By Nicole Lopez
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
SANSOM PARK, Texas — A Sansom Park police officer, who was shot in the face during a training exercise in November, is suing the company that held the training.
Sansom Park police officer Lina Mino is suing Texas Police Trainers and its CEO and owner, Janice Washington.
Mino was in critical condition after she was accidentally shot in her left eye by a law enforcement officer who was another student at the training exercise at David K. Sellers Elementary School in Forest Hill on Nov. 5.
“The student carried a live firearm loaded with real ammunition into the training area,” the lawsuit states. “The student shot Lina during a training session with the live firearm.”
“Texas Police Trainers allowed a real gun with live ammunition into its active shooter training course,” the lawsuit claims. “Texas Police Trainers — holding itself out as a ‘one-stop-shop’ that helps ‘ensure our law enforcement community are highly trained’ — violated the most basic safety rules that led to Lina’s permanent eye loss and brain injury.”
The bullet entered Mino’s left eye and exited above her left ear. She underwent brain surgery to remove the bullet fragments and suffered the permanent loss of her left eye and a brain injury from the bullet traveling through her brain and out her skull,” the lawsuit states.
Officials said participants in the training scenario were playing the parts of an active shooter and of officers responding to an active shooter call.
Mino participated as an actor in the active shooter training course conducted by TPT.
The suit argues TPT and Washington were negligent for failing to ensure all who attended the active shooter training course were unarmed.
Mino seeks $1 million in damages, injuries, and health care and medical expenses.
Paul Gaumond, a reserve deputy constable for the Johnson County Constable Precinct 2 Office, served as the instructor for the exercise at the school. Gaumond was placed on administrative leave during the investigation.
Washington, the Killeen-based company’s owner, told the Star-Telegram in a brief telephone conversation back in November, “We’re all devastated by this.” Washington, though, declined to answer questions and noted the matter was under review.
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