Ex-State Police investigator accidentally shoots himself at Sears


A retired State Police investigator from Ballston Spa apparently did his best Plaxico Burress impression in a Sears changing room Tuesday night.

My colleague Dennis Yusko reports:

A retired State Police investigator accidentally shot himself in the knee while trying on clothes in a Sears changing room Tuesday night, according to police.

Robert Talbot, 56, suffered the self-inflicted gun shot wound in Colonie Center Mall at around 8:22 p.m., when a .22-caliber handgun in his pants pocket accidentally fired, according to Lt. Stephen MacLasco of the Colonie Police Department. Talbot was taken for treatment to Albany Medical Center Hospital.

The incident left a pool of blood outside the changing room that a worker mopped up at around 9:05 p.m. Two security guards guarded the changing room.

Categories: General
Bryan Fitzgerald

52 Responses

  1. choirgirl says:

    why you shopping with your GUN. that is beyond idiotic. sometimes ya gotta leave it home!

  2. elmer says:

    Guns don’t shoot idiots, idiots shoot idiots!

  3. jerry says:

    Dear Mr. Talbot,

    Does this weapon have a “safety”?

    Do you know why that particular feature is called a “safety”?

    Please consider leaving the weapon at home. That round could have ended up in the body of some innocent bystander.

    Anyone who shoots themselves while using the changing room at the local Sears store has demonstrated beyond any doubt that they are no longer qualified to carry a handgun.

  4. Tom says:

    Wait – retired from the NYSP and shopping at Sears? For clothes?? Now THAT is more embarrassing than shooting yourself !

  5. comeon says:

    There is obviously something very, very, wrong with Mr. Talbot. HE WAS SHOPPING FOR CLOTHES AT SEARS?

  6. John Wells says:

    @choirgirl – have you not seen the news lately? People aren’t always safe in public places anymore ( i.e. movie theaters)! What’s your beef with having an armed cop in a mall/ theater/ other public place who could potentially terminate such an event quickly? Having said that, in this case, elmer has an excellent point!

  7. Janet Innes-Kirkwood says:

    Maybe he saw himself in the mirror in the Sears clothes and just couldn’t take it. Though Elmer’s comment sounds about right. That would explain the Sears dressing room, and the gun, and the hole in the knee. Next time try the army surplus store and go for the body armor.

  8. zyxw says:

    Isn’t it illegal to carry a weapon in Colonie Center?

  9. G says:

    Have you been to the mall during back to school season, it’s a dangerous place!

    The wound probably required a medium-sized Dora the Explorer bandage, it was only a .22, relax.

    Dumb move but it could have been a lot more serious, especially with a higher caliber weapon.

  10. Ray Gun says:

    He should sue Sears because this is NY and then get a full disability.

  11. jeff says:

    glad i wasnt in the dressing room next to this guy, maybe thats why Barney Phife kept his bullet in his shirt pocket and not in his gun , why do you need to have a loaded concealed pistol to go shopping at colonie center , i wonder if he got treated like that football player in albany when the cops arrived? and did they have their guns pointed at him?

  12. Yuk says:

    I can’t even say it this time (guilty).

    A .22 in the dressing room? I understand the mall gets ugly, but leave the little gun at home for all the love that is holy. The elbow or the knee would have done appropriate damage. And you wouldn’t have shot yourself so close to the nads.

    hoo god…

  13. Lathamguy says:

    Safety on – chamber empty – weapon under control at all times. Firearms-101.

  14. Jango Davis says:

    I wonder what all the gunnuts would says if that bullet went through to the next dressing room and killed someone. Yeah for the 2nd amendment! The NRA doesn’t care how many bystanders die as long s they get to wea their guns any place they want to. We cant do anything to regulate the existance of idiots, but we can regulate and control the sale and possession of weapons.

    I never heard of a criminal shooting himself in the leg in a dressing room, so right now, it looks like criminals know how to handle guns better than retired cops do.

  15. SaratogaJim says:

    That’s why only people who have undergone rigid training about the safe handling of firearms, along with having to undergo careful background checks to insure their mental competence, should be allowed to carry… oh.

    Never mind. Sorry officer.

    No mention on whether the pants were on at the time of the shooting, and if they were, whether they were the shooters or Sears. Inquiring minds want to know. If they were the store’s, check the peach polyesters on the sale rack if interested in a good deal on a collectible conversation piece.

  16. Hagar says:

    A little information about this lib anti gun nonsense is in order.
    I watched the news yesterday and read the usual stuff in the papers and its obvious a few things are left out.

    Most off duty cops carry when off duty, most retired cops carry when off duty. Now when you consider the amount of police agencies in the area (local, county, state and Federal + correction officers) there are a lot of guns being carried around. Normally you do not realize it because their concealed.

    Now as for the gun that retired cop was carrying, most serious gun people would not own/carry a piece of junk like that. It’s about the smallest thing that can be carried and with that short barrel really not much of a weapon. As for me I would rather carry a good fighting knife than that thing he was.

    There are also people (civilians) duly licensed to carry a concealed weapon in this state. After all the hoops that you have to jump through in this state to get a “pistol permit” you’re very well vetted and explored. People like cops, ex cops and duly licensed people hardly ever have a problem like the shooting in Colonie center or use their guns illegally. It does happen but not much.

    There are also a lot carrying a gun illegally, now these idiots make their presence known quite often. A simple read of the paper will tell you about their shootings and their constant arrests by the cops. Funny about that as NY has some of the most stringent gun control laws in the country.

