By Bonnie Culverhouse
A teen-ager is recuperating at Ochsner LSU Health Center in Shreveport following surgery for a gunshot wound to the neck.
Minden Police Chief Steve Cropper said Monday evening, the 16-year-old male was shot by a 15-year-old male at a residence on Brackin Street, which is located in Minden District D.
“The one who did the shooting is actually the one who called us,” Cropper said. “He said he’d accidentally shot his friend.”
When police arrived, the victim was in the yard with a bullet wound to the front of his neck.
“We got the victim to the hospital, and he was airlifted to LSU,” said the chief. “He’s going to be fine.”
Cropper said officers were able to speak to the victim, who reportedly indicated the shooting was an accident.
“He said his friend didn’t mean to shoot him,” Cropper said. “The shooter indicated they were in the bedroom and the victim had a paintball gun and was looking at it. Then he asked the suspect to show him his gun – they had some kind of nickname for it because it’s an older revolver –,and he called it by the nickname.”
The chief said, according to the suspect, he had the gun in the palm of his hand and, “it just went off all by itself.”
The chief said officers examined the gun at the police department and found the trigger pull to be “heavy.”
“It takes a pretty good trigger pull to make the thing fire,” he said. “But there’s no indication that it was deliberate.”
Cropper said the suspect has been in trouble with the law in the past.
“He’s been in the court system and was wearing an ankle monitor,” the chief said. “He was on some type of probation, so he shouldn’t have had a gun of any kind.”
The suspect was charged with negligent injury, possession of marijuana and illegal use of a firearm.
He is at Ware Youth Center in Coushatta.
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