According to the Punta Gorda Police Department, officers hosted 35 people from the community for a two-hour session.
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“I am devastated for everyone involved in this unimaginable event”, CNN quotes Lewis as saying.
Chief Tom Lewis would not name the officer responsible for the shooting, but said he was placed on administrative leave. “We are shocked by this horrific accident and are grieving deeply over Mary’s passing”, Kunik said.
Officials from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement are investigating and were at police headquarters Tuesday night, Lewis said.
Jake Grussing, the director of the library that Knowlton worked at, said she worked at the library since the 1980s and has been a tireless member of the community.
As fate would have it, Knowlton was struck by a Punta Gorda police officer playing the role of ‘bad guy’.
The event: Punta Gorda’s Chamber of Commerce was offering a free “Chamber Police Night”, an informal education program that showcases the city’s police department. He said the gun that was sacked had been used in previous training.
Among those volunteers was 73-year-old Mary Knowlton. The drills are typically carried out with empty weapons.
Authorities have not released where the woman was shot, or how exactly the incident unfolded, but said that Knowlton was one of two participants selected for a lethal force simulation Tuesday evening.
A woman is dead after she was accidentally shot by a Florida police officer in a citizen training academy roleplay scenario gone wrong.
According to her Facebook page, Knowlton graduated from Austin High School in 1961 before attending St. Olaf College in Northfield, the University of Minnesota and Minnesota State University in Makato.
He says, “That’s a great question and the investigation is going to detail how those details were missed”.
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The city has partnered with Tidewell Hospital to give witnesses and Knowlton’s family counseling at no cost.
