Saturday, November 03, 2007

Yeetle Box: Gun-Weilding Insurance Worker

A 47-year-old insurance company worker accidentally fired his gun in his office cubicle, shooting himself in both legs.

The man had put his .45-caliber gun into his jacket pocket and then draped the jacket over the back of his chair Tuesday morning, said Brett McGuire, Lake Worth police chief. The gun discharged as the man settled into his chair.
The bullet passed through both of the man's legs and a bookcase before lodging in the wall of a cubicle.


There was no indication the man had brought the gun to target anyone, but rather he "just felt the need to carry it," McGuire said. "He wasn't having problems with his bosses or co-workers that we know of," McGuire said. "OK, so there was this one time when he got a bad performance review, but that was weeks before."

Police have no record of the man being licensed to carry a concealed weapon, though, in Texas, this is not a crime. He did, however, violate his company's policy against bringing guns to work without company officials' permission. Said a company spokesman, "We have a very strong policy to deter our employees from carrying concealed weapons into the workplace without prior permission. Clearly, the man in question did not have our permission as evidenced by the fact that we have no record of his submitting a Request to Carry a Concealed Weapon to Work Form.

Most important, the worker will not be compensated for any medical expenses, as the company has deemed it proper that the accident was not life-threatening and did not occur during normal work hours, as the man had come to work early that day.

The Yeetle Box