Fairfax County detectives determined that the officer pulled the trigger on a gun he believed was unloaded early Sunday, striking Jesse Brown Hernandez inside an apartment in McLean, Virginia, according to a police statement.

Hernandez, 22, was found deceased with a gunshot wound to the upper body, Fairfax County police said.

The officer who fired the gun has been charged with involuntary manslaughter, police said. He is being held at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center on no bond.

Police said that preliminarily detectives determined that Roy “was attempting to dry fire a firearm.”

“Dry firing is when one simulates the discharge of a firearm by pulling the trigger of a firearm that is unloaded,” police said in the news release.

There were four people in the apartment at the time of the shooting, and all were known to each other, police said. Three of the four involved individuals were off-duty U.S. Park Police officers.

  • Bri Guy @sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    Jesus fucking Christ, how hard is it to check a firearm to make sure it ain’t loaded?? It’s like the first thing they teach you in a basic firearms course.

    • snooggums@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Or, and hear me out, always treat a firearm as if it was loaded. Which would mean don’t dry fire it in a residence. You know, basic firearm safety.

      Of course cops are supposed to know basic firearm safety so treating it as intentional would be the logical thing to do.

      • SheeEttin@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Dry fire in a residence is fine. You have to do it a lot if you’re working on anything. Heck, on a Glock, you have to do it to remove the slide. And it’s part of a regular function check.

        BUT, you only do it after removing the magazine, operating the action, inspecting the chamber, and pointing it in the safest direction you can (basement wall, ground outside, etc.). Certainly not at your buddy. This is pure negligence.

        • NJSpradlin@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Was a police officer a decade ago, briefly, service weapon was a Glock. I own the same model now. This is absolutely the truth. We even had an officer, in mandate, dry fire his Glock at the range after completing our training for the day and accidentally pop one off downward under the desk that everyone was cleaning their own weapons at with him. And he was the ‘golden child’ of our group. Glocks are fucking weird and shit happens when you aren’t paying attention and you do something dumb… but the biggest fucking issue here? Is you always point it downward and in a safe direction.

          Hell, I’ve run ‘best warrior’ competitions as the M17 test guy. What I got 60-70% of the Soldiers on… was the “point the weapon in a safe direction and pull the trigger” step.

      • satanmat@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You think?

        Cops fucking lying?!!

        Oh I thought it was unloaded.

        Bull farking shit! You always treat a gun as if it is loaded!

        Bull shit. It’ll turn out that he was shagging the other guys wife

    • SheeEttin@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The second thing is “always point the muzzle in a safe direction, do not point it at anything you do not wish to destroy”.

      I’m guessing alcohol was also involved, and though not handling firearms intoxicated is not one of the primary rules of firearms safety, it might as well be.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      That’s how you tell if a gun is loaded, you point it at someone and pulled a trigger, I’m pretty sure that’s the approved method.

      In theory you could check in advance but that seems like a lot of work. Excuse me while I attempt to disarm this bomb by kicking it.

    • tsonfeir@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      If law enforcement can’t properly handle a firearm, we shouldn’t hand them out to every moron who applies.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        1 year ago

        If you banned morons from serving in the police force they’re going to be short staffed. I’m sure that some police officers have brains in the same way that I’m sure that aliens exist, I just don’t think they’ve ever visited earth.

    • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      You should not even be pointing an unloaded gun at someone let alone “dry” firing it.

  • June@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I’m assuming Roy is white and Mr Hernandez isn’t?