[StBernard] Fondness for stolen guns nets Chalmette teen more legal trouble

[Westley Annis]

Fondness for stolen guns nets Chalmette teen more legal trouble
by The Times-Picayune 
Friday October 17, 2008, 4:02 PM
A 16-year-old Chalmette boy who last month accidentally shot himself in the
head with a stolen gun was arrested Thursday for firing another stolen gun
outside his apartment window near an elementary school, authorities said. 

The St. Bernard Parish Sheriff's Office said the boy, who was not identified
because he is a juvenile, was shooting the .22-caliber rifle at a distant
apartment building around 2 p.m. Investigators Friday found bullet holes in
the exteriors of three apartments and three houses near the complex. There
were no reports of anyone being injured. 

The boy was caught after deputies in the area on a non-related call heard
shots and saw him waving the rifle out the window, the Sheriff's Office
said. 

Thursday's shooting in the 200 block of Eighth Street prompted a lockdown of
nearby Andrew Jackson Elementary School as a precaution, the Sheriff's
Office said. The front of the boy's apartment faces the school, but
authorities said he was firing the rifle in the opposite direction from a
back window. 

The boy has been booked with illegally discharging a weapon, discharging a
weapon within 1,000 feet of a school, criminal damage to property, burglary
and possession of stolen property. He is in the parish's juvenile detention
center without bond, the Sheriff's Office said. 

In a news release, St. Bernard Sheriff Jack Stephens said he is glad bond
has not been set because the boy is an "extraordinarily troubled youth who
must be segregated from society before he hurts someone." 

Investigators believe the boy stole the rifle from a residence near his
home. He was also in possession of a stolen nail gun at the time of his
arrest Thursday, the Sheriff's Office said. 

Thursday's brief lockdown of Andrew Jackson was a replay of Sept. 16, when
the school was locked down for a period after the boy accidentally shot
himself in the side of the head while handling a gun that he and two other
teens had stolen. He was booked with burglary after being released from the
hospital.