PASCAGOULA, Miss. -- Pascagoula police Sgt. John Morosky, the firearms instructor at the Pascagoula shooting range, was performing routine maintenance on a weapon last week when he went to check the setup of another weapon for comparison and it discharged, resulting in burns to Morosky's thumb and forefinger, Police Chief Kenny Johnson said Tuesday.
Morosky, who is head of the Pascagoula Police Academy on Bayou Cumbest Road, had dismantled a .38-caliber police-issued revolver in the maintenance room at the Pascagoula Police Academy when the incident occurred.
"Basically what he was doing was going through a weapon and cleaning it after he pulled a bunch of internal parts out of it," Johnson said Tuesday. "There is a spring in the weapon that he wanted to make sure he put back in the right way so he gets his (service) weapon to look at the spring in it so he knows how to put it back properly in the other weapon he'd taken apart. While he's handling the loaded weapon, it discharged."
The bullet struck an interior wall and the back of a filing cabinet, according to a police report about the incident, which the Sun Herald requested and obtained.
Morosky, Johnson said, was not struck by a bullet, but instead suffered injuries from "hot gases from the gun being fired."
Johnson said he immediately reported the incident to Pascagoula city leaders, including the city manager, and an internal investigation was launched. He said the incident was deemed an accidental discharge.
According to the incident report, the shooting occurred at 2:16 p.m. on Feb. 28.
After the weapon discharged, Detective Jason Byrd transported Morosky to Singing River Hospital, the report said.
"Basically, all they did at the hospital was examine it (the wound) to make sure there was nothing but skin damage and he was back at work Monday," Johnson said.
Morosky has been an officer at the Pascagoula Police Department for 29 years.
Copyright 2013 - The Sun Herald
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
