MANSFIELD, MASS. (WHDH) - Police say a Mansfield man with a history of drug arrests is now facing charges after a teenager was nearly shot Monday night as she slept in her bedroom.
Officers responded around 9 p.m. to an apartment on Eddy Street for a report of a firearm that had been discharged.
“My daughter came out with a hot bullet in her hand. It came up through the floor and bounced off the bureau,” the girl’s father said.
It was determined that the bullet was fired from a downstairs apartment, entered another apartment through the floor in a 15 year-old’s bedroom inside a third-floor apartment, according to police.
“I got really fired up. It was chaos. Things got really hectic,” the father said.
Police say officers recovered a Marlin rifle from 29-year-old Timothy Downs’ apartment. They say he was playing with the weapon when it went off.
“He said he was screwed and on probation. He seemed like he was intoxicated,” the father said of Downs, who confessed to the shooting.
A Mansfield police report stated that Downs had white powder on his nostrils and that he lied when officers responded, saying a “male dressed in all black” broke into his apartment and fired a gun. Downs claimed he ran after the individual with a pellet gun.
Police say Downs later told the truth, admitting to accidentally firing the weapon as he showed it to a friend.
Downs was arrested and charged with firing a gun inside a building, disorderly conduct, distributing the peace and improper storage of a firearm.
Downs could face additional charges. He was previously arrested in Feb. 2014 on narcotics possession and distribution charges.
No one was injured.
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