A citizen took it upon herself to stop a Des Moines police officer after spotting a rifle on the roof of his cruiser. Andrea Jones was driving behind the officer when she saw something on the roof. At first, she thought it was a bike rack, but as she got closer, she realized that it was a rifle, which probably should have been locked up inside the cruiser instead of sitting on top of the car, reports KCCI:
“Well then (my niece) said what if it falls off, and I was like, ‘Don’t say that, we’re behind him, what if it fires off or something?'”
Guns don’t fire off all by themselves, but the weapon was not in any way secure and could have fallen off the roof. Anyone could have picked it up, with potentially disastrous results. To make matters worse, they were driving through the Des Moines Public Schools Central Campus at the time, which would have left the gun easily accessible to kids if it had slid off the roof.
When they stopped at a traffic light, Jones took the opportunity to inform the officer about this minor concern.
“I approached him with caution and just told him and he was completely stunned, and I could just tell on his face like he was a little confused, and I keep telling him, and I’m like pointing, ‘There’s something up there that you might want to get,'” she said.
A perfectly reasonable explanation
The department’s public information officer explained how this situation came to be to CBS News:
“At shift change, an officer was offloading his equipment, set his rifle on top of the car and then left, and left that rifle there. Next officer came in, checked that car out and didn’t see the rifle on the roof and drove away,” said Sgt. Paul Parizek. “I think we’ve all had a situation in our lives where we’ve misplaced something, we’re looking for it, we walk by it two or three different times. That may help explain it. It definitely does not excuse what happened.”
Sure, I’ve set my coffee on the roof, opened the car, put stuff inside, and driven off, forgetting about the coffee. But even our list of the worst things you’ve left on your roof doesn’t include firearms. That’s a good thing, because if you have a gun, one of the things you’re responsible for is making sure no one else has access to it. If I got caught making this same mistake, I’d be in serious trouble with the law, and rightfully so. But police aren’t always held to the same standards as civilians.
From Des Moines Police Chief Michael McTaggart’s statement on the department’s Facebook page:
The officer who made the mistake, who is not the officer shown in the video circulating online, has taken responsibility for their actions. While policy violations appear obvious, an internal review by my command staff and our firearms experts is essential to ensure due process for the officer, as well as identify any administrative and/or training adjustments that will help prevent similar errors in the future.
While the officer who drove away with the rifle on the roof is not to blame for putting it there, he still drove away with a rifle on the roof, which is an enormous oversight. It would be nice if there were some accountability for both officers who contributed to this incident. It’s also worth noting that neither officer has been named publicly. Once again, the police are protecting their own.
