A police officer has been disciplined after accidentally firing a round from his personal protection weapon into the floor of a police Land Rover.
The incident happened at Grosvenor Road Police Station in Belfast on 3 December 2010. The officer (Officer 1) and two colleagues had travelled to the station in order to bring a man (Man A) arrested for driving whilst unfit to the custody suite.
After pulling up outside the entrance to the custody suite, Officer 1 got out of the vehicle and removed his gun from its holster.
He then pointed the weapon towards the floor at the front passenger side of the Land Rover and racked the weapon a number of times to unload it. It was during this procedure that a round discharged at the floor of the vehicle.
Nobody sustained any injuries during the incident. Man A was in the rear of the vehicle and was initially unaware of what had happened.
The incident was referred to the Police Ombudsman's Office for independent investigation. Police Ombudsman investigators sought CCTV footage from the station's cameras, but found that the cameras outside the custody suite had not been working at the time.
Investigators also obtained an account of what happened from Officer 1, who explained that after arriving at the station he intended to go into the custody suite to advise the Custody Sergeant about the details of the arrest.
Officer accepted he should have used unloading bay but it was 100 yards away
However, realising that he was not permitted to take his firearm into the custody suite he decided to unload it before entering. He acknowledged that unloading should only happen at an unloading bay, but stated that the bay at Grosvenor Road was 100 metres from the custody suite.
Officer 1 described the correct procedure for unloading the firearm. His account of how the discharge occurred suggested that he had failed to remove the magazine before racking the weapon. This would have caused an additional round to load into the chamber.
After the discharge, Officer 1 stated that he was aware the bullet may have ricocheted, and he therefore checked to make sure no one had been injured. His weapon was then seized by his supervising officer and the incident reported to the Police Ombudsman's office.
At the time of the incident, Officer A had completed 13 hours of a 14 hour shift, which started at 7am and was due to finish at 9pm. He had also completed a 12 hour shift the previous day. The officer had only recently been posted to Grosvenor Road having completed his training.
Fatigue may have played a part in the incident but the officer was nevertheless negligent
Having considered the evidence, the Police Ombudsman noted that fatigue may have played a part in the incident, but nevertheless found the officer to have been negligent. The officer has since been disciplined and has received further one-to-one training in the safe handling of his firearm.
The PSNI has also since installed a wall-mounted unloading tube at the entrance to the custody suite at Grosvenor Road, and installed lockers to allow officers to leave their weapons before entering the suite.
The Police Ombudsman has since recommended that the PSNI should consider installing unloading tubes at the entrance to all custody suites across Northern Ireland, and where possible, to also place lockers outside custody suites to allow officers to safely and securely store their weapons before entering.
Since the incident, the PSNI has installed a new CCTV system at Grosvenor Road. However, in recognition of the importance of CCTV in the custody suite environment, the Police Ombudsman recommended that the PSNI should treat the maintenance of CCTV systems at custody suites as a priority.