Texas Man, 42, Brings Real Handgun To Water Gun Fight With 15-Year-Old Girl, Shoots Girl
Police in Spring, Texas, said they arrested a man on Sunday after he shot a 15-year-girl with a handgun during a water gun fight at a family barbecue in front of a home on Saturday.
Two neighbors, Rasheed Seals and Micah Stewart, witnessed the bizarre incident that happened at about 5 p.m. C.T. in front of a house on Precious Place and Roth Forest in Spring, a suburb north of Houston in Harris County, Texas.
According to Seals and Stewart, a 42-year-old man, identified as Jason Speights, and a 15-year-old girl, were engaged in what appeared to be a harmless and playful water gun fight when the man shot the girl accidentally.
“We come around here to get home and there’s two people playing,” Rasheed said, “like they’re having a water gun fight.”
According to the witnesses, after the man and the girl had played water gun fight for a while, the man walked over to his car to get dry clothes. When he got to his car he began fidgeting with the gun in his hand, still playing water gun fight with the girl across the lawn. But suddenly and accidentally, the gun went off.
“It was crazy, like you would never expect somebody to bring a gun to a barbecue, or a family gathering at all.”
The bullet from the gun reportedly grazed the victim’s collar bone, inches away from her neck.
“The man went over there to his car to get dry clothes,” Micah said, “and he must have had the gun so he started playing with it and tried to do this [the witness simulates shooting a gun with his fingers] and I thought he probably had it on safety [but] he accidentally shot the girl in her collar bone area.”
The bullet passed behind the girl and hit a car parked about five houses away from the house, causing neighbors a scare.
“Don’t play with guns, not the right choice,” Rasheed Seals added.
NBC News reports that Harris County Constable Lt. Charles Hoover also confirmed the story. He said the girl was hit on the shoulder very close to her neck. Because the bullet missed her neck and only grazed her shoulder bone, she suffered non-life threatening injuries.
But Hoover declined to give additional details about the incident, saying the case was under investigation. But he confirmed that the incident happened during a barbecue, and the man was not related to the victim. He also confirmed that a bullet hit a car about five houses away.
Police officers reportedly arrested the shooter on Sunday for questioning, but KPRC was unable to confirm whether he would be charged. However, NBC News reports he has been charged with deadly conduct.
The Inquisitr reported last January about a deadly incident in Pearl River County in Mississippi, in which the owner of a gun shop and his teenage son were shot and killed during a Saturday afternoon shootout with another father and son pair who had visited their shop to repair a gun.
Dissatisfied with the service, the customers protested the $25 charge, and according to Pearl River County Sheriff David Allison, the owner of the shop and his son were shot and killed by the customer and his son amid a heated argument over the $25 charge.
Pearl River Chief Deputy Shane Tucker told the Sun Herald that although investigators were not certain who shot first, it appeared that as the argument got heated “there might have been some pushing and shoving. One of the customers and one of the owners produced firearms.”
[Image via Anne-Cathrine Nyberg/Wikimedia Commons]
