In a bizarre incident, a retired DC Metropolitan Police lieutenant conducting a training session on the proper use of batons for members of the DC Library Police Department when he fired a gun, killing one of the trainees, USA Today reports.
At the end of Thursday training session being held at the Anacostia branch, 58-year-old Jesse Porter’s handgun discharged, striking 25-year-old DC Library officer Maurica Manyan, who died later at a hospital. The DC Metropolitan Police has a special branch of armed police who secure the city’s 26 library locations.
Porter has been charged with involuntary manslaughter. The shooting is mysterious for a number of issues, the least of which is not the question of why a retired officer, working as a contractor, was carrying a weapon loaded with live rounds during a training session.
Six people, including the officers participating in the training, were in the library at the time. It’s unclear if, at the time of the shooting, Porter was using the gun as a prop in the exercise or if he was holding it for another reason.
“It’s not good practice,” Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee said. “I’m not sure in this situation why the trainer had a live weapon in the training environment. But it is not good practice to do this.”