NY police officer left a gun unattended in a school bathroom. He wasn’t disciplined
NY police officer not disciplined for leaving gun in school bathroom
More than a dozen officers have misplaced or mishandled their guns in New York since 2000. Many of them faced little to no consequences.
A joint investigation between the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Central Current and USA TODAY Network-New York.
The last thing students at Williamsville South High School would expect to find on the floor of their bathroom is a police officer’s unattended firearm.
Yet, on September 28, 2018, that is exactly what happened after Officer Thomas Moss of the Amherst Town Police Department walked out of the bathroom without his handgun while working an off-duty security job at the high school. A student later found the weapon and turned it in.
The consequences of this potentially catastrophic mistake for the police officer? A letter of reprimand that equated to a slap on the wrist.
Incidents like this often go unreported and unknown to the public, and often internal discipline for these missteps at police departments across New York is so lax that officers are able to continue working as if nothing happened.
Christopher Mercado, a retired NYPD officer and adjunct assistant professor at John Jay College, said the privilege of having a gun is one of the “most enormous” responsibilities a police officer can have.
“We are one of the few professions in the world in which you play a public safety role, but yet you are given the power, the legal framework and the authority to use deadly physical force against somebody,” he said.
And when that power and weaponry is misused, police departments need to take that very seriously, he added: “We have a lot to offer, and I don’t want to see those years of good quality public service get diminished because some idiot decides to leave a gun in the restroom. I think that needs to be dealt with swiftly, severely and justly.”
This kind of police misconduct — and the discipline that may or may not follow — is the focus of an ongoing USA Today Network investigative series in partnership with Syracuse University’s Newhouse School and Syracuse nonprofit newsroom Central Current.
Answers to questions about how officers in New York police departments are disciplined for misconduct were made available thanks to the repeal of section 50-a of the state Civil Rights Law in June 2020. The repeal allowed access to police disciplinary files and records previously shielded from public view.
The USA Today Network New York filed a flurry of public records requests for these records in 2020, culminating in the creation of an extensive database of never-before-published documents on police misconduct and discipline.
This database gives the public greater access to documents detailing how officers step out of line, such as those who mishandle their guns, and what happens when they do.
Police officers face inconsistent consequences
Officers in New York have mistakenly abandoned their guns in public places more often than you might think.
Moss’s case represents one of 16 gun misuse incidents in New York from 1983 to 2017, with 81% of those occurring between 2000 and 2019, according to records obtained by the USA Today Network New York. These exclude gun incidents that concern use-of-force, such as firing on a fleeing suspect.
Of those 16, half of them had to do with an officer misplacing or mishandling their gun, five were misfires and three involved guns left unattended.
Mercado said mishaps involving guns quickly erode the public’s trust.
“Once we erode that trust, it’s very difficult to get that back,” he said. “We try to build good capital and policing with communities because it’s so easy within a fraction of a second to do something stupid.”
In one case, on June 15, 2012, Sergeant Bradley Moore of Hyde Park Town Police Department brought an off-duty gun to a bar and left it in the bathroom before leaving. When he returned to look for the weapon and could not find it, the bartender asked if he was a cop, to which Moore said was “not relevant,” according to records detailing the incident.
When asked for comment by the USA Today Network, the Hyde Park Town Police Department did not immediately respond.
Another incident on May 18, 2019, involved Officer Richard Pagillo of Delhi Village Police Department, who left his holstered and loaded handgun on a patrol room desk. Pagillo was a trained firearms instructor who claimed to have been tired and “forgot” where their gun was, according to the report.
Chief Michael T. Mills of Delhi Village Police told the USA Today Network that Officer Pagillo is no longer a member of the agency, and no policy changes were made as the department’s policy already addressed this type of behavior.
These incidents detail how police officers throughout New York have mishandled their weapons in ways that could have led to deadly consequences. What they do not have in common is what happened afterward.
Of the eight cases involving an officer misplacing or mishandling their firearm, two ended in written reprimand and six with suspensions – but the suspensions varied greatly in length. There was one three-day suspension, two ten-day suspensions, a couple of three-month suspensions and one totaling five months.
In the case of Moore and Pagillo, the former received a ten-day suspension without pay, which turned into a three-day suspension and loss of seven vacation days. For Pagillo, the consequence for leaving a loaded gun unattended was a counseling memo with no additional discipline.
Lack of training accountability within disciplinary actions
Discipline differs considerably across police departments, and officers are often not required to receive additional training following such incidents. Only two of the eight officers who mishandled their guns were ordered to attend a handgun safety course.
One officer ordered to take such a course was Robert Holt, who, on July 21, 2016, accidentally discharged their gun in the dispatch room while trying to clean and reassemble the weapon. On top of the safety training, Holt received a ten-day suspension and had to pay for damages.
Herkimer Police Chief Mike Jory told the USA Today Network that the department addresses firearm safety “a minimum of twice a year” and has implemented a “Firearms Policy” through Lexipol.
The private company provides policy manuals, training, and consulting services to agencies like police departments. Herkimer PD’s policy manual was part of thousands of Lexipol files that were recently hacked and leaked to the public. Herkimer’s firearms policy states that “members shall not clean or repair a firearm anywhere in the Department, until the firearm has been deemed clear and safe by another member.”
Mercado believes the culture and community of policing is key to improving handling of firearms among the police community. But there is still room for growth.
“I think that as a culture, policing needs to do more to, number one, make sure that cops do follow the policy when it comes to safe weapons handling and securing,” Mercado said. “And also, having the disciplinary process be more reflective of the public expectation that handling a firearm is a serious responsibility, and the expectation is if you squander that public trust, there will be a stiff penalty for you.”
About this project
This story is part of Good Cop Bad Cop, an investigative project from the USA Today Network, Central Current and Syracuse University. Over 30 reporting students from the Newhouse School dug into decades of New York police misconduct records to uncover policy and safety missteps among officers from Buffalo to Westchester County, and explain why these infractions matter to the public.