The fellow is left-handed and was carrying his 1911 pistol inside the waistband. The pistol was holstered, but the hammer was not cocked, there was one round chambered. He withdrew the firearm, holster and all, from his waistband to change for work, and it discharged. The round went through the upper thigh/groin of his left leg and exited the back of his thigh landing in an adjacent locker. When police arrived at the scene, they had to remove the firearm from the holster to make it safe and the spent casing was still in the firearm.

What went wrong?

Without knowing more, my first thought is he must have hit the hammer on something hard, causing a discharge. Or, he pulled the hammer back far enough to drop it without engaging the half cock notch. Would not recommend carrying are down on a live round, despite the firing pin spring. I’d be interested to see if the half cock was intact, or if the sear was not engaged.

Old70

Did he drop the entire rig on its hammer?

Wound path says no.

Theres something missing in that story.

You cannot get a 1911 to fire by hitting the hammer. Its an inertia firing pin. With the hammer all the way against the firing pin stop, the pin does not even reach th primer.

Even if he thumbed the hammer a bit, no way it had sufficient energy with that short a fall. If he thumbed it further the safety notch would have caught it. Even if was at full cock the holster should have protected the trigger. .

I'm not saying the story is total BS, but I don't think for a moment that story is complete as told. No offense intended to anyone.

Try it with a primed case sometime, and see.

Yea, somethings missing.

I'm guessing it was actually cocked, and he got his finger inside the trigger guard.

Perhaps earlier in the day he drew his gun, and didn't fire it. Once the suspect controlled, in all the excitement, he holstered it with the hammer still cocked, so some variant of this.

Once he's off shift, he reached down to removed the now cocked, but not locked, gun, and......

I have. Quite a few times. In three different 1911's.
Not going to happen.

Primers popped three times out of five tries in Virginia State Crime Lab testing. Popped when I tried it, too. Strength of the firing pin spring, strength of the hammer spring, and primer sensitivity can all influence results.

Carry on my wayward Son......

Something happened between the withdrawal of the firearm/holster and the discharge.

What was it?

Ah, the sixty-four dollar question. Your thoughts?

He dropped it and it landed on the hammer.

I think perhaps the guy doesn’t remember accurately. If he was totally focused on what he was doing, he might know what he did. Perhaps, like most of us, he was on autopilot. Doing the same routine every day, something goes wrong and he is trying to piece it together.

“The round went through the upper thigh/groin of his left leg and exited the back of his thigh landing in an adjacent locker.”

Bet that hurt.
Bob

I’m going with that.

1. The guy lost control of (aka: dropped) the gun/holster while pulling it out of his pants.

2. He instinctively grabbed for it and sort of caught it, unfortunately pinning it against his thigh/groin (with the barrel against his leg).

3. In the process he flicked the hammer, causing the gun to discharge.

4. The gun failed to cycle, because:
---A. The guy's hand somewhat blocked the slide, and
---B. With nobody gripping the lower half of the gun, it couldn't cycle ("no-wristing" is worse than "limp-wristing"), and maybe
---C. The holster interfered with the gun's normal cycling operation (but A and B, above, would alone be enough to prevent the gun from cycling).

5. The impact of the dropping of the gun wasn't enough to jar it out of the holster.

Hmmm, have you known of a similar scenario before?

No, but given the facts (assuming they're all true), It's the only possible answer I can think of, given what I know about the 1911. (Even if my response isn't what happened, it could have been correct).

Excellent analysis. If that’s not exactly what happened, it was something very close to it.

With 1911s, cocked and locked is always best. There seem to be two kinds of people who prefer to carry a 1911 with the hammer down on a loaded chamber, those who have been perforated and those who will be perforated.

So what's the backstory on this--is this a past incident from a police locker room? Something currently under investigation? What?

Currently pending, so I can’t say much more about it. But, it’s happened before with people who just haven’t gotten the word about cocked and locked, and likely relied on movies and television dramas for their 1911 handling skills.

