One of the most popular guns in American is being deemed a "ticking time bomb" as it has allegedly been firing on its own and has injured dozens of cops.
The SIG Sauer P320 semi-automatic handgun has been used by over 1,000 law enforcement agencies, local and federal, as well as being a popular civilian purchase.
The manufacturer is now facing many lawsuits alleging it fires while holstered, when the trigger isn't pulled and while just sitting at rest.
Over 150 people have claimed injuries or near misses after the weapon released on its own.
“The P320 isn’t just a gun, it’s a ticking time bomb.”
“America’s most dangerously defective gun.”
Most cases surround the gun as not having an external manual safety, known as a tab trigger. Attorneys are calling this a crucial design flaw making the gun liable to fire spontaneously, causing disaster.
It has been claimed that nobody has died but many have been injured.
In those is Sgt. Ashley Catatao (35), a single mother of a young son and an officer in the Somerville, Mass., Police Department.
She is a 12-year veteran who was starting a night shift patrol around 4PM to midnight, on April 6th 2022.
She parked her car, and walked towards the cruiser “when I heard a loud bang and I felt this sharp pain in my upper right thigh
She immediately thought “’Someone has shot me,’ and I tried to run for cover, and as I started to run, I looked down and I saw that there was a hole in my pants.”
There was however, no one there gunning her down. She was wounded from a bullet fired from her holstered service weapon.
“I never would have expected that my own gun would go off and shoot me,” she said.
This was captured in a video by a police security camera overlooking the lot.
Sgt. Michael Colwell, (31 at the time), with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, and went through the police academy in 2009, when he joined the Troy, New York, Police Department.
His uncle was a retired K9 officer and always told stories so “police work was something I was kind of interested in, and I decided to give it a shot."
He did well in the academy and won an award for his ability to shoot.
“That was pretty neat to get that recognition,” he says, “to have that accolade.”
He had been a "patrol guy" for a while before being promoted to sergeant in 2015.
At that point, he had never shot anyone or been shot at.
On June 2nd, 2021, he was shot, like Catatao, by his SIG Sauer P320.
“I had holstered my duty weapon, tucked it away when we heard a pop. We knew it was a gun that went off and we didn’t know if it was another officer participating in the [range practice] scenario."
“The next thing, the firearms instructor who was monitoring looked at me and said, ‘Is that your gun? Are you hit?’
“I didn’t know. And then with disbelief and adrenaline rushing through me, I realized that a bullet kind of came crushing through my leg, and sure enough, there was a hole in my pants and that’s when the reality and panic set in on my part because the hole wasn’t there when I started the day.”
These are just two of the 82 cases that have been brought to Robert Zimmerman, a Philadelphia law firm, Saltz and Mongeluzzi Barrett and Bendesky.
52 cases have been filed, while another 30 are being prepared.
Around 10 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are taking legal action.
“We’re calling on SIG to recall this weapon and redesign it to make it safe,” Zimmerman said.
“The issue is that SIG Sauer has advertised this gun as a gun that won’t fire unless the user wants it to fire and none of my clients wanted this gun to fire."
“We have clients who have had their weapons in their holster, without their hands on the holster and it fired. We’ve had individuals who have had their guns in their holster and touched the back of the gun either to retrieve the weapon, or to put back in the holster, and it fired.”
The P320 is “unique” in that SIG Sauer is the only manufacturer making this type of gun without an external manual safety.
The tab trigger needs to be depressed “intentionally” to make sure the gun can fire. Without that tab being depressed, the gun can’t fire.
“SIG needs to put a tab trigger on this gun to make it safe,” Zimmerman said. “A gun should not fire unless a user wants it to fire.”
Zimmerman has said the P320 “has an extremely short trigger pull and along with no safety makes it the most dangerous gun on the market.”
Colwell has said he is lucky to be alive. While he bled profusely from two holes in his leg, his fellow officers applied a tourniquet and tried to keep him calm.
They “threw me in the back of a police car” and rushed to an ambulance that took him to Albany Medical Center.
“I haven’t been able to do any kind of rigorous activity. I’m trying to walk as much as I can, and there are some days I can’t bend my knee as much."
“I’m still out," with next month being the second anniversary of him being shot by his own gun.
Unlike Colwell, Catatao's wound wasn't as serious. She had just been grazed by the bullet.
She still carries the SIG P320, but unlike before she was shot, she doesn’t keep a bullet in the chamber.
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