Child Shot by VPD Officer?

Is it true that a VPD officer shot their son while at a Police Range?...Who was the Officer, and I hope the child is okay!

It is true but I will not name the officer involved. My information is that the wound was not life threatening. But a lot of questions are being asked.

officer, Billy Masters

I really appreciate everyones concerns inregards to this matter however the most important factor in this most unfortunate accident is that our son is doing great and the family as a whole is doing great.

So please remember that when you post your topics you are not only speaking about our son you are also speaking about my husband and myself. This could have happened to anyone and I pray that this never happens to any of you. So I ask all of you to please respect my family before posting your comments.

OK

Will this be filed as a child abuse charge? It would be if the shooter was not a cop. Lets see if the Chief covers this up????

hey "child abuse" do you know the facts? if so, how?

The following is the definition of child abuse as defined by Florida State Statute, I suggest you get your facts straight before come on here and start making frivolous post's about a fellow officer and his family.

"Child abuse" means:

(a) Intentional infliction of physical or mental injury upon a child;

(b) An intentional act that could reasonably be expected to result in physical or mental injury to a child; or

(c) Active encouragement of any person to commit an act that results or could reasonably be expected to result in physical or mental injury to a child.

Seeing how the act was not intentional this would not apply, try again disgruntled one.

Just what does the Chief get paid for if she turns this over to another agency? How about some leadership instead of some bureaucratic avoidance. This does not appear to be a complicated case but it appears to be over the Chief's head already.

Turning over an officer invovled shooting that occurs at a small agency is not uncommon. When North Port PD shot a guy last year, they called in the SSO investigate the incident, this is obviously done for a couple of reasons. First and foremost it keeps the agency from speculation that they tried to cover up the alleged wrong doing of one of their own, not unlike what has happended in the past at this agency prior to Chief Williams' arrival. The other is that a small agency like VPD may not have the manpower to dedicate to such and investigation internally. I can only speculate that the prior post made by retired memebers of VPD were ousted and part of the previous good ol boy network who had their wrong doings covered up and swept under the front porch by their buddies. Now enjoy your retirement and stop speculating and trying to stir the pot on this site as Im sure you did so well when you were employed.