An overly angry man added to the ruckus of fireworks for the Fourth of July by shooting off a gun in the direction of a 10-year-old child on Saturday.
The 45-year-old man discharged his .40-caliber pistol toward the 10-year-old child. It is unclear whether he was trying to murder the child or merely frighten him, but the result is the same: and adult man nearly killed a child.
And for what reason? The child was apparently shooting off fireworks just days before Independence Day. The boy called police and reported that his neighbor had fired his gun from a balcony.
Initially, the man lied to police, saying that he had shot a firework toward the child, rather than a firearm. He later admitted that he had lied and the weapon he used was recovered from his apartment shortly after.
The man has been arrested and charged with reckless endangerment, though it would seem reasonable to charge him with attempted murder as well. Either way, the man will surely require a mental health evaluation to determine what caused him to act out so violently against a child and hopefully make it so that he can never again own a firearm capable of murdering a child who was merely playing in his yard.
