Teenager is uninjured in accidental gun firing

http://www.nj.com/search/index.ssf?/...mes?ngx&coll=5

HAMILTON -- A bullet accidentally fired by an armored car guard when he dropped his gun as he was getting ready for work pierced the floor and lodged in the apartment below just feet away from where a teenage boy was sleeping, police said yesterday. The boy was uninjured.

Detective Lt. James Kostoplis said the gunshot was fired inside Davidson Fontas' apartment in Greenwood Village on Massachusetts Avenue as he was preparing for work about 7 a.m. Thursday.

Fontas, 26, was putting his .40 caliber semiautomatic handgun in a special secured pouch when he started to drop the weapon, Kosto plis said. As Fontas grabbed for the gun, his finger pulled the trigger and one round was fired, he said.

He said police suspect that the gun's safety mechanism was accidentally disengaged as Fontas fumbled with the weapon.

The bullet penetrated the floor of Fontas' apartment and entered a bedroom in the apartment below. A 13-year-old boy was sleeping in that apartment, but the bullet struck the floor away from the boy's bed, Kostoplis said.

He said Fontas works as a guard for CDC Systems, an armored car service located in the 200 block of Whitehead Road in Hamilton. The permit Fontas has for the gun allows him to carry it only when he is on duty, so he must use the pouch to transport the weapon to and from work, Kostoplis said.

Detective David Wilson is still investigating, but Kostoplis said, "At this point in time it looks like an accident."
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News flash! I was also uninjured by the bullet, and I was only a few states away. Don't we all feel like we've been really lucky today that this errant bullet did not come and find us?

Anyway, another reason to not catch a falling gun!

Yep indeed - hard tho it may be - do not try and catch a falling gun - certainly not a Glock anyways.

Bet it was a Glock.

Sounds like that was one lucky kid. And, I'll bet you're right Chris.

Yep. Sounds like Glock foo gone wrong to me.

to say that he "...works for an armored car service?" or "had worked for an armored car service?"

ret:urla9ub:

That's got to be a tough instinct to withstand. A falling object is to be caught. A dangerous falling object is to be stopped at all costs ... at least, so the mind thinks. Can't imagine that I'd do any better. Of course, avoiding grabbing for it is paramount. Glad nobody was struck.

That fumbling thing, though, has got to be reviewed. The holstering/reholstering of a weapon is, bar none, the riskiest time. There's got to be a safe room, of sorts, at the company where holstering is done. Or, perhaps there now should be.

Could be a Glock, XD ect. anything w/o a manual safety.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rocky

Could be a Glock, XD ect. anything w/o a manual safety.

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Not an XD, it has a grip safety. (unless he had pushed in the grip safety AND got his finger on the trigger).

Another example of media misrepresentation. I guess a lot of folks just read the headline and don't read the story or something, but the headline reads "teenager uninjured...accidental gunfire" or somehting to that efect. So the readers mind automatically associates the accidental gunfire with kids getting shot , which in this case really had nothing to do with the story because the teenager wasn't shot.

This is tantamount to reporting something like "Traffic accident barely avoided by Mother with kids in the car." There wasn't an actual accident, but there could have been and kids might have been hurt. I'm sure this happens everyday, but the media isn't biased against cars, so these near tradgedies go unreported everytime you have to swerve to avoid a wreck.

In fact, the story really isn't newsworthy at all, as it was really a non-event. NOTHING RELLY HAPPENED, except for the fact that it can be used to push the desired agenda, which is to convince the public that guns are dangerous, and guns hurt and kill kids

I'm a little curious what kind of pouch he was supposed to be using, and why was he putting a loaded weapon in it if he is not allowed to carry off duty?