Investigators: Equipment malfunction may have caused Blanchard school resource deputy’s gun to fire

BLANCHARD, Okla. (KFOR) — Investigators now believe a school resource deputy’s gun was in its holster attached to the deputy’s hip when it fired off a shot on Blanchard Elementary School’s playground last week, and may have not been touched by students at all.

On Friday, officials with Blanchard Public Schools announced “a young student” at Blanchard Elementary “managed to access the student resource officer’s gun and discharge it within the SRO’s holster into the ground.”

The school resource officer involved is a deputy with the McClain County Sheriff’s Office.

On Monday, officials with the McClain County Sheriff’s Office told News 4 while it is likely students may have been touching the deputy, investigators believe the gun may have fired because of an equipment malfunction, rather than a student touching the gun itself.

One question pressed the mind of Blanchard Public Schools Superintendent Brady Barnes as he raced over to Blanchard Elementary Friday.

“The first thing you know, of course, what I ask is, is anybody hurt,” Barnes said.

Barnes says that deputy was Blanchard Elementary’s longtime school resource officer.

“This deputy's beloved, the kids love him,” Barnes said. “He does little things like passing junior deputy badges to the kids each and every day.”

In fact, that’s exactly what McClain County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) investigators say the deputy was doing  with a group of pre-k students on the playground Friday.

“He had taken a seat on a wood bench up against a wall,” said MCSO Public Information Officer, Deputy Scott Gibbons. “So if you can imagine a police officer sitting in uniform on a bench back against the wall, several kids in front of him, he's passing out stickers.”

Gibbons said it’s possible some of those kids may have even been touching or bumping into the deputy when his gun suddenly went off.  

“The gun was positioned straight down into the wood bench,” Gibbons said. “The firearm discharged into the bench.”

Miraculously, no one was hit or injured.

Investigators say the gun was attached to the deputy’s hip the entire time and it’s possible no students touched the gun.  

“The firearm discharged within its holster,” Gibbons said. “We don't know if something got into the holster or if the holster was bumped or pushed in some manner which caused it to discharge. We don't know if it was a malfunction with the firearm itself.”

Those are all questions investigators are working to answer.

Gibbons said the gun the deputy was using is a model widely used by law enforcement agencies across the world, and it did not have a “safety” switch on it.

He says part of MCSO’s investigation will look at whether that model of gun, and the type of holster the deputy used, should stop being used going forward.

In the meantime, the sheriff’s office has pulled the deputy from the school.

“He's very shook up and just heartbroken this situation ever came about,” Barnes said. “I know, with this deputy, he always has the best interests of our students and faculty in his heart.”

But for the students the deputy served this is a learning opportunity.

“Guns are obviously not a toy,” Barnes said. “And we have children in this building ages from four all the way to eight or nine years old. And some may have never been taught that before. And so educating our kids about gun safety will be something of importance in the future.”