Woman accidentally shot by father was federal investigator

A father helping his 32-year-old daughter clean a pistol after target shooting accidently fired the weapon and killed her Saturday afternoon.

Melissa Kupferberg, an investigator with the U.S. Public Defenders Office, died at a hospital after being shot in the upper body, the Tampa Police Department said.

Police believe the shooting was an accident.

Kupferberg and her father, Stephen Kupferberg, 65, who was visiting from Maryland, were target shooting at a local range earlier in the day and returned to the woman's home on N. Willis Street in Tampa about 12:25 p.m. to clean the pair of pistols.

Melissa Kupferberg was having trouble disassembling her gun and gave it to her father, police said. The gun went off as he tried to tear down the gun, police said.

Police took both 9-mm Glock pistols. Glocks require the trigger to be depressed when field stripping the gun for cleaning, police said.

To clean a Glock, you first remove the magazine, then work the slide to eject a shell if one is in the chamber, said Lt. Donny Peters, Tampa police spokesman. Only after that do you pull the trigger to separate the pistol into three sections.

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