Late Friday night, a stray bullet struck a club-goer after an off-duty FBI agent's firearm discharged while he was dancing at a Denver nightclub.
At the Mile High Spirits Distillery and Tasting Bar in Denver, the off-duty FBI agent was showing off his dance moves, culminating in a back flip, dislodging his gun, which fell to the ground. As he reached to pick it up, his finger brushed the trigger, causing the gun to fire and strike a man in the leg. The victim is expected to make a full recovery.
The person who recorded the incident, who has been identified only as "Julie," recalled that the agent simply put his gun away and exited the dance floor, possibly unaware of what had just happened. "Everyone was kind of shocked after it happened because [the agent] kind of put his gun back away and then he walked away," Julie said.
Julie also told KDVR, a Denver Fox affiliate, that she told the DJ to stop the music after she smelled gun powder and saw someone bleeding. The pause in music was brief. "No one really knew what was going on," Julie said. "I was shocked. I honestly just wanted to make sure that my friends… [that] I knew where they were."
"It appears an off-duty Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) agent was dancing at a night club when his firearm became dislodged from its waistband holster and fell onto the floor,," Denver police said in a statement. "When the agent retrieved his handgun an unintended discharge occurred, another patron was struck by a bullet in the lower leg."
The agent was turned over to the custody of an FBI supervisor, and the Denver Police Department is investigating what, if any, charges may be filed against the agent. The Denver District Attorney's office will make any such determination following the investigation.
9News investigative journalist Chris Vanderveen tweeted that the illegal discharge of a weapon is a class 5 felony punishable with up to three years in prison.
Joe St. George, a Denver political reporter, tweeted: "it has been a wild 24 hours in Denver," after an Uber driver allegedly shot a passenger on Friday.
Twitter users pointed out that it wasn't the gun falling to the ground that caused it to fire - it was the actions of the agent.
