s safer to use blue guns and yell “Pew, pew”.
I’m just mystified as to who on earth would think it was a good idea to use actual firearms in a class like that. Does PCPD not own any blue guns? Harmless training props of any kind? Just inexplicable……
Must be stupidity.
Let’s hope it’s not contagious.
Inexplicable is right, there is obviously MORE to this story than is being told…
I do wonder if someone, somewhere in the higher department food chain decided to save a few bucks and skip on buying blue guns.
Blank adapters are used so the rifle will function as if it had live ammo. The adapter will NOT contain ALL the gas and debris that comes out. Hold a blank adapted rifle 3 feet from a soda can and watch holes magically apear in the can. Be smart, be safe.