title:  L.A. Cop Accidentally Shoots Himself While Chasing Suspect (VIDEO)
text: A Los Angeles County sheriff s deputy accidentally shot himself while chasing a suspect on February 10.According to the Los Angeles Times, the unnamed deputy sustained a gunshot wound to the calf. He was taken by ambulance to a local hospital, where he received medical treatment for non-life threatening injuries.According to the L.A. Times, the officer attempted to stop a vehicle at around 4:00 in the morning, when the driver fled the scene. The deputy ran after the suspect and accidentally shot himself. Police have not released further details on how the shooting took place.Here s more on the story from KTLA.Just over a week ago, the L.A. County Sheriff s Department mistakenly released a murderer.According to Fox 11, 37-year-old Steven Lawrence Wright was  accidentally  released from jail at about 1:00 in the afternoon, on Saturday, January 30.Wright was arrested on murder charges and was awaiting trial.The Sheriff s department finally realized that Wright had been  mistakenly  let out of jail at 9:30 pm on January 31, more than 32 hours later.Wright was finally recaptured on February 8, nine days after he was first allowed to walk out of the jail. Not surprisingly, the accused murderer had fled the state of California. He was taken into custody in Boulder City, Nevada.But ineptitude isn t the only thing that is troubling the L.A. County Sheriff s Department this week.The department has been under intense public scrutiny over the past several years. A five-year-long federal investigation has resulted in the convictions of more than a dozen officials on a wide-range of brutality, abuse and corruption charges.Those convicted include Undersheriff Paul Tanaka and former Captain William Thomas Carey, along with a list of other former department officials and deputies.On February 10, the L.A. Times reported that former sheriff Lee Baca, who retired in 2014 during the height of the abuse and corruption scandal, pled guilty to making false statements to investigators.Baca struck a plea agreement with prosecutors, who promised to drop additional charges in exchange for the guilty plea. Under the agreement, he will serve no more than six months in prison for his crimes.The almost unbelievable ineptitude and corruption in the L.A. County Sheriff s Department should serve as a warning to all of us.Police are not infallible. Sometimes they make stupid mistakes, like accidentally shooting themselves in the leg or mixing up their prisoner list. Sometimes they abuse their power and violate the nature of their oath.We don t do our society any favors when we put cops on a pedestal or automatically assume that having a gun and a badge makes them infallible. Featured image from screen capture via KTLA