Sailor fatally shot aboard destroyer Halsey

The Associated Press
Posted : Sunday Mar 29, 2009 16:06:36 EDT

SAN DIEGO — The Navy is investigating the fatal shooting of a sailor aboard a destroyer undergoing maintenance at a San Diego shipyard.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brad ***an says 32-year-old Gregory Egan of Ridgefield, Conn. died last Sunday. Egan was killed on the deck of the destroyer Halsey, according to the Danbury News-Times.

Egan’s mother told the News-Times in Connecticut that her son died of a gunshot wound to the head after another sailor’s weapon misfired.

***an said he could not comment on the circumstances of the shooting due to an ongoing probe by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

Egan attended the University of Massachusetts and his family lives in Springfield, where funeral services are planned Monday.

His mother says Egan and his wife met while pursuing acting jobs in New York City before moving to California, where he joined the Navy two years before his death.

So it looks like an accidental shooting? An Actor? Hope he wasn't one of those "don't ask, don't tell" Left Coast guys. You know, the ones who hold their tea cups with two fingers.

A few years ago there was a website that listed the deaths in Iraq and how most of them died. It was astounding how many died of non-combat shootings. Cleaning guns, unloading guns, stacking guns, and so on.

It's happened before and will happen again as long as loaded weapons are involved.

If the weapon "misfired" he wouldn't have been shot.
But that's typical reporting by the AP

Navy: Halsey sailor died in suspected suicide

By Gidget Fuentes - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Mar 30, 2009 20:05:36 EDT

SAN DIEGO — The sailor who died from a gunshot wound aboard the guided-missile destroyer Halsey is thought to have committed suicide, a Navy spokesman said Monday.

Sonar Technician (Surface) 3rd Class Gregory Egan, 32, of Ridgefield, Conn., was shot on March 22 aboard the ship, which is undergoing maintenance at a San Diego shipyard.

“It appears from a preliminary examination that (Egan) was killed by a self-inflicted gunshot wound,” Lt. Cmdr. Bradley ***an, a Naval Surface Forces spokesman in Coronado, Calif., said Monday. “There is no one else involved.”

***an said it may take a month for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service to finish looking into Egan’s death.

Egan’s mother had told the Danbury News-Times that he was shot in the head when another sailor’s weapon misfired. But Navy officials sought to correct the impression that the sailor might have been shot by someone else.

Egan, who was married, enlisted in the Navy in 2007. He graduated in 2000 from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he studied theater and later pursued it as a career, writing several screenplays and appearing on the now-defunct prime-time NBC show “Third Watch,” according to his obituary in the Massachusetts Republican newspaper.

Something smells like a recently pumped dry dock here... Unless times have drastically changed, and personal arms allowed, the only side arm available are those assigned to a watch stander. And in this case it's most likely to have been the Quarterdeck POOW (Petty Officer Of The Watch). Providing at least another witness's to the shooting (OOD or Msg.). Although there is no mention on type of weapon it's reasonable to assume it was a hand gun.