It happened on their son’s birthday, police say. According to the court documents, the couple went to bed shortly after midnight after singing happy birthday to Clayton.
Clayton told investigators that he had a good day with his parents. “When his dad told him he needed to go to bed, he got mad at him,” the documents stated.
When police asked Clayton what happened, he said, “I shot somebody,” according to the affidavit. “He admitted that he had someone in mind whom he was going to shoot, whom he identified as his father,” the documents said.
The wife told police there was a gun safe in the bedroom, but she denied knowing where the key was kept, according to investigators.
Clayton said he found the key in his father’s drawer and unlocked the safe in an attempt to find his Nintendo Switch, which was previously taken away from him, according to the documents.
Clayton admitted to “removing the gun from the safe, loading bullets into it and walking over to his father’s side of the bed,” the affidavit stated. “He pulled back the hammer and fired the gun at his father.”
When police asked Clayton what he thought would happen when he fired the gun, he said that “he was mad, and he had not thought about that,” investigators stated.
I learned gun safety and how to shoot when I was 9. Along with a few other friends. We learned on 22cal rifles, pistols, and 20g shotguns.
I didn’t even live in a gun heavy culture community. Kind of the opposite. Safety first.
It seems these parents might not be raising their kids very well, as well as sloppiness with the locked gun cabinet.
I’d shot rifles and shotguns by the time I was 10. We’d do the usual shoot tin cans across a small valley at my grandparents’ place. There’s more problems here than that the kid was familiar with handguns, of course. But it’s slightly ironic that the father surely showed him how to use the weapon and would likely be alive if he hadn’t done so.