A 13-year-old girl was hit by a bullet fragment and left with a cut on her back after a man dropped his gun and it fired inside a Vancouver, Washington Costco, her mother says. Racheal Jackson said she and her daughter, Olive, had gone to the store on 84th Avenue and Andresen Road on Wednesday afternoon for a routine errand: picking out new glasses.
Instead, what should have been a quick trip to the optical counter turned into a scare neither of them expected. According to KPTV, Vancouver police said a man dropped his firearm and a round discharged as Olive was trying on frames. Jackson said she and her daughter heard a loud bang and then saw a smoking gun on the floor roughly six feet to their left.
Jackson said a small metal fragment from the bullet struck Olive’s back and left a cut. She said Olive was checked by a doctor and is physically alright, though still shaken by the incident.
Gun Owner Cited and Released, Police Say
Jackson said the man told her the gun had no safety, an account she relayed to KPTV that has not been independently confirmed through a police record. The station reported that Vancouver police cited the man for carrying a concealed firearm and released him at the scene.
Washington law generally bars carrying a pistol concealed on one’s person outside the home or a fixed place of business without a concealed pistol license, according to RCW 9.41.050. It is not established whether the man involved held such a license or what the full circumstances behind the citation were.
Mother Calls for Action After Scare
Jackson, a Portland-based muralist who has appeared on HBO Max’s Artfully Designed, said she was angry that someone could carry a loaded firearm into a Costco. She shared her concerns with her social media followers on the day of the incident.
“I just really wish that our politicians would actually do something to protect us,” Jackson said, per KPTV. She and Olive had been running an errand when the firearm discharged nearby.
Costco’s member-privileges policy prohibits firearms and other weapons inside its warehouses, except for authorized law-enforcement officers, according to the company’s member privileges and conditions page. The retailer had not responded to a request for comment from KPTV at the time of its report.
What the data and Costco policy say
The Washington State Department of Health reported about 300 firearm-related nonfatal hospitalizations each year among Washington residents from 2009 through 2013. Those historical figures do not establish how this incident would be classified. Costco says its firearm restriction is intended to apply at all its warehouses worldwide and is not customized for individual cities, counties or states, according to Costco Customer Service. The policy statement does not explain how the rule was enforced in Vancouver; the company’s member-privileges page, cited above, identifies authorized law-enforcement officers as an exception.
