Emergency Medical Services responded to a call at 10:45 Monday morning to the shooting range at Foothills Outdoor Xperience to find that Albany City Police Officer Brad Cross had been wounded in an accidental shooting following training maneuvers.

Cross was hit in the thigh with a 12 gauge slug round. Cross’ phone was also hit by the shot and is believed to have taken a lot of the velocity of the bullet.

The Albany Police Department was using the gun range to do its annual qualifying exercises that are required to be completed every year.

Albany Police Chief Ernest Guffey said the officers have to qualify with pistols, shotguns and rifles as a part of their annual training.

Several customers were in the store when the shot was fired, but with the recent activity on the range, no one thought anything was out of the ordinary about it.

Jack Pickens, employee at F.O.X., said the shot really didn’t register with anyone inside because the police officers all had been shooting at the range just prior to Cross being shot. He said they didn’t know anything was wrong until Ricky Marcum came running in looking for something to use as a tourniquet to stop the loss of blood from the wound suffered by Cross.

According to Guffey, the investigation is still ongoing and will be handled internally.

“I haven’t got to speak with Brad yet so I really don’t know how it all happened,” Guffey said. “From what I gathered, he was putting his gun in the car when it went off. I had already left and was about at the hospital when I came back. He is very lucky.”

Cross was transported to The Medical Center at Albany and flown to Nashville, Tennessee where he is in stable condition.

The investigation is ongoing by the Albany Police Department.