My Neighborhood

This is a story that you'd hate to hear about or discuss.

Local kid....sixteen years old....decides to sneak out of the house one night....go booze up and party with his associates.  He's staying at his dad's house (divorced situation).  House is in the nicer neighborhoods here in Virginia.

The kid parties and drinks up a bit.  Then somewhere after midnight....he comes back to the back of the house....hops the fence, and misjudges his house for a house two houses down (they are all built the same way and look similar).

The kid opens a window.

He's drunk and clumsy.

The kid makes noise.

The real owner of this house.....up on the second floor....gets up and flips the lights on.

The kid thinks he's still in the right house, and just progressing up the stairs.

The kid won't stop.

The owner has a gun, and is yelling for the kid to stop.

The kid doesn't stop.

The kid is shot dead.

Cops come.  It's a very long look over the mess.  It takes hours to really come to some sorting of facts.  The dad is called.  A fairly traumatic event.  Cops finally lay out the whole episode.

There's doubt if any charges will occur.

The kid's family has come out and said they forgive the older guy who shot the kid.  They can understand how this all came down.

The mother?  She was in the local area today.  She lives in Indianapolis and kinda admits that neighborhoods there are a bit rougher, and she felt the son was safer with the ex-husband, than in Indianapolis.

You feel sorry for the kid.  But on the stupidity scale....he was pushing a ten.

The guy who shot the kid?  He's sitting there and asking himself how this all happened.  If he'd locked the windows correctly....if he'd just shot the kid in the leg....there's probably a dozen ways this could have gone another way.