JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – On Dec. 13, Jason Arrington was pulled over for running a red light on Main Street, near 27th Street.
RELATED: Jacksonville man suing JSO after being shot in the leg when an officer tried to take his gun during a traffic stop
According to JSO, Arrington informed the officer that he had a gun. The officer asked him to get out of his vehicle.
After following the officer’s instructions, the officer attempted to remove Arrington’s gun from its holster, which was inside his waistband. The gun went off, and he was struck in the leg.
Now, News4JAX has obtained the internal affairs interview for Officer Mindy Cardwell, who was fired following the incident after an internal affairs investigation resulted in a sustained charge of incompetence.
In the Jan. 8 interview, Cardwell described how she tried to remove the holster from Arlington’s waistband but couldn’t get it off. So, she then tried to remove the gun instead.
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She said she was unsure how the gun discharged until she watched the video a day before the interview was conducted, adding that she had never been trained on how to remove a firearm from another person’s holster.
Cardwell didn’t provide any specific type of training she believed would’ve helped the situation, but said “any” training on removing firearms from a person would have been beneficial.
She also told the interviewing officer she thought she “set [herself] up for failure” by transitioning from her dominant hand to her non-dominant hand.
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When asked if she believed she disregarded any basic gun safety rules, she said a lack of awareness regarding her finger placement played a role in the gun unexpectedly going off.
The officer then asked if she was comfortable admitting that the incident was caused by negligence on her part. She replied, in part, “We are trained not to put our finger in the trigger guard.”
Arrington sued JSO over the incident.
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