Ex-Georgia Cop "Accidentally" Shoots Wife Dead

[liberal4truth]

Ex-Georgia Cop Accidentally Shoots Wife Dead

Monday, March 03, 2008

GRIFFIN, Ga. — Griffin police say a former Fulton County sheriff's major accidentally shot and killed his wife while unloading his gun.

Police say 54-year-old Riley Taylor was at a family function when the gun discharged Friday and the bullet struck his wife, 54-year-old Denise Taylor.

Griffin police spokesman Corporal Bryan Clanton says the woman was flown by helicopter to Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, where she was pronounced dead. Clanton says no criminal investigation will be done since the shooting was accidental.

Riley Taylor worked at the Fulton County Sheriff's Department under then-Sheriff Jackie Barrett, who has since retired. He retired from a post at the jail as a lieutenant in 2007 after having his rank reduced by Barrett, who was under fire for financial mismanagement of the department and for deficiencies at the jail.

More at:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,334544,00.html

[Bright Eyes]

1. "Clanton says no criminal investigation will be done since the shooting was accidental."

Wow....so apparently, I can shoot whoever I want, and just say it was an accident and get off scot free?

License to kill, here I come!

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Does the attorney general/county prosecutor have anything to say about an investigation?

There WAS homicide, after all.

[Bright Eyes]

4. That's a good question, and I wish I had an answer.

The AG can file charges, but I have no idea if he can force the police to investigate and gather evidence.

This smells of the cops covering up for one of their own.

[krispos42]

11. The investigation can be done by the State Police

so the investigation is impartial.

[liberal4truth]

55. Isn't that like the fox guarding the hen-house ? Cops let each other off the hook all the time...

just recently there was almost a "war" (that's what the paper said) declared between two police
agencies out here, when one of the neighboring towns' finest was pulled over for drunk-driving (no, not in his squad-car, thankfully) while off-duty.

The honest cop doing the DUI bust, broke the rules and sent this DUI cop to the drunk-tank located outside of his nearby jurisdiction, thus apparently breaking the "rules" the nearby police agencies
have been operating under with each other.

Just another reason to follow most other countries' regulations and have the police leave
their on-duty weapons at the station house, and not at home.

[blue sky at night]

2. how can it be the Gun's Fault.......

I seem to remember the Gun Nut Lobby always bleating the phrase..."guns don't kill people, people kill people".
Let this be a lesson to women in Georgia looking for a man to marry: Stay away from the gun toting crowd, it could cost you your life...and this poor lady already divorced him!

[WWFZD]

7. That would never happen to me,

I own and handle weapons responsibly.
At least the gun-grabbing, the anti-freedom constitution-hating, and the weepy, frightened, concerned groups of irrational sissies against everything that concerns and frightens them "lobbies" haven't legislated away of all of our constitutional rights.

[SteveM]

9. I can see you do not wish to "co-exist" with tens of millions of Americans.

[Name removed]

38. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[liberal4truth]

57. You gun-owners are a minority. Most of the guns are held in the hands of a few nuts.

I have heard of gun-owners with up to 100 guns in their homes.

Unbelievable!

[L1A1Rocker]

31. Oh good grief!

Read the damn title. It says that a MAN accidently shot a person. It did not say the gun did it by itself.

[iverglas]

45. missed this fine one!

Read the damn title. It says that a MAN accidently shot a person. It did not say the gun did it by itself.

Read the blasted text. It says:

Riley Taylor was at a family function when the gun discharged

Gun: subject of verb
Discharged: verb

Gun discharged.

Getting it?

Or still wanting to make loud disparaging noises at someone based on your own incomprehension?

[liberal4truth]

56. Yeah, guns don't manufacture themselves, sell themselves , buy themselves and load themselves with..

bullets, so how in the world can we blame guns for all the shootings, killings and
out-right murders on these innocent, darling little toys ? :puke:

[zanne]

5. Another "law abiding", well-trained citizen with a gun.

But guns don't kill people...

