Photos on the Punta Gorda Police Department Facebook page posted in March show academy participants engaged in simulations similar to the one that police described was taking place Tuesday night.
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Paquin said it was hard to tell how live ammunition got into the gun. He said the shooting happened during a “shoot or don’t shoot” scenario in which they use simulated lethal force in a live role play.
Steve Knowlton wipes his face as he talks about his mother Mary Knowlton during an interview Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2016, in Punta Gorda, Fla.
Mary Knowlton, a well-known community volunteer, was shot after being randomly selected to take part in the role-playing scenario illustrating the split-second decisions an officer must make about firing. “Everyone involved in this accident is in a state of overwhelming shock and grief”. “The situations escalate quickly, forcing fast decisions. We’ve got officers assigned to him to make sure he’s psychologically stable”.
With suspicions running high between police and many citizens in recent years, particularly in minority communities, Vasquez said, a death like the one in Punta Gorda is extremely unfortunate.
“I just can’t believe she’s gone, but I have to learn to live with that”, Gary Knowlton, Mary Knowlton’s husband, told CBS Miami.
The police department identified Coel as the shooter Wednesday.
Mary Knowlton, a 73-year-old retired librarian who attended the demonstration with her husband of 55 years, died when Coel shot her with a revolver that was supposed to contain blanks. Tania Rues, Miramar police spokeswoman, said Coel resigned, but could not comment on the reasons why.
Punta Gorda is a city of about 18,000 people located on Florida’s west coast, about 30 miles (50 km) north of Fort Myers. Coel lit up social media when a video that went viral showed him doing little to stop his K-9 companion, Spirit, from mauling a man whom Coel stopped for riding his bicycle at night without lights.
During his training, other Miramar officers said Coel had “very strong command presence” and was able to take charge of crime scenes and arrests. For a minute and 47 seconds, that officer nearly let that dog kill my client.
“There’s too much hate in this world, in America, we always feel like we need revenge and it doesn’t solve anything”, he said.
Her son said he doesn’t believe Coel meant to fire live ammunition and said he forgives him, but at least one gun expert has raised doubts that real bullets could have made their way into the classroom setting without some sort of malice. He was hired about a year later by the Punta Gorda Police Department, where earlier this week he shot Mary Knowlton during an exercise created to show citizens the split-second decisions police officers must make.
She had moved to Florida after living for years in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota.
Gary Knowlton says he’s following his wife’s example of faith to forgive instead of focusing on blame and anger. At first, those watching the demonstration just thought Knowlton was embracing her role as a shooting victim, the local chamber of commerce president John Wright said.
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Knowlton’s son Steve told NBC News earlier that he forgives Coel.
