There have been other instances of a police officer intending to deploy a Taser and discharging a firearm instead, though such errors are not common.
In 2018, a rookie Kansas police officer mistakenly shot a man who was fighting with a fellow officer. In 2019, a police officer in Pennsylvania shouted “Taser!” before shooting an unarmed man in the torso. And in 2015, a former Oklahoma reserve deputy killed an unarmed man when he mistook his handgun for a stun gun.
Greg Meyer, a retired captain in the Los Angeles Police Department and a use-of-force expert, documented nine similar instances from 2001 to 2009 in a 2012 article published in a monthly law journal produced by Americans for Effective Law Enforcement, a nonprofit.
In six of the nine cases cited in the article, the officers carried both weapons on the same, “strong-hand” side of their bodies. In the other three, however, the officers carried the weapons on opposite hips with the Taser positioned so that they could cross-draw it, the article said.