New documents reveal prior SIG Sauer M17 discharge at Army depot years before fatal training death

Newly obtained Army records are raising fresh questions about the use of the SIG Sauer M17 at Letterkenny Army Depot in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, where an 18-year-old soldier was later killed during firearms training.

In a WGAL 8 On Your Side investigation, anchor and reporter Tasmin Mahfuz said she obtained a U.S. Army mishap report from May 2021 that confirms a previous negligent discharge involving a SIG Sauer M17 at Letterkenny, years before the death of Specialist Krystofer Lopez.

Mahfuz was careful to say WGAL is not linking the 2021 incident directly to Lopez’s death. Still, the report confirms that the same platform of handgun had been involved in a prior firearms incident at the same depot, and that fact alone makes the unanswered questions harder to ignore.

The newly released details matter because Lopez’s family has already been asking what weapon was used, what training protocols were followed, and whether the fatal incident could have been prevented under rules that were already supposed to protect soldiers.

A 2021 Mishap Report Raises New Questions

Mahfuz reported that the U.S. Army mishap report dates back to May 29, 2021, when an M17 discharged as an employee tried to holster the weapon at Letterkenny Army Depot.

According to Mahfuz, both the employee and a witness said the gun operator did not have a finger on the trigger when the weapon fired. Some parts of the report are redacted, but the sequence described in the record is detailed enough to raise obvious questions about the gun, the holster, and the procedures followed that day.

At the start of the shift, the gun operator removed the weapon and placed the barrel into a clearing barrel. The employee then inspected the gun, inserted a loaded magazine, released the slide, and chambered a round.

After that, Mahfuz said, the employee tried to holster the weapon twice. On the third attempt, the M17 fired.

The round went through the bottom of the holster, entered the top of the employee’s cargo pocket, struck the employee’s wallet, exited near the calf, and hit the floor. According to the written version of Mahfuz’s report, a second employee said, “At no time did employee #1 have their finger near the trigger of the weapon.”

That does not prove a defect, and it does not explain what happened in the Lopez case, but it does show that concerns about M17 handling at Letterkenny did not begin with the more recent fatality.

Letterkenny Did Not Answer Protocol Question

Mahfuz said she reached out to Letterkenny Army Depot to ask whether safety protocols changed after the 2021 incident.

According to her report, officials did not answer that specific question, saying only that the matter is under investigation. That response may be procedurally cautious, but from the outside it leaves an important gap.

When an earlier firearm discharge is documented at the same Army depot, involving the same handgun platform later tied by the family to a soldier’s death, the public does not need speculation. It needs a clear accounting of what was learned, what was changed, and what safeguards were in place afterward.

Mahfuz emphasized again that the 2021 discharge is not being presented as connected to Lopez’s death. It is being presented as a prior incident involving the M17 at Letterkenny, and that is a narrower but still serious finding.

The distinction is important. Responsible reporting should not collapse two events into one theory, but it also should not treat earlier safety records as irrelevant when a fatal training incident remains under investigation.

Lopez’s Family Says He Expected Firearms Training

Mahfuz also spoke with Carmen and Hector Lopez, the parents of Specialist Krystofer Lopez, who said they talked with their son the night before he was killed.

Carmen Lopez said her son told them he had gun training the next day. His parents said they had spoken with him about Army firearms, including the M17 and M18, but believed he would not be using those specific guns.

“We told Krystofer the Army uses certain guns and we told him about it. And the M17s, the M18s,” Carmen said in Mahfuz’s report. “But Krystofer told us that they wouldn’t be using those guns. So, I guess we kind of maybe felt at ease at first.”

His parents say Lopez was killed with an M17 handgun on his first day of firearms training. Mahfuz reported that investigators sent the weapon to a ballistics lab in Georgia for testing.

That testing could prove crucial, because it may help answer whether the gun functioned as designed, whether any debris or mechanical issue played a role, and whether the training environment itself failed to prevent a loaded muzzle from pointing at a soldier.

Expert Points To Two Core Issues

WGAL asked firearms expert and mechanical engineer Dr. Joshua Harrison what investigators are likely to examine as they evaluate the weapon.

Harrison told Mahfuz that investigators may look for debris, check the amount of play between the slide and frame, and confirm that all safety components are present.

Harrison is a licensed pistol and range officer, and Mahfuz reported that he previously served in the Marine Corps, as well as in the Army as a field artillery officer and tactical and strategic intelligence officer.

