VERMILLION COUNTY, Ind.–A police officer accidentally fired his gun at South Vermillion High School Thursday morning and a student was injured.
At approximately 9:35 a.m., Deputy Tim DisPennett, a nineteen-year veteran of the Vermillion County Sheriff’s Department, was instructing a law enforcement class at South Vermillion High School. The classroom instruction was based on law enforcement scenarios. During the course of the instruction, police say Deputy DisPennett accidentally discharged his service weapon and the bullet hit a student in the classroom.
The student was taken to a hospital in Terre Haute and is expected to be okay.
Classes later resumed, but some parents decided to take their kids home from school early.
DisPennett has been placed on administrative leave, which is customary in these types of situations.
The school district sent out the following statement about the incident:
This morning at South Vermillion High School, there was an isolated incident in one of our vocational classrooms. The incident was an accidental discharge of a firearm by a law enforcement officer during a drill. One student was injured without life-threatening injuries and has been taken to the hospital.
