brotherbill3
Master
Idiot altert:
I hope this was not anyone from here.
Target practice ends with bullets in 2 homes
NOTES:
Address:
6618 N 25 W
Whiteland, IN 46184 61 ft E
L-L:
39.573096,-86.109381
Nearest House – just across 75W
(that’s only ½ mile? – Shooter FAIL)
I hope this was not anyone from here.
Target practice ends with bullets in 2 homes
Diana Penner, diana.penner@indystar.com 8:31 p.m. EDT June 2, 2014
Some folks target shooting with high-powered rifles on a Johnson County farm this weekend apparently thought they were being safe, but four bullets ended up in two houses hundreds of yards away -- in children’s rooms.
No one was injured, but the bullets pierced a window, walls and a stuffed animal.
The Whiteland property owner who let his brother and his sister-in law, as well as some teenagers, practice shooting at his rural home Sunday ended up with a fine for violating a county ordinance. And the people shooting told police they were mortified to learn where their bullets ended up, immediately stopped and promised to pay to fix any damage.
Christopher P. Fox, Whiteland, was issued a firearms ordinance violation citation by the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department after residents in two homes in the Southern Pines addition reported their homes had been hit.
Greenwood police responded and then called the Sheriff’s Department, according to a police report.
Fox told investigators that his brother, Jared N. Fox, and the brother’s wife, Monica J. Deakin, were visiting his residence. The couple was “supervising some teenagers and other young adults firing different types of firearms.” Some of the young people apparently were the children of Deakin and Jared Fox, and they began target shooting about 11 a.m.
Jared Fox told investigators “multiple people were firing multiple firearms at targets placed in the field and a small tree line to the west.”
The homes that were hit and damaged were visible beyond that tree line, a deputy wrote in his report.
According to a Greenwood police report, 10 to 14 people were target shooting, but not the homeowner himself. Most of the shooters were teenagers, using AR-15 weapons.
It appeared some bullets hit the dirt, ricocheted up and continued toward the subdivision.
Greenwood Assistant Police Chief Matt Fillenwarth, a firearms instructor for 15 years who has helped design public and private shooting ranges, said what happened is kind of like a stone skipping on water.
The high velocity of the bullets being fired -- between 3,000 and 3,200 feet per second -- means they travel a long distance before coming to rest.
The residents in the first home hit heard a bang, came into a room to find a puff of smoke that ended up being drywall powder still flying and eventually followed it to a toy box in a children’s play room.
“Inside the toy box was a small stuffed animal that had stuffing coming out of it,” the police report says. “A 5.56-mm bullet was recovered from the stuffed animal.”
The residents of that home called Greenwood police, and while an officer was at the home, he could hear gunfire coming from the east. As he drove in that direction, he learned another home had been hit.
That home, several blocks farther west, was hit twice.
“One round went through a window and into an interior wall. The other round went through an exterior wall and struck an interior wall,” Greenwood report says.
Fillenwarth said the homes that were hit are within Greenwood city limits but have Whiteland mailing addresses. The farm from where the shots were fired are covered by the Sheriff’s Department.
No arrests were made because there was no criminal intent: the Foxes thought they had taken safety precautions, didn’t realize the bullets could travel so far and pledged to never fire weapons at the home again.
Still, Fillenwarth said, such near-misses show just how important it is for people to educate themselves about laws and safety precautions.
“You’re not throwing footballs into your neighbor’s yard,” he said. “You’re shooting bullets.”
Johnson County Sheriff Doug Cox said his department handles incidents like this one about once a month.
Call Star reporter Diana Penner at (317) 444-6249. Follow her on Twitter: @dianapenner.
To read the Johnson County ordinance covering the discharge of firearms, go to: http://co.johnson.in.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/updated_ordinances_Current_As_Of_1July131.pdf
NOTES:
Address:
6618 N 25 W
Whiteland, IN 46184 61 ft E
L-L:
39.573096,-86.109381
Nearest House – just across 75W
(that’s only ½ mile? – Shooter FAIL)