    Bottom line legal guns, legally carried are not normally a problem, illegal guns carried illegally are a major problem.

  17. G says:

    ‘I wonder what all the gunnuts would says if that bullet went through to the next dressing room and killed someone.’ – You realize it was a .22 right? That thing wouldn’t kill a lobster. Relax.

  18. G says:

    All these ‘What if…’ scenarios are dumb. What happened, happened…that’s all. Leave the imaginary stories to the kids.

  19. Yuk says:

    #17 G – that was awesome.

  20. elmer says:

    So if it is a useless weapon, why carry one?

    And why precisely do “Most off duty cops carry when off duty, most retired cops carry when off duty”?

  21. Cash says:

    Plaxico Burress at least had an excuse.

  22. G says:

    Elmer, good question. I’d really like to know exactly why he was carrying a .22 and why he had it in Colonie Center of all places. You’re in a place that barely has incidents of shoplifting, let alone any major crime where a heroic retired cop would be of any assistance.

    It’s like a mechanic who’s not in the shop, having a swiss army knife in his back pocket. Dude, my exhaust is dragging on the ground and engine is on fire, thanks for stopping, but you can’t help me out at all. That’s exactly how that cop would have been if a real violent incident broke out…he’d be calling 911 like the rest of us.

  23. jeff says:

    #17 a 22 cal bullet killed robert kennedy

  24. Roz says:

    Remember the days when the State Police were respectable? Now they are just a joke. I’d rather have “Barney Fyfe” answer my call for help. He wasn’t the brightest bulb in the pack but at least he tried to fight crime and he sure as hell wasn’t lazy. I learned how useless the State Police are this past spring.

    At best, the NYSP are just revenuers, sitting on the Northway hoping to write tickets.

  25. sometimes curious says:

    An idiot is an idiot. Hopefully we can all step back to think about what that initial moment must have been like for the employees after the recent events in Colorado. Please, don’t come back with the line that the gun was a piece of junk and would not have hurt anyone. I am sure most of the employees would not have known that or been instantly able to process that point as the commotion started.

  26. Why Off-Duty Carry says:

    Many are asking why a retired or off-duty officer would carry a firearm. It is simple. During your career you tend to encounter many individuals. Some of these individuals you encounter are dangerous and violent individuals. Guess what? These individuals then, after being in jail or given probation (a joke), go out to public places. Sometimes in the these public places (ex Colonie Center) these individuals run into a retired officer or off-duty officer. That officer may have sent him to jail, taken his kids away from him, etc and essentially be the “cause” of why his life to a downward turn. Sometimes when these encounters occur, the retired or off-duty officer is with his family.

    Now let me ask you, do you think that there is a reason why a retired or off-duty officer might seek to carry a firearm when retired or off-duty?

    Listen there are many officers that will assist in helping out while retired or off-duty if something happens (and in fact many do), but I think most of these individuals carry a firearm to make sure they or those with them do not become a victim of a crime, exspecially one that bears out for something did in their offical role.

    Mistakes happen. This does not make it right, but millions of officers nationwide carry weapons on and off-duty everyday and they don’t have an accident. Thank God no one got hurt, but really this is a rare accident that just so happened in a mall, here in the capital district a few days after a horrific event happened in Colorado. Everyone is on edge right now.

    Remember that officers risk their lives and their safety everyday protecting us! They deal with lots of situation and some very dangerous.

    The individual involved here was a retired New York State Police Investigator according to the report. What kind of investigations did he do? What kind of people did he investigation and arrest? If you can answer those questions, then maybe you might get some insight as to why HE thought he should carry a firearm as a retired officer.

    Also, maybe he wasn’t carry the weapon because he was going to the mall, but because he went somewhere before the mall or was planning on going somewhere afterward. You can’t simply take a firearm and leave it in the car when you go in the mall. That would be completely irresponsible.

    So I think there is a lot of speculation here, with very little answers. But remember this, when an officer takes his uniform off, whether to go home for the night or to retire, they still carry with them all that the situations and people they have dealt with and the risks that go along with that.

  27. John Wells says:

    @elmer – look at it this way: you’re out shopping with your family and a real bada** you’ve locked walks up and says to you while staring at your kids “Yo’ Five-0 has kids – wadda’ know”. Hope that clears it up for you…

  28. Hagar says:

    Re post #20

    Most serious legal pistol carries carry as a minimum a .380 semi auto or small 2’’ barrel .38. that’s a minimum The better gun is a small 9mm or.40 cal or best yet a small .45. That little thing the X trooper carried with its tiny barrel is a gun, but if pulled will likely end up as a suppository used on its owner.

    To be frank he should have know that at the level he was at when he retired. That little pop gun with ultra short barrel is basically good for inside a bathroom stall and only if you hit an eye. THE gun that killed Kennedy was a much bigger barreled gun hence it had a lot more power and a very vital spot was hit. FWIW Kennedy had real bad luck that day>

    I stand on what I said before if offered that tiny gun or a knife with at least a 3’’ blade would pick the knife.

  29. elmer says:

    Sorry JW, respect but disagree. Has this happened? When was the last time you heard of a cop being attacked by a former bust?

    The bad guys don’t go after cops (thank God). Not because they are noble, just don’t have a death wish. How hard would it be for a gang member to figure out where a guy lives? Why wait for a chance encounter in a mall?

  30. misanthrope says:

    Okay, so off duty cops and retired cops carry guns so they can kill people they’ve previously arrested if they are spotted in public. Sounds reasonable.