By Bill Carey
Police1
PARIS, Idaho — A Bear Lake County deputy was wounded last month after accidentally shooting himself at the courthouse building. The sheriff’s office released information about the incident on Monday.
The shooting occurred while several deputies and sheriff’s office staff members were in the dispatch center examining and handling a newly acquired non-lethal training pistol, the Idaho State Journal reported.
Sheriff Bart Heslington posted about the shooting on Facebook, “One of the sheriff’s office personnel, while inspecting a training pistol, discharged his own service weapon causing an injury to himself. Nobody else was injured and the deputy’s injury was not of a serious nature.”
Sources told the Idaho State Journal that one of the deputies had holstered the training pistol and then re-holstered his service pistol. A short time later the same deputy unholstered his service pistol and fired the weapon, apparently believing he was firing the training pistol.
The bullet fired from the deputy’s service pistol struck him in the foot. The deputy received medical attention and has returned to work.
Heslington stated that he and the county’s attorney have investigated the incident and that disciplinary and remedial actions have been taken to prevent another shooting like this from occurring in the future.