Cop Shoots Fellow Officer in Horseplay: A Church Security Warning

Newly released video shows a Pasadena police officer shooting a fellow officer in the shoulder during horseplay with loaded firearms, and church security teams need to pay attention.

Jun 11, 2026

What Happened

On September 7, 2025, at 6:20 PM, inside the Pasadena Police Department parking structure, an officer standing at the rear of his patrol car drew his firearm and pointed it at a fellow officer who was driving up. He holstered the weapon and laughed. The officer in the car responded in kind. He drew his own handgun, pointed it back, and had a negligent discharge. The round went through his own windshield and into the standing officer’s left shoulder.

The video was just released to the public this week, roughly nine months after the shooting. Police Chief Gene Harris called it exactly what it was, unsafe, out-of-policy horseplay with loaded firearms. The wounded officer recovered, discipline has been handed down, and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office is still reviewing the case.

Crimes were committed here. The officer who drew first and pointed his handgun at a fellow officer violated California Penal Code 417, brandishing a firearm. The officer who fired is looking at Penal Code 245, assault with a deadly weapon. Both are serious crimes that carry real jail time.

I want to be clear about something before we go further. I have trained many officers from Pasadena PD over the years. It is a professional department, and these two men do not represent it. But this incident is embarrassing for every cop and retired cop watching it, because we are supposed to be professionals. So why am I covering it on a church security channel? Because a few months ago, somebody did almost the exact same thing to me at a church security training, and because I am seeing this same behavior on church security teams right now.

A Negligent Discharge Is Never an Accident

These were trained, sworn, full-time professionals, and they broke the most basic rules every one of us learned on day one. Treat every gun as if it is loaded. Never point a muzzle at anything you are not willing to destroy. Keep your finger off the trigger until you are on target and have made the decision to shoot.

I have investigated negligent discharges, and I can tell you it is never an accident. It is the predictable result of broken discipline. And I am no saint here. I have had a negligent discharge myself, and it happened because I violated basic rules. I am ashamed it happened, but I am not ashamed to tell you about it, because plenty of people will claim they have never had one when they have. The reason mine ended without tragedy is that my gun was pointed in a safe direction, the way you are supposed to keep it. The rules are layered for exactly that reason. When one layer of discipline fails, the others keep a mistake from becoming a funeral.

The Bullet Does Not Know You Are a Volunteer

Some people will watch this video and say these are dumb cops, typical law enforcement. That is not true, but here is what concerns me more. I am seeing the same behavior on church security teams right now. You may be a volunteer, but the bullet does not know that. The four rules of firearm safety do not have a volunteer exemption.

Think through what a negligent discharge in a church lobby actually costs. It ends your ministry. It injures or kills somebody in your congregation. It exposes your church to a lawsuit that could shut down everything the church does. And it hands every critic of armed church security exactly the headline they want. One moment of horseplay can undo years of work building a credible, trusted safety team.

It Happened to Me

A few months ago I was teaching a church security training with about fifty people in the room. During a break, somebody called out my name. I looked over, and he was standing in a group of people holding a laser trainer. He pointed it directly at me and pulled the trigger. I could see the laser, and I knew he was aiming at my head.

When we run training like this, we make sure nobody in the room is armed. No firearms, no pocket knives, no weapons of any kind. So there was no live weapon in his hand. But my first instinct, the instant it happened, was to go for my firearm. I did not flinch and I did not reach, but the trigger in my mind fired all the same. Defend yourself. I saw everybody around him cringe, and they were right to.

What he did not know is what it did to the rest of my day. Almost immediately I started flashing back to real incidents where people had pointed guns at me, and to other critical incidents from my career. For the rest of that training day I was fighting those memories from coming forward, working to stay present so I could keep teaching. He thought it was a joke. He had no idea what he set off in the man he pointed it at.

If you are reading this, brother, I forgive you and I love you. We all do dumb things, and I just told you about one of mine. But understand that on a security team, there are people who have lived through the real thing, and horseplay with anything shaped like a gun is not a joke to them. It never will be.

The Standard for Your Team

You are professionals first, and I think sometimes we forget that. If you carry a firearm in defense of God’s people, you hold yourself to the professional standard, full stop.

That standard extends to training tools. Blue guns, laser trainers like the Mantis Laser Academy and Titan, airsoft, all of them get treated like loaded firearms at all times. No quick draws to show off. No pointing anything at a teammate outside of structured, instructor-controlled drills. No exceptions for the guy who is just joking. There will be times in training when you run force-on-force scenarios and point trainers at each other. That is expected. But it happens with an instructor present, safety people in place, and controls built in so nobody gets hurt. That is the difference between training and horseplay.

Team leaders, this belongs in your written policy and in your next briefing. You have to decide what your culture is going to be, and I believe for safety it should be zero tolerance. But whatever you decide, decide it before it happens. When it does happen, you need to already know whether that person is ejected from the team, counseled, or retrained. Figure it out now, not in the parking lot after somebody pulls a stunt.

Biblical Perspective

There is a verse in Proverbs that reads like it was written about this exact video.

Like a madman who throws firebrands, arrows, and death is the man who deceives his neighbor and says, “I am only joking!” (Proverbs 26:18-19, ESV)

Three thousand years ago, Scripture already had a name for the man who endangers his neighbor and then hides behind a joke. A madman. Not a prankster, not a funny guy. A madman throwing firebrands, arrows, and death.

That officer in Pasadena did not mean to shoot his brother officer. I truly believe that. But God’s Word does not grade on intent here. It tells us that the man who treats danger like a game is just as deadly as the man who means harm, because the firebrand burns the same and the arrow cuts the same no matter what the man who threw it was thinking.

If you carry a firearm to protect the people of God, “I was only joking” can never come out of your mouth. The bullet will not accept that excuse, and neither does Scripture.

Final Assessment

Two trained police officers pointed loaded firearms at each other as a joke, and one of them put a round through his own windshield and into his partner’s shoulder. Discipline followed, the DA is reviewing criminal charges, and a professional department now wears a black eye it did not earn as a whole.

Church security teams should take this personally, because the same behavior is happening in our world right now. The rules of firearm safety are absolute, they apply to training tools as much as live weapons, and they apply to volunteers as much as sworn officers. The habits you tolerate in the hallway are the habits that show up under stress.

Pray for both Pasadena officers, the one who was shot and the one who will carry the weight of having shot his brother over a joke. Then look at your own team and make sure this can never be your story.

Join the Conversation

Have you seen horseplay on a security team, or do you have a standard in place that works? Leave a comment below and share this article with your pastor or team leader. This is one of those conversations every team needs to have before something happens, not after.

Discussion about this post

Ready for more?