Stupid, just plain stupid~Man kills daughter while cleaning guns!

[Grandpa Shooter]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081119/ap_on_re_us/girl_shot

If selection of the most fit were working properly, the stupid father would be dead, not an innocent girl.  This stuff makes my blood boil.  Stupid f**** father!

MARYSVILLE, Wash. – A father arrested after his 6-year-old daughter was fatally shot in their Washington state home allegedly told authorities he had been drinking double shots of vodka while cleaning his guns.

Court papers say Richard Peters told detectives he had asked his daughter, Stormy, to bring him the .45-caliber handgun Sunday. He said he must have pulled the trigger, and the girl fell to the floor. She was pronounced dead Monday.

Bail for Peters, 42, was set Monday at $250,000. He has been arrested for investigation of first-degree manslaughter.

His attorney, Annika Carlsten, requested that Peters be released from jail, The Herald newspaper of Everett reported. She argued that Peters isn't a flight risk, or a danger to himself or the community.

"It's obviously a tragedy for all involved and my primary concern is for my client and his family," Carlsten told The Associated Press on Tuesday night, declining to discuss any specifics.

The Snohomish County sheriff's office said two other children were removed from the home by Child Protective Services.

[Manedwolf]

"Cleaning guns" = screwing around and pointing it at things while drunk.

[El Tejon]

"Cleaning guns"=attempting to avoid Murder prosecution

[MechAg94]

I guess the information is lacking.  It almost implies that he pulled the trigger while she was handing him the gun.  That is just as bad as "cleaning". 

[Standing Wolf]

She argued that Peters isn't a flight risk, or a danger to himself or the community.

Tell that to the dead child.

[HankB]

When I go to clean a gun, the first - and I mean the VERY first - thing I do is confirm its unloaded. (When I simply pick up a gun, unless it's something like a broken-open O/U shotgun where I can already see the empty chambers, I always - always - consider it to be loaded.)

"Cleaning guns"=attempting to avoid Murder prosecution

Bingo.

And when the deceased is the one "cleaning guns" I believe it's usually an attempt to avoid a finding of "suicide" which would deny life insurance benefits to the next of kin.

[MillCreek]

This happened ten miles north of where I sit.  Further details: it was a .45 Colt Double Eagle.  The accused said that he had pulled the clip and then pulled the trigger.  He did not rack the slide or do a chamber check.  He had a similar negligent discharge back on Halloween involving a shotgun.  He thought it was unloaded, did not do a chamber check or rack the pump, and pulled the trigger.  Fortunately, it was pointed at the ground and all he did was blow away a pumpkin.  At the time of this incident, he was sufficiently intoxicated as to be unable to drive. 

A followup news story:  http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20081119/NEWS01/711199793&news01ad=1#Marysville.man.charged.in.fatal.shooting.of.6-year-old.daughter

[Cliff47]

Just goes to prove that alcoholic beverages do not mix with cars or firearms.  Dulls the senses (sometimes ever so slightly), and drops the inhibitions (and/or common sense).

[Viking]

When I go to clean a gun, the first - and I mean the VERY first - thing I do is confirm its unloaded. (When I simply pick up a gun, unless it's something like a broken-open O/U shotgun where I can already see the empty chambers, I always - always - consider it to be loaded.)
Bingo.

And when the deceased is the one "cleaning guns" I believe it's usually an attempt to avoid a finding of "suicide" which would deny life insurance benefits to the next of kin.

I suspect that you missed one step here. The first thing would be to make sure you aren't intoxicated, correct? Unlike the clown in the article .

[Tallpine]

Nothing like Darwinizing your own offspring 

I'm becoming convinced that about half the population is too dumb to handle anything more dangerous than a plastic spoon.  :rolleyes:

[Viking]

Nothing like Darwinizing your own offspring 

I'm becoming convinced that about half the population is too dumb to handle anything more dangerous than a plastic spoon.  :rolleyes:

Even that might be too dangerous...choking hazard after all .

[coppertales]

Yeah, those that handle a spoon improperly end up like Rosie Ospoon.....What part of not touching the trigger unless you were ready to shoot did this guy not understand.......chris3

[geronimotwo]

horrid, here's another tragedy.

By Victor Whitman
Times Herald-Record
November 17, 2008
SWAN LAKE — A Swan Lake toddler has died and a New York City man has been charged with manslaughter in the hunting accident on a rural Sullivan County road Sunday afternoon.

State Police have arrested Edward J. Taibi, 45, of Howard Beach for the shooting that they say killed 16-month-old Charly Skala.

Around 4 p.m., Skala was standing in the kitchen of her grandparents mobile home at 1338 Horseshoe Lake Road, where the family had gathered to watch football.

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 The bullet ripped through a wall and struck her in the area of the right shoulder and neck.

She was taken by relatives in a car to Catskill Regional Medical Center in Harris, then flown to Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, where she died from her injuries.

Police say Taibi was in a tree stand and shot once at a deer, wounding it. He then fired a second time from about 400 feet away from the mobile home. He was hunting with a .300 Winchester Magnum high-powered rifle.

Taibi was arraigned in the town of Bethel court and taken to the Sullivan County jail on no bail. It is unclear if Taibi broke any hunting rules. He had hunted on the property before and was a friend of the property owner.

Taibi “was very broke up” about the incident and remorseful, investigators say.

