It's actually happened again

In another monumental example of Barney Fife-ery, an unnamed (natch) off-duty and out-of-jurisdiction Bonner County, Idaho sheriff's deputy experienced a negligent discharge of his duty firearm in a Lewiston hotel room while he was putatively practicing "dry firearm drills". 

Well, he seems to have learned how to successfully reload, anyway.

Fortunately no one was injured in the incident, although the adjacent room in which the round ended up was in fact occupied at the time.

This latest example of a blatant violation of basic gun-handling practices is stunningly similar to one in Minnesota we covered extensively a few years ago, right down to the model of pistol involved and the fact that an innocent bystander narrowly escaped injury, as well as the officer's apparent indifference in letting local law enforcement know about his little boo-boo in a timely manner.  Officer Gort, did you change jobs and states on us?

"[Lewiston Police Captain Roger] Lanier said no one else was in the deputy's room. He said Lewiston Police conducted an investigation and determined the accident was not reckless discharge of a firearm, which is a crime."

Why not?  It sounds pretty reckless to us, and almost certainly would have been called that if a common peasant had been the one who pulled that trigger.  We've also no doubt that the doofus's name would have been released by now if he had been a simple "civilian".

There seems to be a crying need for a rule forbidding cops from immediately practicing in hotel rooms what they have learned in training classes.  Isn't that just the kind of dumb and hysterically reactive policy the Brady Campaign or Violence Policy Center would be screaming for had these two almost identical incidents occurred with anyone else but police officers?

"Lanier said officers from around the state are in town all week for the training at the LPD training center put on by the Idaho Peace Officers Standard Training (POST)."

Let's be careful out there.