Cop Fired For Shooting Himself Sues For Job And Wants His Gun Back

A cop who was fired for orchestrating his own shooting has sued for his job back, and now he wants his gun returned. Officer Brian O’Byrne (above) got his job back, but he’s stuck behind a desk and won’t be content until he is once again armed.

The NYPD, however, appears determined to keep Officer O’Byrne behind a desk, doing administrative work at a Housing Bureau station in Harlem, even though he has full-duty status. The department also said it won’t even give him a department-issued smartphone, according to a lawsuit filed by the 14-year veteran, as reported by The New York Daily News. 

Normally, when a cop is shot or loses his job over a shooting, the media is notified. But the NYPD appears to have been suspicious of O’Byrne’s story from the get-go. O’Byrne, who joined the NYPD in 2004, was assigned to the 81st Precinct in Bedford-Stuyvesant when, on August 8, 2009, he was shot in his bullet-resistant vest while in the stationhouse parking lot. “You mean the guy who claims he was shot?’’ one investigator said when asked about the incident. “We never believed him.”

O’Byrne also acknowledged those suspicions in court papers, noting that from the moment he reported getting shot he “was treated as a suspect (by) the supervisory staff and Internal Affairs Bureau called to the scene, rather than as the victim he was.” Despite a bruise to his chest, he was, he said in court documents, “officially blamed for the incident and had to defend himself against the accusations even though he was never actually charged with the shooting.”

There were reasons for the NYPD’s suspicions, namely the evidence — or lack thereof, meaning no witnesses and no one who reported hearing a shot, though the incident did occur at 3:30 a.m. and a train was passing on the nearby elevated line that runs along Broadway.

Also, the investigator said, it would have been impossible, “based on where he said he was sitting in the lot to have been shot at the angle that the projectile entered the vest.” The vest, which had ballistic damage from the bullet, also had an unexplained cut.

And, according to sources, internal reports and court documents, a .22 caliber shell casing in his shirt pocket “was consistent with the bullet fragments recovered from the vest,” Deputy Inspector Philip Romanzi of Internal Affairs said in a report at the time. –New York Daily News

What made things even worse for officer O’Byrne, was that Romanzi said police determined there was a “ballistic match” between the casing and a rifle kept in the Long Island home of O’Byrne’s father. Sources said investigators suspected, but could never prove, that O’Byrne, while off-duty, shot his vest, then took it to work — or arranged for someone to pull the trigger, though no clear motive was ever established.

Even more strange, is that O’Byrne has been shot several times.

At age 12, while living in Kentucky, O’Byrne’s cousin accidentally shot him in the upper back during target practice, according to an internal report. O’Byrne was grazed in the upper back and suffered a flesh wound — but didn’t see a doctor.

A year later, when he was 13 and living in Tennessee, O’Byrne said, he accidentally shot himself in the foot while cleaning a rifle. His mother, a nurse, treated the injury at home.

Then, at age 17, he ran from a fight outside a nightclub after hearing what he thought could be gunshots, fell and realized he had a cut on his knee, Unsure if he was shot, he was treated at an outpatient facility, where he told medical personnel he had been hurt in a car accident.

In 2007, a rooftop shooter in Bedford-Stuyvesant struck O’Byrne in the arm with a BB or pellet while he was in his patrol car.-New York Daily News

So the guy who has been involved in at least 5 shootings, wants his gun back. Comforting.