Optimus Prime  forwarded to me this news story found by Thumpy's 3-D House of Airsoft. The title made me doubt at first, as it says "Training Instructor Shoots Student In The Head," which for me is almost like seeing a rare white crow land at my window sill. I thought it was a joke, which sometimes Thumpy can pull off on unsuspecting readers.

But the story is indeed true as written by Jeff Pierce at Law Enforcement Today:

On February 12th 2013, a law enforcement training exercise in Baltimore MD went horribly wrong. All reports that I have seen state that this was some sort of training accident. I would agree with that on face value. However, there are some finer points that are more complicated.

I do not know all of the details, and can only try to read between the lines of what the agency has publicly released, which is very little. Based on what is known, it appears a police training instructor behaved with reckless disregard for safety and training procedures, resulting in a trainee being critically injured by a bullet to the head. A real bullet.

The irony of the story is that the culprit is the instructor since we won't be surprised at all if it was the student who committed an almost fatal error  and luckily the student survived and we don't know if he/she remains in critical condition since this incident happened over a month ago. One of the explanation here is that there was a live exercise which must have also involved simunition or a less lethal weapon too. So there was a mixture between live rounds and simunitions  and with lapses in safety procedures, the instructor might have carelessly thought to be using the less lethal round, but failed to check if live rounds were inserted. Though I believe strongly in the failure to follow safety protocols since weapons with live rounds and simunitions tend to be colour coded,  or if someone just pulled an almost fatal practical joke.

Just like Thumpy's side,  I find it careless if simunitions and live rounds were used in the same instance of the training session, it will always be an accident waiting to happen. It should either be that or the other, but not at the same time. Since mistakes bound to happen. If you know the Brandon Lee incident in the filming of the Crow, then it is something similar to that.

Always keep in mind that as long as you are holding something that can fire off a projectile whether a slingshot, BB gun, airsoft gun, air gun, or a real steel weapon, always remember that safety protocols as based on the story that was just posted here a few days ago.  And in the case of a situation where real steel and airsoft weapons (or simunitions) are used in combination, extra precautions should be in place such as colour coded muzzle caps, magazines, firearms, and warning signs in big letters placed in the area.

This goes for everyone, especially to training instructors, of all people.