A bumbling city correction officer in desperate need of target practice accidentally shot himself and a colleague on Friday while attempting to adjust his shoulder holster as the two were driving to a shooting range, authorities said.
Ramel Small, 33, was sitting in the passenger’s seat as he and a fellow prison guard, Wayne Feliciano, 35, were cruising through Bushwick, Brooklyn, headed to a nearby shooting range to work on their aim, cops said.
The men had pulled over at a gas station on Bushwick Avenue to fill up when Small decided to try on a brand new holster, a correction source said.
Small slipped the new shoulder holster over his head and transferred his gun into it from his old pancake holster, the source said.
As he was adjusting the holster, the gun went off, sending a bullet through his left hand and into the right hip of Feliciano.
“It seems like the trigger may have got caught up as he was putting it in the holster,” a source explained.
“Obviously, he didn’t have the safety on.”
The tubby, bald Small was seen grimacing in pain at the scene after an army of cops and Emergency Medical Services personnel arrived in response to the call of officers shot.
Small was wearing his badge on a chain around his neck and an airbrushed T-shirt touting a “5th Annual BBQ” event that pitted officers from the Robert N. Davoren Center at Rikers Island against a different unit.
His belt was undone and he was bracing his arm.
NYPD cops collected the discharged weapon as evidence.
The wounded jail guards were taken to Kings County Hospital in stable condition.
The investigation is ongoing, cops said.
Small isn’t the first law-enforcement officer to accidentally shoot himself while holstering a firearm.
A New York City police officer accidentally shot himself in the leg in August as he was attempting to return his weapon to a secure position following a domestic dispute in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, authorities said.
Additional reporting by Aaron Feis and Kevin Fasick