undercover narcotics officer 復習

アメリカ，フロリダ州で母が娘を侵入者だと思って発砲し，死亡させたという事件が起きました。加えてこの母親は日本でいうところの１１０番係で，夫は元麻薬捜査官という家庭で起きた悲劇なので，全米の注目が集まっています。

Florida mother shoots daughter she thought was intruder

A woman in St. Cloud, Florida, woke up just before midnight Tuesday and fired a shot at a person she thought had broken into her home. But the person wasn't an intruder; it was her 27-year-old daughter.

The woman fired one round, but police didn't say where the bullet hit the daughter. She died at a hospital. The shooting appears to be accidental, police said. An investigation is ongoing.

"The homeowner's story is consistent with the physical evidence and the witness' statement," police said.

The woman's husband is a former undercover narcotics officer with the St. Cloud Police Department. In a recording of the 911 call provided by police, the husband tells a dispatcher that his daughter has a pacemaker and heart problems. She had passed out, he says. He does not mention a gunshot.

After getting instructions to start CPR, the husband leaves the phone and a woman frantically talks to the dispatcher. The daughter is still breathing but very slowly, she says. About five minutes into the call, the dispatcher tells the woman that paramedics should have arrived.

The officer, a 17-year-veteran, is on administrative leave but is not under investigation, the department said. The mother is a 911 dispatcher for the Osceola County Sheriff's Office. St. Cloud is south of Orlando, in central Florida. Police have asked the media not to identify the family members involved for safety reasons because of the husband's past as an undercover officer.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/30/us/florida-mother-shoots-daughter/index.html

ここで取り上げる表現は “undercover narcotics officer”です。『ジーニアス英和辞典』（大修館書店）で意味を調べてみますと， “undercover”で「秘密で行われた[行う]；諜報活動に従事する」とあり， “narcotic”で「麻酔薬；催眠薬」や「《主に米》非合法の薬《麻薬・覚醒剤など》」と定義されていました。LDOCEでも確認してみたところ， “undercover”は “undercover work is done secretly by the police in order to catch criminals or find out information”， “narcotics”で “strong illegal drugs such as HEROIN or COCAINE”とありました。

以上から，文中の “undercover narcotics officer”は「麻薬取締おとり捜査官」のように訳すことができます。なお，LDOCE によると“narcotics agent”という表現もあり，これは “a police officer who deals with the problems of narcotics”と定義されていました。おとり捜査をすることから “agent”という表現が使われると考えられます。（Inaho）