'Flashlight' shoot happened before

[The Straight Story]

'Flashlight' shoot happened before

The shooting of an innocent, unarmed elderly Bronx man by a cop who was trying to turn on a pistol-mounted flashlight is at least the second accidental police shooting in the US involving that same flashlight model.

But unlike Saturday’s shooting of 76-year-old Jose Colon — who survived a cop’s bullet to the stomach — an unarmed Texas man died Oct. 13 under what reportedly were strikingly similar circumstances involving the Surefire X300 flashlight.

The family of that dead man, suspected drug dealer Michael Anthony Alcala, is now suing the city of Plano for negligence in the shooting, where a cop claimed he inadvertently fired instead of turning on the flashlight as intended.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bronx/flashlight_shoot_happened_before_idVqywoSeilX8BauI38OJN#ixzz1C4efvrOq

[Fumesucker]

1. Well, the flashlight is certainly appropriately named.. n/t

Edited for clarity.

[Exultant Democracy]

2. Guns don't kill people, flashlights do.

Can we agree that neither of these cops should have been given a weapon, and neither should anyone else equally irresponsible.

[Kennah]

3. Anecdotally ...

... in places like NYC and the UK, where guns are a rare thing among the populace, police officers tend not to display as high a degree of care in dealing with firearms. As such, there seem to be an inordinately high number of negligent discharges and wrongful shootings in these places.