The same night a 17-year-old was shot and killed outside a Bakersfield, California, high school football game, Clovis, California, was having its own close call.
Friday night, thousands of people packed into the stadium for Buchanan High School’s season opener. Somewhere in that crowd was an off-duty law enforcement officer carrying a service weapon. At some point during the game he walked into a bathroom and allegedly walked out without it.
A student found the gun sitting on top of the toilet paper dispenser. It was said to be a loaded 9mm Glock left in plain sight like a set of car keys someone forgot on the counter.
Everyone involved got lucky that night, and the reason is a teenage boy who handled the situation better than the trained professional who created it. He didn’t touch the weapon. He backed out of the stall, sent his friends to find a cop, and stood guard so nobody else could wander in and grab it.
Had a different kid found that gun first, one having a bad week, or drunk, or just curious, this story ends in a body count instead of a headline. The boy made the right call under pressure that no 17-year-old should have to be tested on.
The officer who ‘misplaced’ his gun is reportedly a member of the California Department of Justice. That means he’s one of the highest-ranking law enforcement agents in the entire state. He’s not some overworked rent-a-cop pulling extra shifts for cigarette money.
These are supposed to be the professionals other agencies look up to, the gold standard for how you handle yourself and your weapon. If someone at that level can’t keep track of a loaded firearm for a single night at a public event, it stops being surprising that school resource officers do the same thing on a regular basis.
This isn’t a rookie mistake. This is what the top of California law enforcement looks like when it walks out of a bathroom and forgets it’s carrying a weapon that holds fifteen rounds.
If this is the level of respect the state’s own top agents give their guns, it’s not exactly a mystery why so many civilians treat theirs like toys.
The example is coming from the top down.
(Sources)
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