Criminal Charges Lodged Against Hunter
Tuesday, December 5 2006
Ross Younglove III
RED CREEK - The state Department of Environmental Conservation has filed six misdemeanor charges, including two counts of second-degree reckless endangerment, against the hunter whose bullets hit an occupied home on Livingston Road Nov. 22.
DEC Region 8 Commissioner Sean Hanna said Thursday that in addition to the reckless endangerment counts, Ross Younglove III, 20, faces two counts each of discharging a firearm over a public highway and discharging a firearm within 500 feet of a dwelling.
The case, investigated by DEC officers, will be heard in Wolcott Town Court; Younglove was issued an appearance ticket for Jan. 4.
Second-degree reckless endangerment is a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail or a $1,000 fine. The other charges are unclassified misdemeanors.
Younglove, of Kakat Road, Wolcott, was hunting with several other people off Kakat and Livingston roads about 2 p.m. Thanksgiving Eve when he fired at a deer, shooting twice across Livingston Road.
The bullets missed their target. Instead, they pierced the walls of Kim Neal’s home on Livingston Road, narrowly missing her 13-year-old niece. Neal’s 21-year-old daughter was also in the home at the time. The three had just sat down in the living room after a busy day of holiday preparations, Neal said.
One of the bullets brought debris from the wall down on the 13-year-old. The other bullet traveled through Neal’s son’s bedroom and landed 15 feet from the home’s back door.
The bullet that hit the wall over Neal’s niece lodged in a stud in the wall.
No one was hurt in the incident, but Neal said it shook everyone up because it could have been potentially deadly.
She said no one from the hunting party came to her door to let her know they had hit the house. She ran outside and saw the hunters walking away when she stopped them and asked who they were and discovered one of them was Younglove, who is a neighbor.
Younglove has declined to comment on the incident, but his mother said it was an accident and that her son did not intentionally shoot at Neal’s home.
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