By Anindita Dasgupta
An F.B.I. agent accidentally fired his gun in Soho on Tues. May 23, as he was holstering his firearm after he and other agents had subdued a pair of men allegedly involved in a bank fraud case, according to the F.B.I.
Special Agent James Margolin, a spokesperson at the F.B.I.’s New York bureau said, “The shell casing was recovered but the actual bullet has not been located. The best indication is that it went directly into the sidewalk.”
Captain Anthony Bologna of the First Precinct confirmed that nobody was hurt during the incident, which occurred around 1 p.m. on Sixth Ave. just south of Grand St.
The F.B.I. had organized a meeting with Olushegun Onikosi, and Sharon Hazan, two men suspected of involvement in a bank fraud case, “with the purpose of making an arrest,” said Margolin in a phone interview last Friday. There was a brief struggle with one of the perpetrators, requiring several of the agents’ help in subduing him. Due to the usual ratio of officers to perpetrators as approximately five or six to one, Margolin estimated anywhere between 10 to 12 agents were called to help with the incident.
Margolin explained that while accidental shootings don’t occur often, the routine procedure of investigating and documenting exactly what happened and how it happened, is still underway.
“I’m not really at liberty to say much about it at this point, because there is an internal inquiry underway, but by not saying anything I don’t want to imply that there is any sort of a cloud above the agent,” he said. “It was basically just an accident.”
