By: Staff Writer
Brandon police arrested a
60-year-old former RM of Whitehead police officer and
charged him with several firearm offences relating to a January incident.
Doug Gormley has been charged
with careless storage of a firearm, careless storage of ammunition, not
reporting loss of firearm within reasonable despatch, false statement regarding
a firearm and public mischief.
The charges stem from an
incident where Gormley’s personal revolver was stolen after a police truck that
was stolen sometime overnight between Jan. 11 and 12.
Gormley previously told the
Brandon Sun, he had a .22-calibre revolver locked up in a case that was inside
a police truck.
He was a member of the
Whitehead police when the incident occurred.
The revolver, Gormley said, was
his personal gun and not an official police firearm, albeit one that he said he
used for occasional police-related duties that called for lesser amounts of
firepower, like putting down injured animals that had been hit on the highways.
The stolen truck was quickly
found abandoned, but the gun was only recovered several weeks later, after it
was used in a bizarre accidental shooting that sent a woman to hospital with a
bullet lodged in her buttocks. The gun had apparently discharged accidentally
and fired through a wall before hitting the woman.
That incident resulted in
another man getting jail time.
Whitehead Coun. Greg Rabe said
Gormley retired from the local police service earlier this year.
Gormley will appear in court on
Oct. 2.