[SteveM]

10. So do we deny guns to the police?

[L1A1Rocker]

33. I think that is the implication.

[liberal4truth]

53. We do? Where do these US police officers live? I would love to move there.

I would love the idea of a small city where guns are totally outlawed, even for the cops.

Where if _anyone_ was found to have a gun, they would do 30 years at hard labor.

[gorfle]

12. Not just a citizen, a police officer!

Another "law abiding", well-trained citizen with a gun.

It wasn't just another "law abiding" citizen, it was a police officer!

If anything, this just adds another nail in the "only police are qualified to have guns" coffin so frequently trotted out whenever it is suggested that regular citizens have the means to defend themselves.

[liberal4truth]

14. There can be NO excuse since this is a middle aged officer who "accidently"..

..murdered his wife. This is gross negligence and manslaughter as best.

Hopefully, justice will prevail, but I wouldn't count on it.

[fightthegoodfightnow]

36. Or It Adds a Nail in the Notion

..... that having guns in the home makes the home safer.

[gorfle]

43. considering...

Considering how many firearm accidents I have had in 25+ years of firearm ownership, that would be zero, I'm not sweating it.

[fightthegoodfightnow]

47. Ignorance is Bliss

...... and a risk some are willing to take.

[ManiacJoe]

49. Maybe it is not ignorance.

Maybe it is consistent, proper gun handling and storage. Until we actually know Gorfle, we will never actually know.

[liberal4truth]

58. Yeah, and they are risking ALL of our lives with thier deadly toys.

:-(

[dmallind]

28. You'll tend to find it's NOT gun advocates who assume LEO's are "well trained"

That's a canard pushed by the control lobby, who seem to think that the handful of weapons training hours at the academy and semiannual qualifications make cops and other sworn officers out to be super-trained ninja type gun gurus who might be able to be trusted with guns if we really have to, but "civilians" who may spend a hundred times that effort in practice and improving their skills are of course hopeless and can never be trusted with anything that isn't covered in foam padding.

The reality is that while skilled gun enthusiasts certainly can be cops and guards etc, there is no universal reciprocal, and the average LEO is unlikely to be any more well trained in guns than the average accountant need be particularly well trained in, say, MS Word. It may be a tool that is useful for them, but it doesn't mean they care about it, take an interest and practice their skills any more than they have to to get the job done. That's what the anti-gun crowd seems to have a tough time accepting. What you work with is not necessarily what you enjoy and are skilled in.

I would be willing to be that if you call up your local pistol range on a Saturday afternoon and ask for the guy in lane 3, then call up your local police station and ask for the duty sergeant, fully eight times out of ten you'll have a better, safer, more well trained, more capable and conscientious gun user on your first call.

Guns DON'T kill people - idiots who either choose to be criminals or choose to be hopelessly careless and cavalier with guns kill people, same as with anything else.

[fightthegoodfightnow]

40. How Do You 'Control" the Idiots (Your Word) from Having Guns without Gun Control?

Answer: You don't. That's why gun control is better than no gun control.

[iverglas]

42. really?

You'll tend to find it's NOT gun advocates who assume LEO's are "well trained"

So it's someone else who assumes it then? Anyone in particular?

Speaking as a firearms control advocate, I'll tell you what I assume.

Nothing.

That would be because I don't actually give a crap.

When on the job, the police sometimes need firearms, and occasionally use them, in order to perform their duties: enforcing the law and protecting the public.

When not on the job, they don't need firearms any more than anyone else needs firearms (we'll leave aside the odd undercover agent with a lot of enemies), and there's no reason at all for them to be subject to any different rules.

And since the overwhelming bulk of police work has nothing to do with using firearms, I'm not at all surprised to learn they're not expert at hitting targets or whatever the hell else people do with the things. There's a whole lot of other stuff I expect from my police, and shooting little circles in paper doesn't have much to do with any of it.

I'm not surprised to hear of a cop behaving like any more or less of an idiot than anyone else when it comes to handling firearms. It's in the nature of human beings to behave like idiots from time to time. And it's in the nature of firearms that they can be used to cause serious harm, whether intentionally or as a result of idiocy. Put 'em together, and you get firearms deaths and injuries.

