• Stinky shot: Texas woman aims for skunk, accidentally shoots husband


    By James Eng, NBC News

    A Texas woman aiming for a pesky skunk that was feeding off cat food bowls outside her home wound up accidentally shooting her husband when the bullet ricocheted off the porch and struck him in the abdomen, a sheriff said.

    The accident happened Sunday night at the family’s home in a subdivision south of College Station, Texas, Brazos County Sheriff Christopher Kirk said.

    “Apparently they feed their cats out of bowls outside the back of the porch. They had a skunk that had been coming up there feeding. They decided they wanted to dispatch that skunk,” Kirk told NBC News on Tuesday.

    The wife went out to retrieve her .45-caliber handgun, which was legally permitted, from her purse in an office in an attached garage. The husband stayed inside the home.

    The wife shot at the skunk but missed. The bullet ricocheted off the porch, penetrated the back door of the home and struck her husband in the abdomen. The bullet did not damage any vital organs and wound up lodged in the hip area, the sheriff said.

    The husband was airlifted to a hospital in Houston, where he was treated and released on Monday.

    Kirk said investigators interviewed the husband and wife separately and their stories were consistent that the shooting was an unfortunate accident.

    “She was very concerned about her husband and certainly having created that situation,” the sheriff said of the wife.

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    The couple’s names were not released. Kirk said they were in their early 50s.

    The couple’s seven children were also in the home at the time but none witnessed the accident and none were hurt, the sheriff said.

    Kirk said investigators will present their findings to the prosecutor to see if any laws were broken.

    “Discharging a firearm in that situation was probably not good judgment,” Kirk said. “It certainly was reckless but I don’t know if anyone would be served if any charges were to be filed.”

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    Kirk said even the skunk cooperated with the investigation.

    “He actually came back while our investigators were at the scene and tried to feed again off the cat bowls. We chased it off,” he said.

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    308 comments

    I guess she got lessons from Dick Cheney.

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  • Police constable, gunman, civilian killed in gunbattle near Texas A&M

    A gunman wounded two police officers and killed two others before being fatally shot Monday near the campus of Texas A&M University in College Station. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

    By M. Alex Johnson and Edgar Zuniga Jr., NBC News

    click2houston.com

    Brian Bachmann, an elected constable in Brazos County, Texas, was serving an eviction notice when he was shot and killed Monday, College Station police say.

    Updated at 10:47 p.m. ET: A police constable and a civilian were killed when a gunman opened fire Monday near the campus of Texas A&M University in College Station. The gunman died after a gunbattle with police, authorities said.

    Police in College Station, about 100 miles north of Houston, responded shortly after noon local time (1 p.m. ET) to a home near George Bush Drive along the southern boundary of the university after gunshots were reported, Assistant Police Chief Scott McCollum said. When officers arrived, they came under fire and shot the suspect during what McCollum described as a 30-minute shootout.

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    Police identified the gunman as Thomas Caffall, 35, and the bystander killed as Chris Northcliff, 43, of College Station.

    Officers found Brian Bachmann, 41, the elected constable for Precinct 1 in Brazos County, on the ground and began performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Bachmann, who had gone to the scene to serve eviction papers, was pronounced dead at an area hospital, McCollum said.

    College Station city spokesman Jay Socol said authorities were still investigating Caffall's background. It was unclear whether Caffall was renting the home or was being evicted for nonpayment of a mortgage, he said.

    Bachmann, a Brazos County sheriff's deputy from 1993 until he was elected constable in 2010, "was very close to everyone in law enforcement here," McCollum said.

    "He was a pillar of this community," McCollum said. "It's sad and tragic that we've lost him today."


    Officials said the wounded included a 55-year-old woman, who underwent surgery, and College Station police officer Justin Oehlke, who was in stable condition after being shot in the leg.

    Officers Brad Smith and Phil Dorsett were injured by what police called gun shrapnel. Smith was treated at a hospital and released and Dorsett was treated at the scene.

    "We had officers respond to a 'shots fired' call," McCollum said at a news conference. "Once the officers arrived, they began to trade fire. The officers defended themselves and called in additional officers."

    Investigators were "working through their emotions," McCollum said.

    "You can imagine, as close as he was to all the officers in this area — these are the officers who are working this case," he said.

    Campus officials issued an alert early Monday afternoon to faculty and students for an "active shooter" two blocks southeast of the university, which houses former President George H.W. Bush's presidential library.

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    Melinda Ryan, Charles Hadlock, Terry Pickard and Julmary Zambrano of NBC News, and Reuters contributed to this report.

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