Weapon Discharge at “Police Holiday Party” in Prince George’s County Under Investigation

12/23/2018: Eight Prince George’s County Police officers have now been released from discretionary suspension as our Internal Affairs Division continues its investigation into a weapon discharge at a holiday gathering of off-duty PGPD officers that left two of those officers injured last weekend.

On the evening of December 15th, several off-duty PGPD officers were at a home in Brandywine for a holiday party. Preliminarily, sometime around 9:43pm , one of the officers was handling a privately-owned weapon when it discharged. That officer suffered a gunshot wound to his hand. Another officer who was in the same room, received a minor graze wound to his leg as a result of ricochet from the single shot. The Special Investigation Response Team of our Internal Affairs Division is still conducting interviews as the process continues to move forward, however, at this point in the investigation, it appears that the gun was fired one time by accident with no ill intent.

Chief Hank Stawinski said, “I am committed to transparency and accountability. As a result, I am informing our community of what we know at this point in the investigation. I expect the women and men of this institution to serve as examples to others. I was relieved when it was confirmed that neither of the officer’s injuries was serious, but I was and remain disappointed in the jackassery that led to this incident which has negatively impacted the injured and involved officers, their families, and our community.”

The incident initially resulted in the suspension of eleven off-duty PGPD officers who were at the house at the time of the incident. As the investigation proceeded, four of the officers were released from suspension this past Tuesday with the additional four officers being returned to duty on Friday.

Three officers remain on suspension while the investigation continues. Two of them are assigned to the Emergency Services Team of our Special Operations Division. The third officer is assigned to our Bureau of Investigation.

12/17/2018: The Prince George’s County Police Special Investigation Response Team (SIRT) of our Internal Affairs Division is investigating an unintentional discharge of a weapon that caused injury to two off-duty Prince George’s County police officers over the weekend.

Preliminarily, several off-duty officers were at a holiday gathering at a private residence in Brandywine Saturday evening when there was an unintentional discharge of a privately-owned handgun. One officer received a hand injury while a second officer was injured by ricochet as a result of the weapon firing a single time. SIRT investigators responded to the home that evening. Both officers were transported to area hospitals and were treated and released early Sunday morning. The circumstances of how the unintentional discharge occurred are under investigation.

Eleven PGPD officers have been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation.

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