I find this hard to believe given that his weapon was holstered
http://now.msn.com/now/0708-woman-shot-hug

I read about that too... can't see how it technically could happen, even if it went off, wouldn't the bullet go down, unless (and I just thought of this) he had one of those shoulder holsters where the barrel faces back, but down... she must of been a small woman, still can't see it... will wait for more info.

Yeah, I'm stumped right now too Magnum. Some kind of fancy rig holding the gun differently ? Anyone know what gun?

Doubt there's much factual info in that news story.

surprised no premature jokes popped in yet...

Pierces lung and hits the heart? thats a bit of an off angle..

how about she got shot at her drunken party at 12:30 am, and the mom is just making #%&*$# up to sue the city based on what her drunken friends thought they saw..

My gun has gotten loaded from a few hugs, but they were never enough to make it fire!

It could have been a shoulder holster with a hot gun where the hammer got "thumbed" by accident during the "hug."

I don't think everyone is talking about the same gun...

This is my pistol, this is my gun...

Can only hazard a guess on this, one would think that the woman must have somehow got her hands on the pistol in his pants, and then moved it into an upward firing position, and had her finger on the trigger.

That or he was table dancing, and she was really trying to put some money in his pants.

Regardless, I feel pretty certain that alcohol was a contributing factor to this.

Do you write romance novels on the side Bill?

I can imagine his gun going off....his weapon on the other hand unbelievable!!

I'm really not seeing how this is possible...

Well, I guess if you were doing some form of 'Dirty Dancing', you could possibly put the barrel in an angle to do such damage.
But that doesn't work with the 'Hug' description.

Yep. Innocent until proven guilty and all that, but I'd have wiped his hands to check for gunpowder.

Something about that article stinks to high heaven.

What they describe simply is not possible.Let alone a gun just does not magically go off without the trigger being pulled or someones hands on it.

Another article I read said the gun was a S&W M&P 40. I'm guessing he had it in a shoulder holster that didn't cover the trigger guard. If the holster was under his left arm and she hugged him from behind that pretty much puts it in line with her heart.

I wouldn't really expect criminal charges, but I'll bet there will be a civil lawsuit by the family.

Edit: Well, this article specifically says it was holstered on his waistband. That takes the story back to 'essentially impossible'.

One article I read said it was a 'soft' holster. That could mean she pulled the trigger and shot herself.

Shoots down, hits ground and ricochets back up and hits victim (like a 1 in 10000000000 chance).

the mom is getting stupid in some of these interviews.... any chance of a civil lawsuit will be thrown away by any rookie defense attorney, just off of her comments in interviews.

Mapping the discharge residue should help if they are able to do that.

get a mannequin, set him up in the position the officer was in, put the officers clothes on it, map the gunshot residue from his clothes, his arm, and the victim to get an Idea of where everything was when the weapon was discharged.

TBH, the only position I can see in a late night party setting with a High probability of a random discharge with the barrel facing the victims chest is if he was sitting in a chair and she was kneeling in front of him. from there all that is missing is the manipulation of the waistband and weapon's trigger. Given the lack of actual witnesses (considering it was a party) that saw the shot, the variance in the stories, use your imagination.

I think you just hit on the only possible way this scenario could happen, and it occurred to me as I was telling someone, we thought that too.

A variation of "suicide by cop"? Act amorous, then shoot self?