The manslaughter charges stems from recklessness.

“His actions resulted in the death of another,” said Chief Investigator Mike Orrego of the State Police’s Liberty barracks.

“He killed a person. You do have the obligation to the safety of others.”

Authorities, led by the state police, were taking measurements on the property Monday morning.

“It is a tragic event,” Orrego said. “I hope this isn’t a sign to come for the remainder of the hunting season.”

The death of a little girl had hunters also shaking their heads in the nearby Swan Lake Country Store.

One hunter called it a freak “needle in a haystack shot.”

Neighbor Chester Davis Jr. said he sometimes saw the toddler playing with her parents and grandparents on play equipment outside the mobile home.

“They are nice people,” he said.

Davis himself was coming home from hunting, when learned of the accident. He could not imagine how a toddler so little and innocent, standing behind the safety of walls and being looked after by her entire family, could be killed in such a way.

“A grown person should be more sensible,” he said.

Reporter Ashley Kelly contributed to this report.

[lupinus]

To the first story, tragic, fry his ass.

To the second one?  While tragic, I fail to see anything criminal unless there is some gross negligence involved on his part.  Such as drinking, seeing the house so close and firing anyway, etc.

[Balog]

I hadn't heard of this, despite living a few miles away. Millcreek, has it gotten a lot of press around here? I avoid the local rags like the plague, and I don't watch tv.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

if i was on the jury the hunter would be ok  but i understand charging him   you are responsible for every bullet

[lupinus]

you are, and (assuming he's an otherwise decent guy of course) has has to live with the fact his bullet killed a child.

But that doesn't mean the bullet doing something completely unintended was manslaughter.  If he was in the woods, took a shot at the deer, and missed thats not manslaughter if he didn't know the house was there.  If he did then theres a case.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

you can get manslaugter lots of ways  car wreck  punch someone and he dies etc
i feel for the guy but the charge is appropriate  hopefully jury or judge will treat him right

[MillCreek]

I hadn't heard of this, despite living a few miles away. Millcreek, has it gotten a lot of press around here? I avoid the local rags like the plague, and I don't watch tv.

Actually, yes.  I read the local Everett and Seattle papers and it was in all of them, and all the local TV news broadcasts as well.

[MillCreek]

An update in today's (11/20/08) Everett Herald:

Published: Thursday, November 20, 2008

'I blew her away,' girl's father told police

A warrant says the Marysville man drank five double vodka drinks before fatally shooting his daughter.

By Jackson Holtz, Herald Writer
MARYSVILLE -- Richard Peters reportedly said he swallowed as many as five double vodka and Cokes before he fatally shot his 6-year-old daughter while cleaning a handgun Sunday.

"I blew her away," Peters told detectives, according to a search warrant filed Tuesday in Cascade District Court.

Peters, 42, was charged Tuesday in Everett District Court with first-degree manslaughter with a deadly weapon. He's accused of recklessly causing the death of his daughter, Stormy.

Paramedics and police rushed to the Tulalip home around 7:30 p.m. after Stormy's mother called 911 in hysterics to report that her child had been shot and wasn't breathing, the search warrant said.

Stormy, a first-grader at Quil Ceda Elementary, was taken to Seattle Children's where she died.

Detectives arrested Peters early Monday. They seized his clothes and ordered blood tests to determine Peters' blood alcohol level, according to court papers. The man appeared drunk, and told detectives he was too intoxicated to drive a car, the search warrant said.

Police found a partially empty bottle of vodka near the couch where Peters said he was sitting when the pistol was fired.

The results of the blood-alcohol test weren't available Wednesday, Snohomish County sheriff's spokeswoman Rebecca Hover said.

Peters allegedly told police he sent Stormy to get the pistol from his bedside. The man said he was holding the firearm in his left hand, near his chest. Peters told police he believed the gun wasn't loaded when he pulled the trigger, the search warrant said.

Stormy's mother told police a different story about how her husband got the gun, according to court papers. She said she gave it to her husband, and watched him remove the ammunition magazine and try to eject a live-and-chambered round by pulling the slide back, documents show. The bullet didn't come out and he fired the handgun when he tried to repeat the maneuver, according to the warrant.

After the gun went off, Stormy's mother noticed the girl slumped onto the floor, shot in the head.

Two other children, 3 and 8, were home at the time of the shooting. They weren't harmed and later were removed by Child Protective Services.

Peters is being held at the Snohomish County Jail on $250,000 bail.

[Antibubba]

"I blew her away," Peters told detectives, according to a search warrant filed Tuesday in Cascade District Court.

Drunk and stupid.

[freakazoid]

Why would they take his cloths? Also interesting that the mother and father are each giving a different story. Perhaps he was to drunk to even remember what had actually happened?

[Antibubba]

They seized his clothes and ordered blood tests to determine Peters' blood alcohol level,

Stormy's mother told police a different story about how her husband got the gun, according to court papers.

Just a guess, but since are two different stories, they'll examine the blood spatter and powder residue to try to determine which (if either) story is the real one.

[HankB]

The guy ought to be hammered by the law - there is no defense for what his did, drunk or sober.

But I found this interesting:

Detectives arrested Peters early Monday. They seized his clothes and ordered blood tests to determine Peters' blood alcohol level, according to court papers.

Don't police need a warrant in order to draw blood?