Of course, you also get cops who use firearms intentionally to cause harm, whether off duty or on. Once again, it's in the nature of the human species that some people are just not nice, and that the rest of us can't always tell who those ones are.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of cops just have a complex job to do, and firearms handling is a small portion of that job, and I'm not fool enough to draw any conclusions about the competence of cops to do that job from anecdotes about individual cops doing stupid or malicious things with firearms.

And none of it has thing one to do with my support for stringent firearms control.

So maybe you had someone else in mind who assumes that cops are expert firearms handlers, and proceeds to draw some conclusions or take some position based on that allegedly false premise. Anyone you can name?

[L1A1Rocker]

32. No this was one of those

police persons that always get exemptions from laws imposed on us law abiding. Please get your rhetoric straight.

[fightthegoodfightnow]

41. Exactly

They want it both ways.

Oh the tangled web they try to create.

[liberal4truth]

54. Right......or at least thats what the NRA types would have the public think. Gee-whiz, I guess

if a gun were *not* available to this "person", this woman would still be alive.

No, its true that guns _don't_ kill people.........they just make it real easy or "accidental"-like to do so, that's all, folks :puke:

[NewMoonTherian]

6. The very first sentence in every gun training exercise is identical...

"Do not point a gun at anything you are not willing to destroy."

How could an officer of the law, allegedly the most extensively trained combatants short of the armed forces, ignore what is supposed to be as natural as breathing?

1.) He is completely incompetent, as a huge cross section of the police actually are with their weapons.

2.) This was not, as has been asserted, an accident.

In any event, this man's actions directly resulted in his wife's (ex-wife's?) death. This is, at the very least, a case of negligent manslaughter, and he should be prosecuted.

[fightthegoodfightnow]

39. LESSON: Gun Training Doesn't Insure Gun Safety

LESSON: Gun Training Doesn't Insure Gun Safety

[sir pball]

8. "At a family function"..

Why do I get the sneaky feeling there was some CH3CH2OH involved here?

[DeadEyeDyck]

13. Shit Do Happen N/T

[liberal4truth]

15. So that nonsense excuses a manslaughter charge against the officer ?

...Bullcrap, he should have known better how to handle a weapon, being an LEO.

[bossy22]

16. it doesnt

this incident should be investigated first off...we dont know all the facts but there should be a thorough non-biased investigation by the state police...

[liberal4truth]

17. Amen. This sounds like something other then an accident to me.

[Turbo Teg]

20. That's the thing,

Police arn't gun gods by far. Most only shoot when they need to qualify, not all, but a lot of them. Ever watched the video of the DEA agen shooting himself in the leg? If not, I'll post the link. Anyhow, I agree that this should be heavily investigated. Police usually get off shooting people that had a normal "mere mortal" shot them, would be convicted and thrown in jail. If it turns out that it was an accident, then manslaughter charges should still apply. CHECK THE FUCKING CHAMBER!

[Wickerman]

25. I often see that bandied about

"Most only shoot when they need to qualify, not all, but a lot of them."

Anyone have any hard data on the statement?

[bossy22]

26. there really have been

no studies done on the issue that i know of....most of us speak from personal experience- working in a gun shop ive sold guns (service weapons) to atleast two dozen NYPD officers (we have a special LEO discount)- most don't know what they want- usually the young officer will hand me a list of department approved guns and ask me "which one should i get". I've almost stopped asking "which one do you want, or what features do you want" because the universal answer is- "i dont know". Ive had officers go in and ask me "I need a peice" (which btw bothers me to know end- in one case i had a pizza pie behind the counter and an officer asked that- i quickly grabbed a plate and a slice and through it right onto the counter in front of him- he didnt get it but the store owner thought it was hilarious)

from my experience- most young city cops know almost nothingabout firearms

[Turbo Teg]

27. Your expeirance and mine, are about one in the same.

Most of the cops I work with at the shop don't know what the hell they want. They hand me the "dept. approved list" and we go from there. Usually they spit out stuff they've heard on t.v.

[dmallind]

29. Likewise, though doubtless less than either

since I don't work at a gun shop.

