Deptford boy recovering from gunshot wound

A 2-year-old boy accidentally shot in the face outside his Deptford home Thursday afternoon was at Cooper University Hospital in critical but stable condition yesterday, authorities said.

The boy's father is a Deptford police officer, Gloucester County authorities said.

Neither the boy nor his father has been identified, but property records for the home, on Trowbridge Avenue, identify the owner as Wayne Mulbaier, until recently a sergeant in the Wenonah Police Department.

Bernie Weisenfeld, a spokesman for the Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office, said two Deptford police officers were on the patio behind the home, in a small cul-de-sac in the Woodbury Gardens section, cleaning their service weapons around 4 p.m. One of the firearms discharged accidentally around 4:07 p.m., when a 911 call was made, Weisenfeld said.

Both officers were off duty. Earlier in the day, they had been firing at a range as part of their annual firearms qualifications.

Weisenfeld did not identify the second officer or say which officer's gun discharged. The boy also was on the patio, a short distance away, when the gun fired.

A news release Thursday night gave an incorrect age for the boy. He underwent surgery Thursday night at Cooper and his wounds were not considered life-threatening.

An investigation into the incident is continuing, including statements from the officers.

The guns the officers were cleaning were .40-caliber Glock pistols.

Paul Raynolds, an NRA certified firearms instructor, said the Glock does not have an external hammer but an "internal striker."

Before the gun can be "field stripped" for cleaning, the trigger must be depressed to uncock the striker, a feature that Raynolds called "inherently unsafe."

"The only problem is that if you left a round in the chamber, it's going to fire," he said. "I don't know if it's fairly common, but we've definitely seen other instances of this."

The procedure, he said, would be to take out the magazine and "rack the slide" to eject any rounds in the chamber, and visually inspect the chamber to make sure it was empty before pressing the trigger.

"Even if you check the gun 15 times, you would still point the gun in a safe direction," Raynolds said.