UPDATE | The shot fired Friday at a gun store on Starkey Road in Seminole that injured a 19-year-old woman at an adjacent nail salon and day spa was accidental, Pinellas County sheriff's officials said.
The woman who deputies said suffered a serious injury was identified as Yaminah Gilbert of Largo. She was treated Friday night at Bayfront Health St. Petersburg and later released.
Detectives said 43-year-old Mark Smith, an employee at R&R Firearms at 9051 Starkey Road, was unloading a customer's .45 caliber handgun in the gun shop about 6:30 p.m. Friday.
Smith told detectives he was clearing the loaded firearm when he pulled the slide back and emptied the chambered round from the firearm. When Smith sent the slide forward on the handgun, there was a magazine with ammunition still in the handgun, a Pinellas County Sheriff's Office report said. The weapon accidentally fired.
A bullet pierced a southside wall then went into an adjoining business, Dara's Nail Salon and Day Spa, 9049 Starkey Road, Seminole.
Gilbert was seated in a salon chair getting a pedicure at the time. She suddenly felt pain in her back. Gilbert didn't know what had occurred until Smith reported the gun had gone off by accident.
No information was released about whether any charges would be filed.
ORIGINAL STORY | A new gun store in Seminole is at the center of an investigation after gunfire disrupts a customer's relaxing trip to the spa.
"Everybody's concerned," said Sgt. Howard Skaggs with the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. "It's not quite an everyday occurrence when a bullet comes through a wall."
Deputies say a gun went off inside R and R Guns around 6:30 Friday night.
One bullet went through the wall between the gun store and a salon and spa next door.
The round hit a woman in the back inside Dara's Nail Salon and Day Spa.
Medics rushed her to Bayfront Health with a non-life threatening gun shot wound.
The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office says both businesses are cooperating.
Now investigators are trying to figure out if someone is to blame.
"Right now we're just trying to determine if it was a crime was committed," said Sgt. Skaggs. "Whether it was human error, whether it was mechanical error. It's just crossing the T's, dotting the I's."
PSCO would not comment on who was handling the gun when it went off.
