Houston mom shot son while aiming at escaped puppy: cops
A Houston mother accidentally shot her 5-year-old son while trying to fire at a puppy that got loose in her neighborhood, police said.
Cops responded Saturday and found the child struck in the abdomen by a ricocheting bullet, Houston police said Tuesday.
His mother, Angelia Mia Vargas, 24, is facing one count of deadly conduct-discharge of a firearm in the incident that was caught on a doorbell cam.
“Investigators learned the child’s mother, suspect Vargas, had fired a small caliber pistol three times at a dog running loose across the street,” police said in a statement.
The boy, who was not publicly identified, was rushed to a hospital in stable condition with non-life-threatening wounds, police said.
The dog that dashed outside, a 6-month-old boxer puppy named Bruno, was not seriously wounded by the gunfire, police said.
A 4-minute doorbell video shows Bruno’s owner walking briskly outside after the dog.
“Bruno, get over here, Bruno!” the man says.
Seconds later, three shots ring out, prompting screams from several people outside as the dog’s owner walks back into his home.
Multiple people can be seen huddling together in the upper right corner of the footage. At one point, a man is heard screaming about the decision to open fire on the dog.
“F–king idiot, man,” the man says. “Real f–king smart, real f–king smart!”
The pup’s owner told KTRK Bruno ran out as he opened the “door just a little bit” while thinking his brother was there and got the dog excited.
“So, I open the door just a little bit and he comes running out,” said the man, who asked not to be identified.
Bruno was grazed by a bullet to the leg, but was otherwise OK, his owner said. The man received a citation for having a loose dog, police said.
“She could have handled it differently,” Bruno’s owner told KTRK. “You know, she was there, her husband was there, I was there, nothing would have happened. Nothing bad like that.”
