Florida school resource officer's gun discharges in cafeteria

WESLEY CHAPEL, Fla. (WFLA) – Deputies say no one was injured when a school resource officer’s gun “incidentally discharged” in a Florida middle school cafeteria Tuesday.

The incident happened at Weightman Middle School in Wesley Chapel. A spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office says the school resource officer assigned to Weightman was in the cafeteria at the time.

Eighth-grader Madison Lane says her ears rang for hours after the gunshot rang out in the lunch line. She was standing right next to the officer, about a foot away when the gun discharged.

“I grab my tray he’s right here and BOOM, it happened,” she described. “It scared me so bad I dropped my tray!”

“It just really scared me because it was so loud,” she added.

The officer, who was not named by the sheriff’s office, was “leaning against the wall when his holstered, duty-issued firearm incidentally discharged into the wall behind him,” deputies say. There were no injuries to students, staff or the school resource officer.

“We’d like to reiterate that the weapon discharged directly into the wall and no students were in danger,” the sheriff’s office spokeswoman said in a statement.

Lt. Troy Ferguson with the Pasco Sheriff’s Office says experts will now break down the weapon to see what happened. Lt. Ferguson said the gun involved was a Sig Sauer 9mm.

“There are a number of features on the threat level 3 holsters that we carry with our firearms, so there are a number of dynamic factors that are involved with fine motor skills functions that would cause that to happen,” Ferguson said. “So we have to really kind of dissect that.”

In response to the news, many have asked about the safety on the firearm. During a news conference, Lt. Ferguson said, “the weapons are not carried with a safety mechanism, per se. They’re carried ready to use.”