A Memphis police officer was killed by friendly fire. How common is that?

In late April, three Memphis Police Department officers engaged in a shootout with two suspects that left one officer dead. Memphis Police Officer Joesph McKinney was killed along with one of the suspects, while two other officers were injured. The second suspect was also seriously injured.

A few days after the shooting, the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office said evidence suggested McKinney was killed by friendly fire.

National data shows that friendly fire deaths among police officers are rare. Friendly fire deaths are counted by the FBI as “accidental deaths.” The FBI’s data collection on killed and assaulted police officers classifies friendly fire deaths as “accidental deaths.”

According to a statement from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, there is no designated category of friendly fire deaths in the data as an “incident circumstance for accidental deaths.”

“These accidental deaths are further characterized as firearm-related incidents, but not all firearm-related incidents are the result of friendly fire,” the FBI said in a statement.

Data released by the agency show that between January 1 and April 30 this year, traffic accidents were the leading cause of death among police officers.

The southern region, which includes Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Mississippi, West Virginia and Virginia, has seen the most police officer deaths so far in 2024, with 9 deaths from crime and 13 from accidents.

What is friendly fire?

The Shelby County District Attorney’s Office has not yet released body-worn camera and dashboard camera footage from the incident that killed McKinney, nor have Memphis police provided any clarifying details about what exactly led to McKinney’s death.

“Friendly fire” is a term most commonly used in the military, but also found in local, state, and federal law enforcement. Oxford defines it as “friendly weapons fire, especially fire that causes unintentional injury or death to friendly forces.”

Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy said he would not charge any of the officers involved in the death of fellow officer McKinney. The office had previously stated it would not charge the 17-year-old with murder, but later said there would be second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter charges in connection with McKinney’s death.

Friendly fire deaths are not limited to the situation that ended McKinney’s life. These incidents also include accidental or mistaken shootings during training, people mistaken for suspects by a fellow officer, and accidental firearm malfunctions. They also include situations where officers are mistaken for a dangerous person by a civilian and killed by that person.

According to a report by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, only one police officer died from a friendly fire incident in 2023. Special Agent Patrick Charles Bauer of the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigations unit was shot and killed during a training exercise in August.

The police officer who shot Bauer was charged with manslaughter of a US police officer in March.

“Everywhere, from lack of communication to negligence”

Troy Anderson, executive director of officer safety and wellness for the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, has spent most of his career in law enforcement, including 26 years with the Connecticut State Police and other local agencies.

Anderson said there is no commonality among all friendly fire incidents.

“I look at those situations… they’re always different. There might be certain similarities, but they’re always different. So to say you can prepare for every eventuality? I don’t know if that’s possible,” Anderson said. “But you have to train… I think back to my training at the academy and I don’t really remember us having any blue-on-blue training there.”

The MPD denied a Freedom of Information Act request filed by The Commercial Appeal regarding MPD’s policies regarding friendly fire incidents or officer training related to preventing friendly fire incidents.

Data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program shows that between 2013 and 2022, 490 police officers were killed in accidents while on duty.

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During this period, 20 police officers were accidentally killed by firearms. The data released by the FBI does not indicate how many officers were killed by friendly fire.

In a 2017 report titled “Making Police Safer: A Study of Police-Involved Fatalities Between 2010 and 2016,” the Officers Memorial Fund reported that at least two police officers have been shot in friendly fire incidents each year since 2014.

Some incidents, like Bauer’s death, occur in training rooms. Other deaths are the result of accidental discharges. Anderson said when he worked as an internal affairs investigator for a police department, there was a situation where an undercover officer placed a loaded patrol weapon in his waistband and the weapon went off, injuring the officer.

“I think it could be anything from lack of communication to negligence. I mean … how do you explain the police officer whose gun goes off in the training room at the shooting range? I mean, that’s pretty negligent,” Anderson said.

Improving training and visibility for officials

Anderson said that even one number is too many, even though the numbers reported by his organization are low. Anderson said there is a need for departments to improve their training regarding friendly fire incidents, but also to look at what practices can be put in place to make situations safer for officers.

The Connecticut State Police have equipped all of their officers with colorful jackets because they are “fearful or concerned” about friendly fire, Anderson said.

“So everyone is wearing the same color jacket, with the same color print on the outside and the print is everywhere,” Anderson said. “I can tell you, it looks very loud. It says ‘Connecticut State Police’ on the back, there are oversized bright yellow patches on both sleeves.”

Anderson said other departments across the country have followed suit and issued armbands for on-duty and off-duty officers to wear during deployments. These small changes, Anderson said, can save fellow officers’ lives.

Other recommendations from Anderson to reduce friendly fire incidents included over-communication and better coordination with emergency responders. However, Anderson reiterated the importance of training emergency responders.

“When you look back and analyze these reports, you always see where something maybe could have been done differently … sometimes it goes back to training,” Anderson said.

Lucas Finton contributed to this report.

Brooke Muckerman covers Shelby County government for The Commerical Appeal. Reach her at [email protected] and follow her on X, formerly known as the Twitter handle @BrookeMuckerman.

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