BUCKHANNON – An Upshur County woman was arrested over the weekend for allegedly firing a gun at the ground during an altercation with her boyfriend.
Christian I. Curtis, 27, of Buckhannon was arrested Saturday for wanton endangerment involving a firearm, a felony.
According to the complaint filed by Upshur County Sheriff’s deputy C.A. Forte, at about 12:30 a.m. on Saturday, the E911 Upshur County Communication Center dispatched Forte to a domestic incident in progress at a residence on Hickory Flat Road. The Comm Center advised that a caller stated there had been screaming outside the residence and a motorcycle revving its engine; the caller also said that he may have heard gunshots, the file says.
Forte was heading to the residence when he encountered a motorcycle traveling toward the intersection of the Tallmansville and Hickory Flat roads. He conducted a traffic stop on the motorcycle, and its operator told officers he was the boyfriend involved in the domestic dispute.
“He stated that while he was trying to leave, [Curtis, his girlfriend] was getting in front of him attempting to prevent him from leaving,” Forte wrote in the report. “He also stated that he had laid his bike down on its side, or wrecked while trying to leave.”
Lt. Marshall Powers with the sheriff’s office stayed with the boyfriend while Forte continued on to the residence where he spoke with Curtis’s mother. She told the officer that her daughter, Christian Curtis, had called to tell her that she and her boyfriend were in an argument. The mother also reportedly told police that Curtis could be found in the downstairs garage.
When speaking with police, Curtis said she had thrown her engagement ring “out of her upstairs window, which provoked the boyfriend to leave,” the file says. She stated that while he was leaving, she allegedly “placed him in a chokehold and wrestled him to the ground,” the complaint states.
According to the report, Curtis told Forte that while she was wrestling her boyfriend to the ground, she allegedly “took control of her boyfriend’s firearm he had on his person and began shooting it down into the ground outside of the residence.” Curtis said she had fired one bullet and then tossed the gun into an adjacent field, and after a short search, police found a firearm located in a field beside the residence.
“The firearm, when located, was jammed as if it had been attempted to be fired multiple times,” the report notes. “Also located in the driveway was one live round and one empty shell casing.”
Forte informed Curtis she was being placed under arrest for wanton endangerment involving a firearm.
Upshur County Magistrate Mark Davis set bail at $15,000 cash only.
The penalty for a conviction of wanton endangerment involving a firearm is imprisonment in the state penitentiary for a definite term of not less than one year nor more than five years, or, in the discretion of the court, confinement in the county jail for up to one year; a fine ranging from $250 to $2,500; or both.
