Michelle Ferguson-Montgomery
A Utah elementary school teacher who was carrying a concealed firearm at
school was struck by fragments from a bullet and a porcelain toilet
when her gun accidentally fired in a faculty bathroom on Thursday,
officials said.
The sixth-grade teacher at Westbrook Elementary School, in the Salt Lake
City suburb of Taylorsville, was injured when the bullet struck a
toilet and caused it to explode, Granite School District spokesman Ben
Horsley said.
Authorities initially thought the teacher had accidentally shot herself.
They now believe she was injured when the bullet and toilet fragments
struck her lower leg.
The teacher, identified as Michelle Ferguson-Montgomery, was in good
condition Thursday afternoon in a Salt Lake City hospital, Horsley said.
Officials were still investigating how the gun discharged. "This just appears at this point in time to be an accident," he said.
Horsley said Ferguson-Montgomery has been a teacher with the school for
14 years but he did not have her age. She was carrying her gun legally
with a concealed-firearm permit, Horsley said.
Utah is among the few states that allow people with concealed-weapons
permits to carry guns in public schools, according to the National
Conference of State Legislatures. Teachers are not required to disclose
that they are carrying a weapon, and administrators are prohibited from
asking if they carry or barring them from bringing their weapons.
So far, the negligent discharges by teachers seem to be outnumbering the school shootings thwarted. All we need now is one of the idiots to go crazy and shoot up the school themselves.
This was predicted. Just lucky no kid got hurt.
ReplyDeleteGive them time. It's happen.
Delete"A prominent Utah gun rights advocate said the elementary school teacher injured when her gun went off in a bathroom Thursday bears the blame for the accident.
ReplyDelete"It was a negligent discharge," said Clark Aposhian, a concealed carry permit instructor. "We are no apologist for improper weapon handling and we never will be."
Aposhian said it’s highly unlikely the gun would have gone off if dropped, which means sixth-grade teacher Michelle Ferguson-Montgomery probably inadvertently pulled the trigger or had it in a pocket where a key or a pen got caught in the trigger.
"She made a mistake, but the key thing is the individual made a mistake," he said. "This is not a fault in training. It is not a fault in the policy and procedures of Granite School District."
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/58406775-90/gun-carry-teacher-concealed.html.csp
And such occurrences aren't limited to civilians,
"The accidental shooting by an off-duty police officer inside a Target store brings up questions regarding what police are telling the public.
The shooting happened Saturday night inside the bathroom. Nobody was hurt and the officer called 911 after the incident.
But there was no report of the shooting in the records that are made available to the public. So if a viewer did not tell us via Report It, we might never have known about it.
KHON2 spoke with a defense attorney and the executive director of a legal group that specializes in public information. They say this type of information should be made available to the public.
The officer was in the restroom when he accidentally fired his gun, and the pictures sent to us by a viewer shows the bullet ricocheted off the stall door and hit another stall.
Officers investigated after the 911 call was made but there were no reports available to the public.
The same thing happened last month when an officer accidentally fired his gun and killed himself at home."
“At this time, we feel that he’s not endangering the public,” said police chief Louis Kealoha. “He didn’t do a criminal act. It was an accidental discharge. We’re doing an administrative investigation, not a criminal investigation.”
http://khon2.com/2014/09/10/accidental-shooting-in-target-bathroom-never-made-public-by-hpd/
This article also speaks to Mike's frequent contention regarding his belief that if no one is hurt, many people wont report a negligent discharge. This article seems to suggest that its just shy of SOP.
And of course, in some organizations it is considered something worthy of administrative discipline and additional training, but not criminal. Of course, I'm speaking of the military, where they deal with these issues pretty sanely, addressing the issue, working to keep it from happening again, and carrying on with the mission. They don't do one strike and your out.
I do believe that most negligent discharges go unreported. Don't you? In this case the students and other teachers heard the report, plus the damage in the bathroom was pretty hard to ignore. So, of course this one was reported. But not so most.
DeleteMy belief in one strike you're out is based on the presumption that people who do things like this are often not first time offenders, and given the lax response, they will go on to offend again. Weeding out the folks who prove they're incapable of responsibility and safety BEFORE they hurt someone is the ideal behind one strike you're out.
It's amazing you gun loons write these incidents off as accidents. Do guns fire themselves? Are triggers so sensitive that they need no human to work? The gun loons acceptance of unnecessary death is astounding and shows the lack of care for human life.
Delete