Just mere life is not victory, just mere death is not defeat.
Two nights ago my partner ( younger officer) and I conducted a traffic stop. I was driving, 2018 Dodge Charger, he was the front seat passenger. I call out the traffic stop, he jumps out of the car to get to the violators vehicle and BOOM, his gun goes off. I say, WTF! My ears are ringing, I'm dazed, I smelled burned gun powder and I see smoke and debris hovering over the front seats. I ask the kid if he's OK, he is. I make sure I don't have a hole in me somewhere, I don't. We finish the stop. No meth, unfortunately. Now, what the hell happened with the gunfire in my brand new car?!?!
We carry the full frame P320 with Streamlight Tac Light and Safariland holster, I double check my weapon and I'm good. We look at my partners weapon and the bottom of his holster is blown out. We had to work the gun out of his holster. I drop the mag and pull back the slide, out pops a spent .40 caliber shell casing. The spent shell casing in the chamber all but guaranteed the kid didn't pull the trigger himself, so what the hell happened?My first thought goes to the voluntary upgrade on the 320's after the whole gun drop incidents. But we were issued new "upgraded" 320s. Plus the only thing he could have hit his gun on while getting out of the car was the door frame. Now with the hood up on the holster, covering the back of the gun that would be virtually impossible, but it's the only thing that made any sense. This bugged me for a day. So, I go sit in the front passenger seat of the car to see exactly how he hit the gun to make it fire and then I figured it out. I looked down towards my gun on my right hip and I see the seat belt buckle hanging at the same height as the trigger of my Sig. Yup, the seat belt buckle almost killed a cop.I had already called our Sig rep and he hadn't got back to me until after I made the discovery of the evil seat belt. When I reached out to him, the only thing I mentioned was the gun going off and no one pulled the trigger. He got back to me and asked if we had lights on our guns, I said yes. He asked if we used Safariland holsters, I said yes. He said, you're driving a Dodge Charger aren't you. Ummm, yeah. He then tells me that this is the 5th or 6th incident of this type. Said it's a known issue with the Safariland holsters and in order for the holster to allow the Sig to have an attached light, there is a larger than normal gap between the firearm and the inside of the holster. This gap, in extremely rare circumstances, can allow items into the holster that can engage the trigger. He also stated the holsters came with a small warning label in the holster packaging itself stating this. Well, I'm not big on reading warning labels on holsters, so I thought I come here and share this story for those of you that also do not read the holster warning labels.We went to the hardware store and bought replacement seat belt stop buttons that raise the hieght of the belt buckle to hopefully prevent a future incident.
came out you can clearly see an attempt to help the issue be resolved. The officer involved in the above post was using an older holster, which clearly has/had issues. 