Posted on 03/15/2011 10:12:58 AM PDT by KeyLargo
Chicago Hts. cops: Fiddling with gun led to fatal shot
BY CASEY TONER
ctoner@southtownstar.com
Last Modified: Mar 15, 2011 08:48AM
Ryan Fantasia couldn’t figure out why his 9mm handgun wasn’t firing correctly, so he was fiddling with it Friday night in the bedroom of his Chicago Heights home, police said.
His girlfriend entered the room and told him to stop playing with the gun, but he pulled the slide back and the gun then fired, killing the 19-year-old woman, police said.
Haley Pelock, of the 3100 block of Courtney Lane in South Chicago Heights, died from a gunshot wound in the chest, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Fantasia, 20, of 43 W. 26th St., was charged with felony obstruction of justice for hiding the gun and originally telling police a different story, police said. Cook County Circuit Judge Darren Bowden set bail at $5,000 Sunday at the Markham courthouse, and Fantasia is next due in court April 4.
While trying to figure out why the weapon wasn’t working, Fantasia put a loaded magazine into the gun and began pulling the trigger, police said. It still wasn’t shooting until Pelock entered the room.
Chicago Heights police received a 911 call about the shooting about 7:30 p.m., police said, and when they arrived, Fantasia told them Pelock had been shot and was lying on the floor of his second-floor bedroom. Officers went to the room and saw Fantasia’s brother, John Fantasia, 30, attempting to give Pelock CPR, police said. Chicago Heights police Detective Art Robles said Ryan Fantasia, who hid the gun in the back of the house, initially claimed someone else had shot into the house.
Robles said Fantasia and Pelock had been seeing each other for about two years and there was no argument between them before the shooting, which they ruled accidental.
“You shouldn’t be playing with guns,” Robles said.
However did this guy get a firearms permit in Chicago?
It’s Chicgo Heights which is not part of Chicago per se. Not sure about their CCW/laws but yeah he would need an IL handgun card.
$$$?
I don’t buy it. He was going to keep playing with it until it finally fired into the wall or floor? Right.
Why, then, of course, they couldn’t blame the gun!
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