UI officer fires gun in office; Langley leaves

A University of Iowa public safety officer accidentally fired a gun in department headquarters on Dec. 20, Public Safety Director Chuck Green said Friday.

No one was injured, he said, and “appropriate disciplinary action” was taken. He declined to say what that action was or who discharged the gun.

But former Public Safety Associate Director Larry Langley confirmed he was that person. He otherwise respectfully declined to comment.

Langley's employment with the university ended Jan. 4, according to the UI's human resources office. He had been with the UI since 1994.

Neither Green nor Langley would say if Langley left on his own or was fired. Green said no other officer had left the department since Dec. 20.

Green said he immediately reported the incident to his superiors and the state Board of Regents. Green and the regents office would not release a report on the incident, even in redacted form.

Green said The Gazette would need to file a request under the state's open records law, which it did late Friday afternoon. The regents office said it considers the report confidential in its entirety because it involves a personnel issue and is a police investigative report.

Officers at the UI, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa began carrying guns in late 2007. The Gazette reported last June that, excluding training, campus police had discharged their weapons only a handful of times and only to euthanize deer.

Green said that was still the case at the UI, except for the Dec. 20 incident.

In a follow-up e-mail message, he said campus police officers have high standards and their firearms training exceeds many departments in Iowa.

“We certainly do take any discharge, intentional or accidental, very seriously,” he wrote.

He also wrote that accidental discharges of weapons are “quite common among police agencies.”

Arlen Ciechanowski, assistant director of the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy, said his agency doesn't track how often such discharges occur but said they're rare. He also said it is something that should never happen.

“And it's not an accident,” he said. “It's really negligent when it happens because they've been taught safety regimens.”

Ciechanowkski, who also is a firearms instructor, said there are countless ways a gun could be unintentionally fired. Such incidents could be prevented by officers following their training, he said.