Charlotte officer sent son for socks. There was a loaded gun in drawer, sheriff says
A Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer had just asked his 3-year-old son to get him a pair of socks when he and his wife heard a gunshot, according to law enforcement officials.
The 32-year-old cop had forgotten he’d left a 9 mm handgun in his sock drawer, officials said.
His son was taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Timothy Justin O’Lear has since been charged with a Class 1 misdemeanor for violating state law requiring the safe storage of firearms to protect minors, the Union County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release Monday.
“This incident serves as a reminder of the importance of securing firearms, regardless of who the weapon belongs to. It only takes a second for someone to be seriously injured or even worse,” Sheriff Eddie Cathey said in the release. “We certainly appreciate the full cooperation of Mr. O’Lear and his family but are left with no choice, under the circumstances, to file this charge.”
O’Lear sent his son for socks Saturday morning at their Indian Trail home without realizing his personal firearm — a Sig Sauer P320 X-Five Legion — was still in the drawer, according to the release.
The boy subsequently shot himself in his left hand.
“After hearing the gunshot, the child’s parents ran into the bedroom and realized what had occurred,” the release states. “They immediately rushed the child to Novant Matthews for treatment.”
Hospital staff notified the sheriff’s office about the incident, prompting an investigation at both the hospital and the family’s home, according to the sheriff’s office.
“O’Lear routinely kept the firearm in a locked gun safe but had recently relocated it to a sock drawer as an added security measure for his wife during the times he was at work,” investigators determined, according to the release. “All of the evidence suggests that the incident was an accident.”