I did for a long while however shoot at the same range that the police used to qualify (smaller suburban forces tend not to have their own ranges for nonshooters' information BTW) and it was a hoot.

I am not saying there were no cops who were decent. In fact I remember one officer - relatively young too - who was absolutely amazing, and plenty were just fine, but I can honestly say that fully half of them resembled first timers much more than professionals - and not all that gifted first timers either.

Their qualification never got any harder than hitting center mass at 30' max. Not grouping, not specific aim points, not speed drills - just hit the silhouette at 10 yds. Now shooting a pistol is harder than it looks and I'm not exactly able to draw a nice little picture of a heart at 200' offhand onehanded either (nobody is of course) but by about the second or thrid magazine with vaguely competent instruction you should be able to keep everything on the paper at that range. I saw plenty fail and need to try again. And even though they never HAD to group, it's just natural for any decent shooter to at least try, and even some of the "better" ones were getting 8-10" groupings at that range - again not in speed drills either. For non-shooters it's worth pointing out that a competent hobbyist - not a pro or target guru by any means - should be able to group within 3-4" at most there. I'm a middling shooter at best - my few attempts at IDPA have all seen me finish well down the list and often in the bottom half -but anything beyond 2-2.5" is disappointing for me.

[geek_sabre]

18. quick google search

Not sure about the source, but alleges to be a family member:

"He was not unloading his gun. That's my aunt that died. He was with his son, a Clayton County police officer; his son's girlfriend, a Clayton County 911 disbatcher; and his wife, a Clayton County school teacher. He was not unloading or cleaning the gun. Something happened with the gun while it was unloaded so the son, my cousin, put the bullets back in to try and unjam it but my uncle didn't know it was loaded and thought he turned away from everyone and slightly tapped the bottom when it went off. His hand was nowhere near the trigger. "

[liberal4truth]

19. BS!! My take is you are probably a cop covering up for your brother cop.

You offer NO source or proof. How convenient that is, huh?

Also there in NO excuse for a trained ,older experienced police officer to have an "accidental" discharge.

The gun needs to be inspected and when it's found to be in working order after some drop testing and physical examinations, he needs to be on trial for homicide or manslaugher charges.

You can be sure that if this was a civilian they would be in jail or on bail.

No excuses for gun crimes are to be allowed, police or not !!!

[iverglas]

22. got google?

First, I don't believe the material posted was being offered as "proof" of anything, other than the fact that it exists.

And while the link to the material should have been provided, the proof of it can be found very easily by re-googling, as I did, for "That's my aunt that died".

http://behindthebluewall.blogspot.com/
links to
http://shootingmessengers.blogspot.com/2008/03/ex-georgia-cop-accidentally-shoots-wife.html
where the full comment (and exchange of comments) can be read. There is a name attached to it. Someone who wished to could very likely verify the existence of the person claiming that name, and the authenticity of the comments.

The truth of the facts asserted in the comments would have to be verified some other way. Other eyewitness accounts, a reconstruction of the event and an examination of the firearm would probably be the sorts of things that police investigating it would do.

Whether police gave this individual favourable treatment because of his status as a former police officer, I can't imagine how any of us could know or speculate without knowing what the investigation involved and what the results were.

It's certainly very arguable that even given the facts as alleged by the family member, there was improper handling of a firearm. That just does seem to happen from time to time, eh?

What a charming exercise the exchange at that blog is in how far some gun-lovers will go to make sure that nobody ever "blames the gun" when tragedies occur, I must say. Not that anyone really has. But every gun-lover in the world just knows what really happened every time someone is injured by gunshot, don't s/he?

[bossy22]

23. mishandling of a firearm?

sticking bullets in a gun to unjam it is far beyond mishandling a firearm- its downright retarded

[iverglas]

24. well, if you'd followed the links ...

you would have seen that the material quoted was a blog comment by a 17-year-old. As I said, it isn't proof of the facts, and I certainly didn't offer it as proof of the facts. You seem eager to take it as proof of the facts.

Got any proof of the facts?

