A former Minnesota resident was accidentally shot and killed by a police officer during a citizen police academy in Florida Tuesday evening.
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The Punta Gorda Police Department said it “realizes the community has many questions about this incident”.
Lt. Katie Heck, public information officer for the Punta Gorda police, said the department has run the shoot/don’t shoot scenarios as part of its program here for approximately two years.
Knowlton was immediately rushed to the hospital after the incident, but it did not take long before doctors pronounced her dead.
“I am devastated for everyone involved in this unimaginable event”, Lewis says in a statement. “Everyone involved is in an overwhelming state of shock and grief”.
The officer involved, who has yet to be identified, has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.
Two participants were randomly selected.
The police department was offering a two-hour training session called the “Citizen Police Academy”. He said the gun that was sacked had been used in previous training.
“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. Typically this part of the exercise would be conducted using a fake or unloaded weapon.
She was shot multiple times during a role play exercise in which the officer pretended to be the “bad guy”, with Knowlton playing the victim, a photographer covering the event told the Charlotte Sun.
The chief described Mary Knowlton as “a phenomenal person in this community” who attended many local events.
The Minnesota native was a board member with Friends of the Punta Gorda Library, according to the organization’s webpage.
“So much is on the internet now”.
Books and magazines lay scattered on tables of the home she shared in Florida with Gary, her husband of 55 years.
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“Her mission was to get books in students’ hands and to connect them with stories that would help them develop a love of reading”. “That was important to her”, Hartwigsen said.
