Former Tequesta police chief
says he accidentally shot wife in Ga., investigators say
By Marisa Gottesman and Adam
Sacasa
Cops say former Delray police
deputy chief shot his wife in Georgia
An Atlanta-area police chief
who previously helped lead two agencies in Palm Beach County says he
accidentally shot his wife early New Year's Day inside their Georgia home.
William McCollom, the Peachtree
City, Ga., police chief, had served as a major at Delray Beach Police
Department until 2006, and then served as chief of the Tequesta Police
Department until 2010.
y in Georgia, McCollom called
911 to report accidentally shooting his wife, Margaret, while moving a handgun
that was in their bed inside the couple's bedroom, Peachtree City Police Lt. Mark
Brown said.
McCollom's wife was flown to
Atlanta Medical Center, where she was in critical condition.
A 911 dispatcher asked
McCollom, "Who shot her?"
"Me," McCollom said.
"The gun was in the bed, I went to move it, and I put it to the side and
it went off."
McCollom's wife can be heard
crying in the background. He told the dispatcher he shot her in the back.
"Oh my God," the
police chief said. "How the hell did this happen?"
McCollom has been placed on
administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation and an internal
review. He has not been charged with any crimes.
Longtime Delray Beach residents
say they were surprised to hear McCollom, their former Delray deputy chief,
shot his wife.
"People are praying for
his wife and also praying for a plausible explanation," said former Delray
Mayor Jeff Perlman. "There is a lot of emotion. There is a lot of
disbelief and concern."
Perlman was mayor when McCollom
worked for Delray's police force until he left the city.
"He was actually a major,
but they called him a deputy chief," Perlman said. "He was No.
2."
But Perlman remembers McCollom
from years before Perlman became an elected official in 2000. When Perlman was
a newspaper reporter, he said, McCollom worked as a Delray canine officer.
"I did stories on the
canine unit," Perlman said. "I knew him early in his career and
watched him move up the ladder."
Perlman said McCollom wasn't
about just law and order. He said he promoted community policing, which meant
getting out of the patrol car and interacting with residents to help solve
problems.
Perlman said McCollom
encouraged his fellow officers to attend homeowners' association meetings and
develop relationships with residents.
"He was a deep-thinking
kind of guy," Perlman said. "He was really interested in trying to
break the cycle of poverty and crime in the Northwest Southwest
neighborhood."
He said McCollom was
instrumental in creating a program to help at-risk youth learn how to fix cars
after he saw a pattern of kids stealing cars. Perlman said the program ran for
10 years.
Perlman said he turned to
McCollom for advice during the seven years when he was in office. "He was
a huge help to me," Perlman said. "He was on the top of the list of
people I relied on and really looked up to."
In Georgia, investigators would
not discuss what led McCollom to open fire. The police turned the criminal
probe over to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the prosecutor's office
there.
Georgia Bureau of Investigation
spokeswoman Sherry Lang said initial reports suggested that McCollom shot his
wife twice, but later information revealed she was shot once. Authorities said
the police chief fired his department-issued firearm, a 9-mm Glock handgun.
During McCollom's 911 call, he
told the dispatcher he and his wife were asleep when the gun went off. He also
identifies himself as police chief of Peachtree City during the phone call.
"He is fully cooperating
at this point, and he has been interviewed," said Lang, who declined to
comment on what McCollom told investigators.
