Quote Originally Posted by TFOGGER View Post
The big differences: The man had not drawn his weapon, he merely gave her the courtesy of informing her, in the most nonthreatening way possible. There was another uniformed, armed guard there to verify his identity and right to be there. He did not have the alleged perps at gunpoint, in fact they had already fled the scene(although she was waiting for backup to make certain of that fact). The fact that he was cuffed and disarmed while she was uncertain of the presence or absence of the perps, thereby placing him in an unknown amount of potential danger while defenseless, is poor judgment at best. As soon as she disarmed him, she became responsibly for his safety, which she was apparently not capable of guaranteeing. Also, placing the weapon in a remote location without supervision was careless, not to mention a little chickenshit. The correct way to handle that would have been to drop the magazine, verify that the chamber was not loaded, and hand it back to him. I find it hard to believe that a patrol officer in a major police department would lack the basic firearms knowledge necessary to render a GLOCK, of all possible pistols, safe.
Well TFogger, I have to say I am very aware of the difference...I also have to say that If it were me, the handcuffing part is questionable. I wasn't there and I don't know what the average crime rate is for the area. I also don't know what the suspects look like, or the owner looks like for that matter. Criminals are only criminals until they get caught, so this guy turned out to be a law abiding citizen. The officer had no way of knowing that coming on scene. I am certainly not going to let an unknown person stay armed while I am trying to investigate a crime.

Unloading a pistol and handing it back to a person is not rendering it safe.