A Pennsylvania man is facing charges after he allegedly discharged a gun by accident and an 11-year-old in the apartment next door was hit with some of the resulting debris.
18-year-old Roque Stella-Colon lives in an apartment complex in Hummelstown, approximately 4-miles from Hershey.
Last Saturday evening around 10:00 pm, Stella-Colon was reportedly in his residence with a loaded firearm.
While the gun was allegedly in the man’s hand, it reportedly fired and the bullet penetrated his headboard, through one of the walls inside the apartment, and ended up in one of the neighboring units.
When the bullet allegedly entered the neighbor’s apartment, it propelled through the TV set causing part of the electronic to bust apart and hit an 11-year-old that was in the trajectory of the flying debris.
The child was reportedly injured by the event when the object hurled at their face and sliced open a section of their chin.
The bullet reportedly came to a stop when it entered a pile of clothes in the apartment.
The Hummelstown Police Department dispatched to the scene and noted that the child had been injured. Upon inspecting the apartment, it was purported that the offending bullet had come through the wall in Stella-Colon’s residence.
When the officers spoke with him about the incident, Stella-Colon reportedly disclosed that it was he who had discharged the gun and that it happened accidentally. He additionally allegedly copped to ditching the weapon outside of the apartment building near a trashcan in the area.
Stella-Colon was taken into custody and charged for suspicion of discharging a firearm into an occupied structure, recklessly endangering another person, and tampering with physical evidence.
He was housed in the Dauphin County Prison in lieu of $5,000 bail.
If you or someone you love is suspected of a weapons-related criminal offense, contact Orange County criminal defense lawyer Staycie R. Sena at (949) 477-8088 for a consultation now.