THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, April 29, 1996 TAG: 9604290070
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LEXINGTON, VA. LENGTH: Short : 44 lines
A 10-year-old boy was killed when a handgun apparently accidentally fired Saturday at the Virginia Military Institute indoor rifle range.
The school identified the dead boy as John M. Pickral.
According to the school, the boy, his mother and five other members of a 4-H group stopped by the range on their way to the VMI skeet range around 1 p.m. The mother spoke with James A. Thorp, the school's rifle coach and a 4-H shooting sports coordinator, about a gun show that Thorp planned to attend on Sunday.
According to a school release, Thorp took two handguns - a .38-caliber and a .380-caliber - from a locked cabinet to show the boy and his mother. Thorp pulled back the slide of the .380 semiautomatic to make sure there was not a round in the chamber. When he released the slide, one of four rounds in the weapon's magazine was chambered. According to the school's release, Thorp was unaware that any rounds were in the magazine.
After the boy and his mother examined the weapons, they returned them to Thorp. As he was putting the weapons back into the locked cabinet, the .380 discharged. The bullet passed through Thorp's left hand and hit the child in the chest.
The boy was taken to Stonewall Jackson Hospital in Lexington, where he died at 2:07, according to the school.
The state police investigated the shooting, along with Lexington town authorities and school officials.
VMI spokesman Mike Strickler said Thorp had been the school's rifle coach since 1980 and had been involved for many years teaching firearm safety for the 4-H and other groups.
Why the pistol's magazine would be loaded was a mystery, Strickler said.
``There is not to be anything left loaded down there (at the range). We just don't know how there were rounds in a magazine,'' he said.
KEYWORDS: FATALITY ACCIDENT SHOOTING by CNB