Never Doubt the Ability of Police or Feds to Accidentally Shoot Themselves or Others

There’s no segment of U.S. society that is allowed to be so deeply irresponsible, with so little accountability or consequence, as uniformed, armed members of the police. Forget the myriad abuses that police can get away with in their official interactions with members of the public, or their ability to so easily justify violence against the public by simply saying “I feared for my life.” It’s so much worse than that; so much more clumsy and wanton. A police shooting doesn’t even need to be justified or intentional to be handwaved; it can also be completely accidental (and idiotic) and still result in no genuine punishment of the individuals involved, thanks to the need of these organizations to protect their own members. In fact, sometimes a cop shoots another cop because they’re both acting like jackasses, and the department simply calls it “horseplay.”

No really, that’s exactly what just happened in the response of the City of Pasadena Police Department to the release of a video of a shooting incident that occurred this past September, in which one officer in the department seriously wounded another because they were both busy whipping out their guns and brandishing them at each other as a joke. Again: No, really! It’s all on camera, and it’s even dumber than that description sounds. In the local news broadcast below, you can see the whole incident unfold: One car full of police officers pulls up on two others who are standing around, and one of the officers seen through the windshield jokingly fast-draws his gun and pretends to fire. The unseen officers inside the police vehicle then pull out their own weapons and “pretend” as well, except one actually does discharge his handgun, shooting through the windshield and hitting their colleague square in the shoulder. It’s like something from a comedy sketch; it would be funny if it wasn’t so indicative of how carelessly the members of our police services treat life and death weaponry, which is so often directed at members of the public.

Pasadena Police Chief Gene Harris, in response to the release of the shooting video, appeared in a sober video announcement of his own to stress that “This regretful conduct is not consistent with the expectations and service commitments of this department, and appropriate actions will be taken to ensure our culture reflects appropriate conduct, values and service to this community.” Sounds great, what kind of “appropriate action” was taken? Were both officers (unnamed in any of the reporting on this story) treating their weapons as toys fired by the department? Are they being prosecuted for the kind of negligence that could so easily kill people? Well no, apparently not: He says only that the officer who was wounded “has since recovered,” and that “disciplinary action has been taken.”

Great. So the two cops brandishing their guns for fun, coming inches away from accidentally taking a life, get some purely symbolic and meaningless “discipline,” keep their jobs, and everything just continues on as it did before. Can you imagine a scenario where you accidentally shoot someone else, and it doesn’t impact your job or your status as a non-incarcerated person? But when you’re a cop, that’s just another day at the office.

Of course, no one quite knows just how often police accidentally discharge their weapons inappropriately, because that data isn’t tracked anywhere nationwide. Back in 2019, however, The Associated Press attempted to at least give a baseline by collecting media reports and records requests, and they identified more than 1,400 “unintentional discharge” incidents between 2012-2019. In those incidents, 134 included an officer wounding themselves, 45 had officers accidentally shooting another officer, 34 had them accidentally shooting a bystander, and 21 incidents involved an accidental death. A handful resulted in charges against the officer in question; more often no charges were filed. And please bear in mind: These are only the incidents that were uncovered via media reports and official records, not the surely far more incidents that were never reported.

Indeed, you don’t have to go far to find a steady stream of these types of headlines in any given year. Take, say, the Detroit police officer who recently shot themself while using the bathroom, or another Atlanta cop who shot themself in the midst of a downtown Atlanta patrol. One of the biggest dangers to any officer, turns out, is their own gun.

But wait! Lest we assume this is merely the purview of small town beat cops, don’t you fear: Highly trained federal agents also manage to frequently shoot and sometimes kill each other, and members of the public as well, and they seemingly face even fewer consequences for their negligence. Look, for instance, at the immigration case of Carlitos Ricardo Parias, a Los Angeles TikTok content creator who was pulled over and boxed in by agents of ICE in Oct. of 2025, before being accidentally shot. Agents of ICE claimed that Parias was attempting to flee the scene and ram officers with his car, charging him with assault before those charges were dismissed by a federal judge following the emergence of actual video of the incident, which showed nothing of the sort. Rather, the video depicted ICE agents attempting to break Parias’ car windows before yelling “oh fuck!” when one of their own accidentally opened fire, wounding both Parias and a deputy U.S. Marshal assisting with the arrest on the other side of the car. Parias spent a week in the hospital and has subsequently been rehabbing a gunshot wound while in ICE detention for all of 2026, while the federal agent who shot him (and one of his colleagues) has never been named and presumably never punished for negligence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What a gig, right? As the 19-year-old son of Parias, Ulises Parias, said to the New York Times: “They’re basically free while they shot my dad. How is that fair?”

In fact, even when these federal agents KILL EACH OTHER with negligent, accidental gunplay, they can avoid any legal consequence. In 2022, 40-year-old Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer Jorge Arias was shot and killed by another CBP officer, Daniel Chavez, at a gun range during the course of what was described as concealed carry and “close-quarter combat” training. The way it reportedly happened is especially stupid: All the CBP officers involved had surrendered their loaded, live weapons and were given red training weapons instead, but Chavez reportedly “rearmed himself with his duty gun before he walked to the bathroom located in the main facility,” because lord only knows how many deadly scenarios one is likely to encounter on the way to piss. He then apparently failed to return his live, loaded service weapon before returning to the training group, and subsequently shot Jorge Arias in the chest, killing him.

What was the legal outcome? Was the federal agent–someone we should all expect to be held to a far higher standard than any civilian–at least charged with manslaughter for killing one of his own colleagues? No, of course not: The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office reviewed the case and found that it didn’t qualify for culpable negligence because no “reckless disregard for human life” was displayed. No prosecution was pursued.

Again, how do you think such an incident would go, if it was a member of the public, rather than a federal agent, who pulled the trigger? Would prosecutors line up behind you and swear that you clearly displayed no “reckless disregard,” after you killed someone? Or would you be facing 20 years in prison over a similarly tragic accident? Somehow, I have a feeling that “it was just horseplay” wouldn’t fly as an excuse. Unfortunately, though, when it’s a cop, apparently we’re supposed to simply accept that a little deadly horseplay from time to time is the price of police vigilance.