By DAVID OWENS
BRIDGEPORT — State police
have charged a Bridgeport police officer with unlawful discharge of a firearm
after a Dec. 17 incident in which he accidentally shot himself.
Officer Juan Santiago, 55,
was at the Bagel King restaurant at 3550 Main St. with three other Bridgeport
police officers when "he mishandled a firearm ... and discharged the round
through the thigh area of his left leg," state police said. The gun was
not his department-issue pistol, Bridgeport police said at the time.
No one else was injured.
Santiago was treated at St. Vincent's Medical Center in Bridgeport.
Six days later, state
police detectives were assigned by the Bridgeport state's attorney to
investigate the incident.
Police said they determined
that Santiago mishandled the gun, causing it to fire. They obtained an arrest
warrant charging him with unlawful discharge of a firearm.
Santiago turned himself in
at the Bethany barracks at 9:30 a.m. Monday. He was released on a promise to
appear in court Feb. 18 in Superior Court in Bridgeport.
Santiago remains on the
job, but is assigned to desk duty.
"First, I would like
to say we are grateful that the officer is recovering from his injury,"
Bridgeport Police Chief Joseph L. Gaudett Jr. said. "We have said from the
outset that we requested the state police handle the investigation so the
public would have confidence that it would be fair and unbiased. The state
police conducted a thorough investigation, consulted with the state's
attorney's office and made a determination that we will respect."