Target practice ends with bullets in 2 homes
Diana Penner, diana.penner@indystar.com 12:12 p.m. EDT June 3, 2014
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(Photo: Mpozi Mshale Tolbert Indianapolis Star)
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Some folks target shooting with high-powered rifles on a Johnson County farm this weekend apparently thought they were being safe, but four bullets ended up in two houses hundreds of yards away -- in children's rooms.

No one was injured, but the bullets pierced a window, walls and a stuffed animal.

The Whiteland property owner who let his brother and his sister-in law, as well as some teenagers, practice shooting at his rural home Sunday ended up with a fine for violating a county ordinance. And the people shooting told police they were mortified to learn where their bullets ended up, immediately stopped and promised to pay to fix any damage.

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Christopher P. Fox, Whiteland, was issued a firearms ordinance violation citation by the Johnson County Sheriff's Department after residents in two homes in the Southern Pines addition reported their homes had been hit.

Greenwood police responded and then called the Sheriff's Department, according to a police report.

Fox told investigators that his brother, Jared N. Fox, and the brother's wife, Monica J. Deakin, were visiting his residence. The couple was "supervising some teenagers and other young adults firing different types of firearms." Some of the young people apparently were the children of Deakin and Jared Fox, and they began target shooting about 11 a.m.

Jared Fox told investigators "multiple people were firing multiple firearms at targets placed in the field and a small tree line to the west."

The homes that were hit and damaged were visible beyond that tree line, a deputy wrote in his report.

According to a Greenwood police report, 10 to 14 people were target shooting, but not the homeowner himself. Most of the shooters were teenagers, using AR-15 weapons.

It appeared some bullets hit the dirt, ricocheted up and continued toward the subdivision.

Greenwood Assistant Police Chief Matt Fillenwarth, a firearms instructor for 15 years who has helped design public and private shooting ranges, said what happened is kind of like a stone skipping on water.

The high velocity of the bullets being fired -- between 3,000 and 3,200 feet per second -- means they travel a long distance before coming to rest.

The residents in the first home hit heard a bang, came into a room to find a puff of smoke that ended up being drywall powder still flying and eventually followed it to a toy box in a children's play room.

"Inside the toy box was a small stuffed animal that had stuffing coming out of it," the police report says. "A 5.56-mm bullet was recovered from the stuffed animal."

The residents of that home called Greenwood police, and while an officer was at the home, he could hear gunfire coming from the east. As he drove in that direction, he learned another home had been hit.

That home, several blocks farther west, was hit twice.

"One round went through a window and into an interior wall. The other round went through an exterior wall and struck an interior wall," Greenwood report says.

Fillenwarth said the homes that were hit are within Greenwood city limits but have Whiteland mailing addresses. The farm from where the shots were fired are covered by the Sheriff's Department.

No arrests were made because there was no criminal intent: the Foxes thought they had taken safety precautions, didn't realize the bullets could travel so far and pledged to never fire weapons at the home again.

Still, Fillenwarth said, such near-misses show just how important it is for people to educate themselves about laws and safety precautions.

"You're not throwing footballs into your neighbor's yard," he said. "You're shooting bullets."

Johnson County Sheriff Doug Cox said his department handles incidents like this one about once a month.

Call Star reporter Diana Penner at (317) 444-6249. Follow her on Twitter: @dianapenner.

To read the Johnson County ordinance covering the discharge of firearms, go to: http://co.johnson.in.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/updated_ordinances_Current_As_Of_1July131.pdf

I used to live in this area, know it well.

No way in h#ll should they have been shooting .223's on this flat of ground with no solid dirt backstop. They were shooting right towards a huge subdivision.

Thankfully no one was injured, but arrests should have been made.

"Johnson County Sheriff Doug Cox said his department handles incidents like this one about once a month."

That seems like a lot to me.....Always know what's behind your target! Makes you sick reading this and think about the "what if"..... Like Chevy said, glad nobody was hurt.

The anti's won't be the actual cause of more gun laws but instead it will be irresponsible gun owners.

This past deer season, I was scouting a property for a draw hunt(Reynolds Creek)....There is one lone farm house left on one of the roads just NW of where I was walking.....I started hearing gun shots and then zing, zing, richochets and zing, zip....I hit the ground......Thought I was back in the USMC .... I got the heck out of there and went back to my truck fuming mad....I drove around to where the shots were coming from and next to the house and set up ON THE DNR PROPERTY in a field were targets, pumkins and cardboard boxes and NO BACK STOP and shooting a AK 47, slug gun and .22's !!! ...3 teenagers were shooting directly towards the place I was at, INTO the DNR property .... they were on the the DNR property shooting !!......rather than get in a pissing match and bust their heads, I called the Sheriff's and went back to a safe area on the DNR place so I could watch the shooters....they continued shooting and I could hear the bullets whizzing into the woods where I was at...I was getting even more pissed ! ....finally they stopped and still no Deputy....He had to come from across the county...he finally showed up 35 minutes after my calls(I called multiple times)...I explained to him the situation and showed him the house/targets and where I was when the barrage started.....He went to the house and I stayed on the road in my truck....He got the dad to come out, he walked over to me and he apologized, saying he was sleeping and didnt know his son had set up the targets where they did.....I was still pissed !...I said THERE WAS NO BACK STOP !! and they were on the DNR property shooting into it...."Well, he said, I didnt know anyone was walking out there"...WTF ?? dosnt matter, I said, it is a unsafe condition...so he and the officer went back to the house and then the dad had his son pull every thing from the field...the officer there would be no more shooting till they built a secure backstop, and NOT facing the property.... I left still pissed and I get pissed thinking about it now.... friggin' IDIOTS !!