A Mount Vernon police firearms instructor who oversees the department’s training program is on injury leave after shooting himself in the foot at headquarters this month.
Sgt. Kareem Lloyd’s gun went off during the early morning shift on Friday, Aug. 8.
The shooting was not publicly revealed by the department or the city. Asked by The Journal News/lohud about the shooting the following week, city spokesman Timothy Allen issued a statement confirming that an investigation was ongoing into an accidental discharge of a weapon at police headquarters just after 5 a.m. on Aug. 8.
The statement did not identify Lloyd or specify where in headquarters the shooting occurred, although Allen subsequently said that it was in the training unit office and that it was the officer’s service weapon that discharged. The statement said that the officer was the only one present at the time of the shooting and had suffered a minor injury that was treated at a hospital.
Lloyd, an 11-year veteran of the department, was promoted to sergeant in 2021. He is among several firearms instructors in the department and is in charge of the training program. He has also served in the past on the security detail of the city’s mayor and as a member of the Emergency Services Unit, the department’s SWAT team.
In February 2017, Lloyd was among four officers who fired at a suspect’s car at the wild end of a chase that began on South Fulton Avenue in Mount Vernon and ended on Bronx Boulevard in the Bronx. A woman in the car was shot in the shoulder and she and the driver were eventually acquitted of criminal charges and sued Mount Vernon.
A Bronx grand jury declined to indict the officers.
Last year, the City Council approved a $600,000 settlement for the woman, Shakira Dawson, and a $30,000 settlement for the driver, Robert Johnson.
Coincidently, at that same meeting, the council approved a $25,000 payment to Lloyd to settle a lawsuit he brought after being injured when his personal car was struck by a police car in July 2018, according to council minutes.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Mount Vernon police sergeant injured when gun goes off at headquarters
Reporting by Jonathan Bandler, Rockland/Westchester Journal News / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
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