SEPT 2021 Blues Vol 37 No. 9

Detective sues Sig Sauer

Detective sues Sig Sauer after she says her holstered P320 handgun nearly killed her. Det. Brittney Hilton had no idea she had just been shot. All she said she felt at first was an incredible amount of pain, and a “very sick feeling.” “I was cold at some points, shaking. The fear kind of takes over, the adrenaline takes over,” Hilton told ABC News. “I just said, ‘Am I going to die?’” “I said, ‘Please just tell my kids that I love them and don’t let them find out on social media that I’ve been shot,’” she continued. “I didn’t know if I was going to make it to the hospital.” Hilton, a mom of three who has been with the Bridge City, Texas, Police Department for 11 years, said the bullet came within one millimeter -- the edge of a penny -- from killing her. But what Hilton said she also didn’t realize at first was that the bullet had come from her own service gun, a semi-automatic pistol called the P320. It was still holstered inside her purse, according to the police report. Hilton is now suing gunmaker Sig Sauer over the December 2020 incident. “Never, in my wildest dreams, would I have believed that my gun would just have shot me,” she said. “Gun owners don’t want to think that their gun can just go off without the trigger being pulled.” Sig Sauer’s P320 is widely used by police departments across the country, and is a big seller in the civilian market, with about half a million sold nationwide. But now, P320 is the subject of multiple lawsuits in connection with incidents like Hilton’s, where owners claim the weapon fired without the trigger being pulled. Hilton said she was inside the Bridge City Police station when her gun went off. She still has the purse with the bullet hole in the bottom. “I picked up my bag, my keys were on top,” she said. “As I walked around my desk, my purse swings out and it shoots out the bottom of my bag.” It happened so fast, Hilton said, that she didn’t process what was going on at first, but she smelled the gunpowder. “And then I took one step, and I felt this pain. It felt like a hot rod of metal had just been placed not only in my private, but through my leg,” she said. “And it [the bullet] exits out [of] my lower buttocks.” Hilton said she still has pain from her injury. “There’s never a point that I’m really not in pain unless I’m laying down,” she said. Attorney Jeffrey Bagnell represents Hilton and several other police officers who have filed individual lawsuits against Sig Sauer over the P320. “I think it’s a very, very serious safety problem for law enforcement and for the public at large,” Bagnell said. “I’m not aware of any other semi-automatic pistol today that has this problem.” Hilton’s million lawsuit said, “There have been 54 reported uncommanded discharges of the P320,” meaning the gun Det. Brittany Hilton shows the bullet hole in the bottom right corner of her purse that she says was caused by her holstered P320 Det. Brittany Hilton says her P320 handgun was in its holster when it went off inside of her purse went off by itself, over the last five years in 22 states and Washington, D.C. Sig Sauer did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment. The gunmaker has previously denied liability for these incidents and, in some cases, blamed the plaintiffs for negligence. The gunmaker said in an August 2017 press release that “the P320 meets and exceeds all U.S. standards for safety.” After Hilton’s incident, the Bridge City Police Department had Sig Sauer examine the gun. In Sig Sauer’s response to the Bridge City Police Department after Hilton’s incident, the company contends that “a foreign object entered the trigger guard (causing) the pistol to discharge.” Hilton disputes that, saying the gun was holstered in her purse and that it would be near impossible for something to wedge inside the holster and be enough to pull the trigger. “I’m very pro-gun,” Hilton said. 42 The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE 43