It should go without saying: Don’t leave your gun in a public bathroom. Especially if you’re Capitol Police. Especially if the gun can be found by a young child.
But the officers assigned to protecting Congress are now undergoing additional training after three separate reports of U.S. Capitol Police leaving guns where they shouldn’t.
“I unequivocally understand the concerns regarding the recent issues related to the mishandling of weapons by some of our officers,” U.S. Capitol Police Chief Kim Dine told the House Administration Committee on Wednesday.
“There are no excuses for these mistakes.”
In January, a gun belonging to member of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s security detail was found by a worker in a bathroom at the Congressional Visitors’ Center, a congressional source said.
In March, a member of House Speaker John Boehner’s police detail left a gun after using a toilet in the speaker’s suite of offices in the Capitol. That gun was found by a young child, two congressional sources told CNN.
And in April, a housekeeper working in the Capitol Police headquarters, a few blocks from the Capitol, found another misplaced gun while cleaning, according to a congressional source familiar with the investigation.
Dine said Wednesday that the each case is or will be in the process of a thorough investigation. In the meantime, he’s considering increasing the penalties for officers who leave their guns where they shouldn’t.
A Capitol police officer who mishandles a weapon typically receives a minimum five-day suspension without pay for the first offense, Dine said.
But the police chief said he is considering increasing the minimum penalty for the first offense to a 30-day suspension, and that termination is another option.
In light of the recent reports of gun mishandling, Dine also said the agency is creating online training “that everyone will go through once a year.”
