When the Sig 320 first was released to the civilian world, there were a few instances (and tests which verified) that if the firearm was dropped such that it struck the back of the slide, it could induce a discharge by imparting some movement to the trigger. Apparently this was due to Sig omitting the trigger safety such as you see on Glocks. It was remedied in the military model by adding a trigger of a greater mass (i.e., more inertia to overcome if struck from behind). And while Sig never admitted to there being a safety issue, it did offer a free upgrade to correct the issue.
Apparently, though, there have also been some issues with unintentional discharges in holsters. According to this article from The Trace, there have been more than 100 such incidents, with at least 80 injured. Now I wouldn't trust a reporter from The Trace any farther than I could throw them and I disagree with the "expert" they cite--Jeff Webb of Grey Wolf Armory--that the absence of an external safety makes the weapon inherently unsafe. Even the cherry picked stories of incidents included in the article sound like user error was most likely the culprit.
Nevertheless, some of the incidents suggest that something is going on. One such incident is shown in a video post by The Truth About Guns. Sig's response is:
... it appears that the involved firearm was not fully seated in its holster and the holster retention hood was not fully closed over the pistol at the time of discharge (images below). This improperly holstered condition would have left the firearm’s trigger exposed and vulnerable to actuation. Even if properly holstered, the features of the involved holster allow for foreign object intrusion and interaction with the trigger, as has been seen in other incidents.
The video isn't the greatest, but it doesn't look to me that anything was in the trigger guard when the discharge occurred. The Yankee Marshal does a breakdown of the surveillance video which does note that the discharge occurred after the officer had been caught up between the officer with the firearm and another officer, and that the firearm had not been fully seated in the holster prior to the incident.
Interestingly, going back to the article from The Trace, it cites reports from James Tertin, a gunsmith at the Minnesota-based gun manufacturer Magnum Research, in which he "opined that the P320’s primary internal safety was too easily disabled. He found that pulling the trigger 0.075 inches — about the width of a nickel — would disengage it, leaving the pistol vulnerable to accidental discharge." That is, "the gun is vulnerable to firing when the trigger is only partially pulled, as it might be in a warped holster or when a finger or object inadvertently brushes the trigger from its side."
I don't know what type of holster was used by the officer, but the TTAG article references a safety advisory issued by Safariland (see here) concerning its Safariland Duty Holsters 7000 Series for Streamlight TLR 7 or similar. Although Safariland does not admit that the holsters could cause a discharge, the advisory does acknowledge:
... our review has identified that some of these holsters may not perform to our retention requirements when put under extreme force in certain circumstances, such as a violent struggle that a law enforcement officer or security professional might encounter. For those holsters that did not perform to our retention requirements, the holster could potentially allow access to the trigger or open enough to compromise the security features of the holster. Notably, aside from the recent incident, we are not aware of any previous incident with this retention issue.
So it might be a combination of a poor holster design, the need for very little take-up to disengage the internal safeties, and something--like here--of brushing up against someone.
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