A Florida police officer was caught on video accidentally shooting a man in the leg during a traffic stop last month.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office this week released bodycam footage of the Dec. 13, 2024 incident that showed officer Mindy Cardwell trying to remove the firearm from the man’s waist.
The 40-year-old driver was pulled over by cops and told him he ran a red light. The man denied the accusation, saying the signal was yellow when he entered the intersection, according to an internal affairs report.
A male officer asked if he had anything “crazy” inside the vehicle. He told the cop he had a gun.
The cop noted that the driver was being “very compliant” to other officers and asked him to step outside the SUV so that they could remove the firearm.
After telling police that the gun was strapped to his waist, Cardwell attempted to remove it but accidentally shot him in the leg, according to the video.
Officers told her to put the gun down as they began to stem the bleeding before medics arrived. He was taken to a hospital in stable condition.
Two weeks after the shooting, the man said he intended to file a lawsuit against the cop.
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“She tugged on the gun the first time, and then she tugged again,” Jason Arrington, the victim of the errant shooting, said during a news conference broadcast by WJXT.
“And that’s when I told her, ‘Hey, just let me unloosen my belt because it’s tight.’ And I guess, I don’t know, she might have got nervous or whatever, but she pulled harder two more times, and that’s when the gun, it discharged.
Cardwell was subsequently interviewed by the police’s internal affairs investigators. She admitted her finger accidentally slipped into the trigger guard.
“Unfortunately, combined with the holster and the pants, it just was not coming out freely,” Cardwell said, according to a report in the Miami Herald.
“I think, not being aware of where my fingers were on the inside of the trigger, obviously an accident happened that I’m at fault for. In hindsight, I wish we could have slowed it down and done a thousand things differently.”
While no charges were filed against Cardwell, internal affairs did find she was grossly incompetent and officials have begun the process to fire her.