Government Gun Training

Fox News reports that "IRS special agent, shot, killed at Phoenix-area gun range during training exercise." The article indicates that the "exercise was being conducted at the Federal Correctional Institution Phoenix Firing Range, which is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons." Also, "[a] BOP statement said the shooting range was being used by multiple federal agencies through an interagency agreement, and no BOP or prison employees were hurt as a result of the incident." The Fox article doesn't mention anything more about the shooting incident itself, but a Phoenix news outlet reports that the agent was shot by another IRS agent. The shooting is being investigated by the FBI, which is the norm since they typically are responsible for investigating homicides involving federal employees. 

    It is not as uncommon as you think. Here are some from just the past year:

• From March 2023: "Officials: LMPD recruit shot in vest during training, officer on administrative leave"--WHAS 11. Fortunately the Louisville police recruit was wearing a Kevlar vest and only suffered minor injuries. No further information in the article, however, on what happened.

• From November 2022: "Instructor of training where Sansom Park officer was shot placed on administrative leave"--The Dallas Morning News. This shooting incident wasn't even at a training facility, but took place at the David K. Sellars Elementary School in Forest Hill on a Saturday. 

    The exercise was hosted by the Forest Hill Police Department and conducted by a third-party trainer, Texas Police Trainers, according to a flier for the event. It was attended by officers from the Sansom Park and Forest Hill departments, among other North Texas departments, although authorities have not released specifics.

    In a biography section on the instructor, the flier said Gaumond has more than 20 years of law-enforcement experience.

    About 2:10 p.m. Saturday, an officer later identified as Lina Mino was shot in a “training accident,” Everman Chief of Police Craig Spencer said.

    Mino was hospitalized in critical condition and underwent surgery after being struck in the face, according to a GoFundMe page, and will require additional surgeries in the future. She has since been removed from the ICU, Sansom Park police said Wednesday.

    Other details about the incident — including who shot Mino and how live ammunition was introduced into the training — haven’t been released by officials.

It is eerily similar to a 2001 training incident--also in Texas and at a school--where an officer died after being shot in the head.  

• Although the article is from January 2023, the incident described was in October 2022: "Officer’s Miami death underscores danger of ‘reality-based’ training in mass-shooter era"--Miami Herald.

    The death of Jorge Arias seemed like a freak accident — the veteran U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer was shot to death by a colleague during a training session at a popular outdoor gun range off Tamiami Trail in West Miami-Dade. 

    But so-called “unintended discharge” shootings involving law enforcement officers happen more often than the public may realize, experts say. 

    A Doral officer, hit just inches from his heart, survived one three years ago. And in the last four months alone, there have been at least three training shootings nationally.

After trying to blame the shooting on more realistic training forced on departments due to active shooting events--which is B.S.--the article goes on to describe what happened:

    The Trail Glades range isn’t generally used for role-playing-type scenarios. But that’s what happened when Arias was killed. Multiple law enforcement sources gave this account of what the investigation revealed: 

    Multiple sources identified the CBP officer who shot Arias as Daniel Chavez, though he has not been publicly named by the federal agency or Miami-Dade police, which is investigating the shooting. He and Arias were the instructors that day at the range, where officers were being trained on “concealed carry” and “close-quarter combat.” After an early-morning lecture, officers handed over their loaded service weapons, which were locked in a large gun case. 

    They got red training weapons and ran through several drills, sources said. Later that morning, trainees were given a break.

    Sources said Chavez apparently rearmed himself with his duty gun before he walked to the bathroom located in the main facility. That’s also not unusual. Officers will often rearm themselves if, during a break, they venture into what is considered a potential “dangerous space” — in this case, where members of the public are shooting live rounds. But Chavez, the sources said, did not swap out his Glock pistol for the training gun before rejoining the group.

    The training resumed — but what exactly happened next remains murky. The exact details of that final training demonstration remain unknown, but Arias was shot in the chest. And according to sources, other CBP officers claimed to investigators they were walking away and didn’t see when the shot happened.

    Chavez and other officers desperately tried to save Arias, who was airlifted to Ryder Trauma Center. Doctors later pronounced him dead. 

    Miami-Dade homicide detectives couldn’t see for themselves what happened. The tactical portion of the range is not equipped with a video surveillance system.

• From August 2022: "Police officer accidentally shot and killed by retired lieutenant during training exercise at DC library"--The Independent. To make this one even worse, it wasn't even a firearms training class. The retired officer was actually there to train others in using collapsible batons. From the article:

    A retired Washington DC police officer has been charged with manslaughter after a city library police officer was shot and killed during a training session.

    Officials say that Jesse Porter, 58, was conducting the session on baton use for special police officers at the Anacostia Neighborhood Library when he fired a shot that killed Maurica Manyan.

Also:

    The trainer drew a pistol to illustrate how quickly it could be done and fired one shot, hitting the special officer in the chest, a source told News4.

    Officials say there were six people in the room at the time of the incident but no one else was hurt.

Another report indicates that the retired officer thought that he had his training gun with him. It also relates:

    The shooting of a special police officer during a training exercise at a D.C. library came as the group of trainees had gathered to take a picture and were “joking around,” according to court documents.

    Maurica Manyan, 25, interrupted the picture-taking to remove her face-mask, her classmates teased her and then the instructor, 58-year-old Jesse Porter, pulled his gun from his holster and shot her in the chest, according to surveillance video of the incident described in the documents.

    “I thought I had my training gun,” Porter, a retired police lieutenant, told the first police officer who responded to the library on Good Hope Road Thursday afternoon. “Why did I do this? Is she OK?”

    Manyan, of Indian Head, Maryland, was rushed to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.