Family evacuates Des Moines apartment after gunfire comes through ceiling

[jnelsoninjax]

A Des Moines family evacuated their apartment on Friday night after gunfire came through their ceiling, apparently fired from the apartment above.

Police responded to Southern Knolls Apartments, 3708 Southeast 14th Street, at 8:31 p.m. after Leonard Rohelia realized at least one bullet had been shot through his ceiling and called police, according to a report. Rohelia and his wife, Tiffany Rohelia, were in the living room of their apartment with their two kids when they heard a noise that sounded like a firecracker.

Leonard Rohelia went outside to see if somebody was shooting fireworks, but when he came back in he saw that the television was damaged and surrounded by debris. One of the children then pointed out two holes in the ceiling above, prompting the family to leave the apartment.

When police arrived at the apartment above the Rohelia?s, nobody answered the door, and a maintenance worker provided a key to the apartment. Four officers and a sergeant entered the apartment, only to find it empty.

While clearing the apartment, officers found debris from a couch in the living room and a hole through the floor. In a bedroom, officers found a bag of marijuana, a narcotics pipe and a grinder.

In an open drawer in a nightstand in the room, police also found a package of shotgun shells.

From information provided by the maintenance worker, police were able to contact a female who lived in the apartment. Over the phone, she told police that a shotgun was located underneath a love seat in the apartment?s living room.

Under the seat, police found a Remington Wingmaster 870 12-gauge shotgun, as well as five rounds of shotgun slugs. A spent shell casing was also found under the seat.

The female resident returned to the apartment and told police that she had been sitting on the couch while her boyfriend, who had the shotgun in his hands, was sitting at the other end. While he was holding it, she said, the gun went off.

The names of the female and her boyfriend are blacked out in the report.

The woman told police that she and her boyfriend both left the apartment after the gun went off. They were both afraid that police would come to arrest them, she told police.

The woman told police that her boyfriend had left walking north on Southeast 14th. Police issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of reckless use of a firearm, marijuana possession and possession of drug paraphernalia.

The shotgun did not belong to the women or her boyfriend, she told police. Rather, it belonged to a friend named ?Jason? and they had been keeping it at their apartment for him.

Source

[DocM]

Dumbasses.

[PsyOpWarlord]

Damn this sounds like my apartment when I was living in Augusta, Ga. I had my neighbor fire a 12-ga shotgun (00 buck) from their apartment next door thru my apartment. It tool out a cd rack, 2 windows, a picture on the wall and some christmas tree ornaments.

At first he said it was someone that was there looking to sell him a shotgun and when it went off that person fled. But it turned out to be his father (he turned himself in and confessed while the cops were at my place) and they were drinking when it went off.

They were damn lucky I didn't have my weapons there yet since I just got back from a tour in S. Korea.

[Guest nicconics]

Damn this sounds like my apartment when I was living in Augusta, Ga. I had my neighbor fire a 12-ga shotgun (00 buck) from their apartment next door thru my apartment. It tool out a cd rack, 2 windows, a picture on the wall and some christmas tree ornaments.

At first he said it was someone that was there looking to sell him a shotgun and when it went off that person fled. But it turned out to be his father (he turned himself in and confessed while the cops were at my place) and they were drinking when it went off.

They were damn lucky I didn't have my weapons there yet since I just got back from a tour in S. Korea.

So you would have returned fire, making yourself as negligent as they were to begin with? You would be as much the problem then as well.

[Hum]

That darned Warwagon has been drinking again ...

[Growled Member]

In a bedroom, officers found a bag of marijuana, a narcotics pipe and a grinder.

No wonder the gun "went off." :D

[Keyboard Cowboy]

I very clearly remember a time when stuff like this almost never happened in Iowa... Funny how things change...