FRANKLIN—Authorities are investigating the accidental, self-inflicted shooting of a police officer at a Franklin clothing store.

Franklin Police Cpl. Keith Rose, who also pastors Pine Level Baptist Church in Capron, was wounded at about 2:30 p.m. Friday at Manhattan Fashions, located at 152 Council Drive, in the shopping center adjacent to Wal-Mart.

Store owner Wong Choi said Rose had purchased a shirt and was trying it on in the fitting room at the back of the store when the gun went off.

“I heard a shot,” Choi said. “He had a gun in his pocket.”

Emergency workers used a stretcher to wheel a conscious Rose out of the store and into a waiting ambulance. He had a bandage wrapped around his left leg, just above the knee. Three city police cruisers were on the scene.

Within an hour the Nightingale air ambulance landed in a vacant lot in front of Wal-Mart to transport Rose to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, where he was reported in stable condition Friday night.

“We are working on an investigation,” police spokesman Lt. Tim Whitt said, adding that no additional details were available.