Get the Lead Out

By Lee Lofland

Author of Police Procedure and Investigation, a Guide for Writers

I speak at a lot of writer’s conferences and workshops, and my topics are varied. I’ve conducted presentations about police procedure, CSI, DNA, the death penalty, executions, autopsies, and murder, to name a few.

No matter which topics I’m asked to cover, it never fails; someone is going to ask me something about a gun. Writers are fascinated with firearms. They ask: What kind of gun is issued to an FBI agent? Which gun did you carry? Do Glocks have safeties? Have you ever shot anyone? But no one ever asks about the proper way to carry a firearm. There is, after all, a right way and a wrong way to do this. I hope this little story from my past helps point out the difference. I call it Get the Lead Out…

Chasing a suspect through backyards, while dodging barking dogs and clotheslines, is a difficult enough task without the added weight of a handgun tucked into the rear waistband of your pants. In fact, carrying an unsecured, loaded weapon is quite dangerous, but some officers do it anyway—especially undercover officers. One of my former partners learned first-hand just how dangerous this foolish practice could be.

I remember the call well. It was a typical southern summer night, with humidity that felt like a light rain hanging in the air, and it was hot—sauna hot. The dispatcher gave the BOLO (Be On The Lookout) for a man who had just shot and killed another man during an argument over a card game. The suspect had fled on foot and, lo and behold, his last location was just four blocks from where I sat in a parking lot, in my unmarked police car discussing a case with my partner.

I acknowledged the radio transmission. Just as I replaced the microphone back into its holder, the shooter suddenly ran from behind a building and crossed the lot not ten feet from the passenger side of my car. My partner opened his door and immediately began to pursue the suspect on foot. I called in our location and ran in the direction I had last seen my partner. The alley where the two had gone ended at a three-foot-tall chain-link fence. As I hopped over, I heard my partner yell for the shooter to drop his weapon. There was no moon, and I couldn’t see either of the two men. I ran a couple of steps in the direction of my partner’s voice and heard a single gunshot. I stopped, called in a “shots-fired” call on my portable radio, and proceeded forward, although I was moving a lot slower now.

I didn’t want to call on the radio again, in case my partner had taken a position of cover. I stood still and listened. I heard two voices, talking, just ahead. I stepped into the backyard of a residence where I saw my partner lying on the ground, with the shooter kneeling beside him. Feeling pretty sure the man had shot my fellow officer, I ordered him to place both hands in the air. I moved into a position to handcuff the man and asked my partner if he was all right. He told me he had been shot, but not by the suspect. He said the suspect had come to his aid when he heard the gunshot. I was confused. Was there another shooter?

My partner explained how he had slipped his gun into the rear waistband of his jeans before he started the foot chase. He had reached a wooden fence and, when he tried to climb it, the gun fell inside his pants. He stopped, tried to fish out the weapon, and accidentally pulled the trigger, shooting himself in a place where the sun never shines. The shooting suspect thought, at first, that my partner had shot at him, so he stopped running and returned to surrender. When he saw the officer lying on the ground, he chose to try to help.

My partner received stitches, and he couldn’t sit for quite a while. He was also the “butt” of jokes for many years.