Thank God we have people in our biggest cities — the police — who are carefully trained and qualified to handle dangerous, only-meant-for-killing weaponry. Can you imagine the mayhem if we had, say, everyday civilians fat-fingering the infernal things? This little trip down the rocky road to a negligent discharge began when a Republic Airlines flight attendant who has a concealed carry license forgot she’d had her heater in her TravelPro yesterday and tried to go through security at Philly International . . .
TSA officers noticed the gun and alerted Philadelphia police officers, who responded quickly, police spokesman Lt. Ray Evers said.
No real news there, though. As we’ve noted, this happens just about every damn day. But we’ll let philly.com take it from there:
A female police officer, whom the department declined to name, tried to make the weapon safe by removing the bullets but instead accidentally fired it, Evers said. The bullet that was discharged hit the ground and did not injure anyone.
Oopsie! Nothing’s trickier to unload than a revolver, right? Especially if your fingers are covered with that ooey gooey Cinnabon icing.
The Philly cop shop had no problem releasing the name of the flight attendant – Jacqueline Luby – but was somehow more reluctant to finger the incompetent officer.
And whaddaya know! When Philly’s Action Six news reporter canvassed airport travelers for a little vox populi reaction to the incident, they couldn’t find anyone with a bad word for the poor unsuspecting officer who was victimized by a gun that “just went off.”
Not to worry, though, the Philly PD is taking Officer Triggerfinger’s gun-handling skillz — or conspicuous lack thereof – very seriously.
“She will go back to training for handling weapons,” Evers said of the patrol officer who accidentally discharged the gun. “She will be off the streets for a period of time.”
And Philadelphians city-wide will sleep better in that knowledge.