Incident: Thursday, September 3, 2026, shortly before 4:00 p.m., inside Pittsburg Police Department headquarters on Civic Avenue in Pittsburg, California. Reported by the Pittsburg Police Department the same evening.
A 31-year-old man had been arrested on felony charges earlier in the day and placed in a holding cell at the police station. The charges he was originally arrested on have not been released.
Two officers went to the cell to move him to county jail. In the department’s own words, “a physical altercation occurred between the suspect and an officer, during which a firearm was discharged, striking the officer and the suspect.”
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The department has not said whose firearm it was, how it came to be in the cell, or how it discharged.
Update — Tuesday, September 8, 2026: Five days after the shooting, Pittsburg Police Chief Phil Galer released a detailed account of what happened inside the booking facility. It replaces the department’s original description of a “physical altercation.”
Galer said the man was searched twice — once at the arrest, and again after he was brought to the booking facility. The same officer conducted both searches, and both times missed a concealed firearm.
“This was a serious failure. We acknowledge it, and it will be thoroughly examined through an administrative investigation,” Galer said. “We will determine how it happened and take immediate corrective action to prevent it from happening again.” He added that the failure “cannot be allowed to obscure what happened next.”
According to Galer, the man hid the gun in a toilet after he was placed in a holding cell. While he was waiting to be transported to county jail, he retrieved it and concealed it under a blanket.
He then asked an officer for water, saying he was not feeling well. That officer brought the water and went into the cell to check on him.
“Without warning, he punched [the officer] in the face, threw the blanket over his head and repeatedly struck him in the head with the firearm,” Galer said.
The man fired one round. Galer said preliminary evidence indicates it passed through his own thigh before striking the officer in the abdomen, below his body armor.
The wounded officer fought back. “His actions prevented the suspect from firing another round and gave responding officers the time they needed to enter the facility, disarm the suspect and end the attack,” Galer said. The officers who responded did so “without hesitation and demonstrated extraordinary courage, discipline and restraint,” he said. Once the man was restrained, medical aid was given to both him and the officer.
The early KION account above — that the man had not been properly searched, and that the round passed through his leg before striking the officer — has now been confirmed in substance by the department’s own update.
The officer who was shot underwent surgery and is recovering. A third officer was treated for minor injuries and is also recovering.
The man arrested has been identified by the department as Michael Sanchez Gardner Martin, 31. He was treated at an area hospital and booked into county jail the same day on multiple felony charges. Contra Costa News reported that those charges include attempted murder of a police officer.
The shooting is being investigated by the Pittsburg Police Department Investigations Division and the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office. The department has also opened a separate administrative investigation into the two failed searches. Nothing has been cleared and nothing has been ruled.
Not released: the exact felony counts filed against Martin, and the findings of the administrative investigation into how the firearm was missed in two searches.
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