[bossy22]

21. they stuck bullets

back into the gun to unjam it? are they stupid???? you never do that, i dont know of any jam that can only be taken out with another bullet, there is always a safer and smarter way to do that. A police officer should have known better

[dmallind]

30. A first timer should know better!

Hence my insistence on combatting this silly idea that cops have any more capability with guns than anyone else on the aggregate. This is just SUCH a bone headed, never trained or never cared kind of mistake that it alone should kill that idea.

The rulesa of gun safety are few and easy, and drilled non stop into ANYONE who has ever taken any kind of training, even informally. I started shooting with a colleague. I had never handled a gun before. This was not paid or professional training but it's just so drilled into shooters that he did it anyway - as did I when I started training a beginner myself.

He took the gun away from me and said "before we even pick it up again here's the most important stuff" and went over the 4 rules.

Categorically this maroon broke at least two of them - the ones about guns always being loaded and pointing them in safe directions, and probably more too (his finger was probably on the trigger unless this was a real weird case of releasing a firing pin on a jammed round manually etc.

The thing that even some shooters are leery about admitting is that accidental discharges are almost unheard of. NEGLIGENT discharges are regrettably more common than they should be, but still massively unusual in even basically competent hands. The difference is an AD is truly only when there is a mechanical failure of a safety feature. An ND is when a gunowner does something careless. It happens - but if you follow the four rules it is not likely to happen and even if it does - say your finger slips past a poorly designed trigger guard when you are starting to clear the chamber or something equally unlikely - at least if you are following the rules you maybe have a chip out of your basement floor or a hole in your garage tool box, not a dead family member.

This is not the fault of a gun any more than someone wearing a blindfold swinging a baseball bat in a crowded dancefloor is the fault of the bat. This is the fault of a moron who did not care about safety at all (even I am not so pessimistic about LEO training to contemplate for one second that he was never told to point a gun in a safe direction etc).

[SteveM]

34. An auto-loader? Anyone familiar w/ a model which "jams" in fashion described?

I have a bed-side Ruger .357 Revolver which does NOT jam and is NEVER demonstrated in my house.

[fightthegoodfightnow]

37. LESSON: Having a Gun Doesn't Make Someone Smart or Safer

LESSON: Having a Gun Doesn't Make Someone Smart or Safer

[fightthegoodfightnow]

35. LESSON: Guns are Dangerous in the House

........... and having one has unintended consequences.

[ManiacJoe]

44. Guns are dangerous everywhere.

However, that danger is what makes them useful.

The mere possession of a gun does not introduce unintended consequences. However, mishandling them and wrongly storing them certainly do.

[fightthegoodfightnow]

46. So True-Guns are Dangerous

Guns are dangerous everywhere, however, it's absurd to say that and then claim they do 'not introduced unintended consequences.'

Huh?

[ManiacJoe]

48. Not absurd at all.

The mere existence/possession of guns does not cause problems. Left to themselves, guns do nothing more than collect dust and rust. Therefore, any unintended consequences result from humans wrongly interacting with the guns (or with any other dangerous item). Some interaction is good (target practice, self defense), some interaction is bad (murder, assaults), some interaction is negligent (unintended consequences). All gun negligence is preventable through proper handling and proper storage.

[liberal4truth]

50. Exactly! If we have police officers who cant control their handguns, what about civilians?

[bossy22]

51. a sizable amount of police officers

are downright incompetant with their handguns- basically at a novice shooting level....and there are many officers who are expert marksman- i actually know both types personally, one officer can't hit a human size target at more than 10 feet and keeps calling his 9mm Sig a 9 caliber sig- the other wins marksmanship competitions around the country.

I've always said that big city police departments need to step up their qualification parameters- its almost a joke that in some cities to be qualified on a handgun you need to hit a person sized target at 7 feet 5 out of 10 times- which i believe a blind man could do.

[liberal4truth]

52. These officers sound like Barney Fife to me. I cant imagine what the police are doing by letting

officers out on the streets of America, that do so poorly.

How in the world can they protect the public if they do need to use their guns? Sounds like this "9 caliber cop" needs a desk job before he shoots himself in the foot or misses the criminal and hits an innocent bystander.