In the WGAL report, Harrison offered a pointed opinion about the M17’s internal safety design, saying he believes it is weaker than some other handgun systems.

“I believe, in my opinion, the striker safety lock of the P320 or M17, or the military variants, is grossly inferior to the striker safety block plunger of a Glock or even the SIG Sauer P365,” Harrison said.

Harrison also said a gun going off by itself is rare. That matters because the investigation may not come down to one simple question of whether the pistol “just fired,” but to a broader review of whether the weapon, holster, training layout, and live-ammunition protocols worked together safely.

He told Mahfuz that if investigators find nothing wrong with the handgun, if all parts were present, if it was not dirty, and if there were no tolerance problems, then a training protocol failure becomes more likely.

The M17 And The Army’s Choice

Mahfuz noted that in January 2017, SIG Sauer won a 10-year, $580 million contract with the U.S. military to replace the Beretta M9 with the P320 platform, including the M17.

Harrison told WGAL he believes the Army made a mistake choosing the M17 because of its design, saying there were people at the time who believed the Army should have gone with Glock instead.

“A lot of people were saying that the Army made the wrong choice, going with SIG Sauer rather than the Glock,” Harrison said.

Mahfuz reported that WGAL reached out to SIG Sauer multiple times for comment, but the company did not respond by the time the report was filed. She also noted that SIG Sauer says on its website that the P320 is one of the safest and most dependable pistols in the world, with safety features designed to prevent firing unless the trigger is pressed.

That is a sharp contrast: on one side, a manufacturer standing by the platform’s safety; on the other, an expert interviewed by WGAL questioning the design and investigators now reviewing a weapon after a fatal training incident.

The contract’s timing also adds weight to the story. Mahfuz reported that the 10-year Army contract expires next year, and she has asked the Army whether it will consider changing weapons in the next contract.

Protocols Are Supposed To Prevent This

Letterkenny public affairs specialist Todd Wivell told WGAL in an email that live-ammunition training at the depot is governed by stringent Department of the Army regulations and local protocols designed to ensure maximum safety for personnel and the surrounding community.

Mahfuz also reviewed published regulations used for safety and training at Letterkenny. One manual says that before clearance to fire is granted, weapons and personnel must be properly positioned.

That point may become central to the Lopez investigation, because even if a firearm works exactly as designed, firearms training depends on layers of safety rules that are supposed to prevent a tragic outcome when something goes wrong.

Harrison said investigators will likely focus on two broad questions: whether there was a problem with the gun, and whether a loaded weapon was ever allowed to point at another soldier during training.

“Generally, if you’ve got a loaded weapon, it shouldn’t be pointed at another soldier, especially in a controlled training environment,” Harrison said.

He did not argue that military safety checks need to be changed. Instead, he told Mahfuz that existing rules should already prevent a tragedy like this.

“The muzzle should never be pointed at another soldier. That’s basic,” Harrison said. “This should not happen even under current military training protocols.”

That is perhaps the clearest line in the entire report. If the rules already forbid the dangerous setup, then the question becomes whether those rules were followed, supervised, and enforced.

Safety Steps Before Live Fire

Mahfuz reported that she also reviewed the Army’s training and qualification standards for the M17 pistol.

Before soldiers reach live-fire training, they are supposed to complete multiple safety steps, including weapons handling and ammunition instruction, dry-fire training, simulator work, and range safety briefings.

Those steps are designed to build habits before a live weapon and live ammunition are introduced. In theory, each layer should reduce the chance that one mistake becomes fatal.

Lopez’s death has turned those layers into a focus of investigation. His family’s statements, the ballistics testing, the newly obtained 2021 mishap report, and the unanswered question about whether protocols changed after that earlier discharge all now sit in the same larger frame.

Mahfuz’s reporting does not prove what happened in Lopez’s final moments, and it does not prove that the 2021 incident caused any later failure. But it does show that Letterkenny had documented experience with an M17 discharge years earlier, and that the public still has not been told whether that earlier incident led to any safety changes.

For Lopez’s family, and for anyone who expects military training environments to be controlled with the highest possible care, those answers matter.

The central issue is not just whether the M17 platform is safe on paper, or whether a single training protocol exists in a manual. It is whether the weapon, the rules, the instructors, and the live-fire environment actually worked together in the real world to keep soldiers alive.