Please spread the word to those who need to hear it.

No offense intended Friend, but that simply not so. Condition 1 is simply an available option. The notion that Condition 1 was "how the gun was designed to be carried" was put forth by Jeff Cooper.
It has nothing to back it up in the historical record or in the patents.
Take an as designed cocked 1911 and then draw the hammer back as far as possible and observe that the hammer defeats the grip safety. Unless you think John Browning made a mistake in the design, that alone illustrates his intent.
The only negligent discharge I have ever witnessed with a 1911 was a pinhead who carried in Condition 1, inadvertently swiped off the safety and combined those elements with poor trigger discipline.
For the record, I carry both ways. On a Mil Spec gun, I like the hammer down on the safety notch. Others that have even a modest beavertail, I carry cocked and locked. The beavertail impededs reaching the hammer with my thumb. Lowering the hammer on a 1911 is no different than lowering the hammer on a Winchester 94. I have never seen a 1911 that became cocked inadvertently. I have seen safetys swiped off a number of times.
IMO, bottom line..... Is gun. Is dangerous. Behave accordingly.

My guess would be the hammer got pulled back and released.
Drop is out due to wound angle.

Except that the M94 will be handled by both hands to keep it firmly and safely in control and pointed in a safe direction. Most people that I have observed lowering the hammer on a handgun do that with only one hand, the hand gripping the gun. Lowering a 1911 hammer is an awkward manipulation and done one handed might lead to fumbling by a user not thoroughly familiar with the weapon.

Personally I have never lowered with one had, design element or not, on a loaded chamber.
I prefer to place my thumb under the hammer, rolling it out of the way as the other thumb controls the hammer. The original "Thumb Safety".
How others choose to do it I have no idea.

Some years ago, Winchester had to pay a guy a bunch of money (then added the infamous manual safety) because the guy managed to balance the tip of the Model 94 sear on the tip of the hammer’s half-cock notch such that the rifle fired when slightly bumped as the guy was hoisting the rifle up into a tree stand muzzle first.

While morons will always find a way to hurt themselves, on a 1911 pistol, cocked and locked is still the best carry option for most folks.

I've never believed that hammer down with the firing pin on live round was a good idea

1911s have inertia activated firing pins. The pin is shorter then the hole it sets in, so the firing pin spring has to poke it out the rear enough for the hammer to strike it. If you hold a 1911 pin down flush in back the nose of it doesn't stick out the front of the breach face at all. If the hammer is down there is not any way for the pit to be hit by the hammer. Before many 1911s had firing pin locks, (series 80 and following) the guns could discharge if struck HARD on the muzzle because the gun stops dead, but the pin can continue forward and hit the primer. But with all those having F. Pin locks that can't happen anymore either. Even when those old guns would do that, the bullet hit the object that struck the muzzle.

So something is wrong with the details as he stated them. The way it's described... it's not possible.

It's like saying a car engine revs too fast even though all it's spark plugs were missing. No spark, no compression, no running engine, and no one who knows how the machine works will believe the story.

I'd say that the hammer DID get cocked somehow. The 1/2 cock notch should catch it is there was a slip, unless the gun has been "tuned" wrong. But the pin had to poke out the rear of the firing pin retainer for it to be hit at all------ and the idea of it shooting him in the leg by the postol being struck backwards on it's muzzle is not going to happen unless his leg is made of stone or metal.

Occam's Razor is the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. Dude screwed up.

I lower the hammer on a 1911 by pinching the hammer between thumb and 1st finger of left hand and controlling it to fully lowered that way. Easy procedure once you get used to it. I found 1911s very awkward to uncock with just the right thumb.

Just seems strange that a "lefty" carrying IWB would manage to shoot himself in the LEFT groin/upper thigh.
I'd have thought the right side would have seen the damage.

Likely the main cause was simply carrying a 1911

The main cause was the idiotic practice of lowering the hammer on a live round