Adaisha Miller, 24, was dancing at a fish fry party outside the officer’s house in Detroit, police said. She apparently tugged at his waist, where his department-issue .40-caliber Smith & Wesson was concealed in a holster.
Police said he was facing away from her and never touched the gun before it went off, hitting her in the lung and the heart.
Miller was supposed to turn 25 on Monday. Now her mother is demanding to know how this could have happened.
“Instead of giving her a party this week, I’m planning her obituary and funeral,” Yolanda McNair told the Detroit Free Press from her front porch in west-side Detroit, surrounded by family and friends.
Detroit police told the Los Angeles Times they’re conducting an investigation.
“We’re not saying he shot her,” Sgt. Eren Stephens told The Times.
Stephens said the officer, whose name has not been released, was qualified to wear a weapon off-duty and that there is no policy that prevents off-duty officers from keeping their gun loaded.
The family disagrees. If you’re at a party, Miller’s mother told the Free Press, “why do you need a weapon with a round in the chamber?”
In a televised news conference, Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee offered his condolences to the family and said there was “no indication” that the officer, now on leave until the investigation is complete, “placed his hand on the weapon at all.”
During the press conference, a reporter asked how Miller could have been shot in the heart if the gun was in the officer’s waist holster, presumably pointing toward the ground.
“You’re digging too deep in the weeds,” Godbee said, adding that a more detailed account would be released when the investigation was complete.
The inquiry will be conducted by Internal Affairs and the results turned over to the county prosecutor’s office, which is also conducting its own investigation. All of the department’s policies will be reviewed in light of what happened, the chief said.
The officer is “very remorseful of the incident and the tragic nature of the young lady losing her life the way that she did,” Godbee said.
AKAnon says:
Break dancing, you know, where the dude spins on his head. Or she was crawling between his legs, to give him a BJ. They said it was an accident-why can’t you just trust them? I don’t know why everyone has to think the worst about Detroit’s Finest.
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10th July 2012 at 10:48 am
Persnickety says:
It makes perfect sense if you visualize the deceased as doing the limbo underneath the officer (between his legs) while pulling down his pants and squeezing her thumbs on any convenient place to grab.
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10th July 2012 at 11:09 am
ecliptix543 says:
Is the cop white?
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10th July 2012 at 12:16 pm
AWD says:
You can get shot in Detroit while doing the following things:
flossing your teeth
scratching your sack
picking your nose
having swamp ass
rubbing your bunions
well, just about anything
Don’t ever go do Detroit, or Chicago either. You WILL get shot.
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10th July 2012 at 1:46 pm
Goldorack says:
rule n°47: never carry a gun when you’re supposed to drink or to have a party.
a gun can kill, that’s an information.
I went once in a disco in Caracas, and they kindly asked to leave the guns in the cloakroom. it makes sense for me now.
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10th July 2012 at 1:50 pm
Sonic says:
Is there ever a reason to carry a gun without a cartridge in the chamber? I don’t see the point in carrying a weapon that I may have at most two to three seconds to draw from concealment, aim, and fire. Using the time to pull the slide back and cycle a round seems pretty pointless if you don’t get to fire it.
As someone who is pretty much armed all of the time, I don’t see how the weapon could have accidentally discharged upwards. If the weapon discharged accidentally, then it would have been directed downwards. Clearly there is more to this story.
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10th July 2012 at 8:47 pm
AKAnon says:
Sonic, other than Barney Fife, the National Guard in Animal House and the Israeli military, I don’t know of any professionals that endorse carrying with an empty chamber. The Israelis can get into action pretty damn fast though. It’s not only a matter of speed, but also of requiring two hands, at least one of which could be preoccupied during a critical encounter. For carry, I go cocked & locked.
I can see the point in keeping a home defense piece hammer down on an empty, though-makes it very quick to load & unload, and especially safe with one of the modern semis with a loaded chamber indicator. This is pretty important if you have kids in the house. I think it’s reasonable to expect the time and opportunity to rack one if you hear a bump in the night.
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10th July 2012 at 12:13 am
TeresaE says:
Ah, love my neck of the woods.
Everything about this “accident” stinks, including the fact that had this been at a regular citizen’s house, that citizen would be in jail and the lawyers would have already filed briefs to strip said citizen of anything he owns that the bank/state doesn’t have dibs on.
According to the Concealed Carry law in Michigan, if you have ONE ounce of beer, you cannot legally carry your firearm even if unloaded. It MUST be secured and locked away. The law allow the interpretation to include your own home.
But for some reason, cops are exempted from this. Just like a cop can text and drive, or eat and drive, or do any number of things the rest of us would go to jail for.
Now, I’m not saying that all gun accidents should be prosecuted because common sense tells me that an “accident” is not a criminal offense.
But the reality is that, in Michigan at least, there are no more ACCIDENTS. We are being prosecuted for everything, including accidents. Left and right parents are being jailed for accidents because everything is somebody’s fault and “somebody has to be held accountable.”
Unless you are a cop, or fireman, or clerk in the City Assessor’s Office, or elected official. Then the rules are special, just for them.
Guess I really should have listened to my accounting professor and become one of “them.” Cause it seems like a much better America to live in.
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10th July 2012 at 2:58 pm