Officer accidentally fires rifle after hourslong standoff

By Associated Press - Monday, November 7, 2016

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (AP) - The Idaho Falls Police Department did not disclose that a member of its SWAT team accidentally fired his rifle near the end of an hourslong standoff in a residential neighborhood in August.

Police Chief Mark McBride said he didn’t believe it was necessary to report the accidental discharge because no one was hurt, though the target of the standoff now says he believes he was injured by either the bullet or shrapnel caused by it, The Post Register reported (https://bit.ly/2eFf5FY ).

“I don’t know that it was attributed to (the shot),” McBride said. “(The suspect) had a medical clearance (to go to jail), I know that. But I don’t know what that injury was attributed to. I didn’t see that in the report, I’ll put it that way. So there is no finding of how that injury occurred.”

Officers were called Aug. 6 to serve misdemeanor warrants to the suspect. Officers had been told the suspect was on the run, was under the belief he was being watched and was armed. When officers tried to contact the suspect, he hung up the phone and a gunshot was heard inside the house. The SWAT team was deployed, and after several hours the suspect was arrested.

Sometime before the suspect was arrested, an officer accidentally fired a high-powered, silenced sniper ripple in a residential neighborhood. No investigation of the discharge was conducted by the department’s Internal Investigations Unit, McBride said. Crime scene photos show the bullet hit the frame of the door that the suspect had recently opened.

The accidental discharge was not recorded in police reports contained in court records and wasn’t publicly disclosed until the Post Register asked about the incident. McBride said the accidental discharge was investigated as an incident where no one was injured or endangered. He said there is no reason the incident was not disclosed to the public.

“That’s very important, if you injure somebody,” he said. “But just an accidental discharge, I don’t think so.”