Firing guns noted as ‘common’ for New Year’s
A 21-year-old Frankford man allegedly shot and killed his girlfriend after his gun accidentally went off in the car on the way home from a New Year’s Eve party early Monday morning.
Dagsboro resident and 2004 Indian River High School graduate Kathryn L. Harris, 20, was shot in the lower back just after 2 a.m. while traveling in the passenger seat on the way home from the party, police said. She was taken to Beebe Medical Center in Lewes, where she was pronounced dead at 3:35 a.m. Monday morning.
Michael A. Givens was arrested and charged with criminally negligent homicide and the possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. After his arrest, he told police that he had drank alcohol and smoked marijuana that evening — factors that led to the “criminally negligent” type of charge, according to police. No further charges are expected. Givens was being held in Sussex Correctional Institute in lieu of $33,000 cash bond, awaiting a hearing.
The Givens family could not be reached for comment.
When reached at home on Tuesday, Harris’ father and Selbyville police officer Larry Harris declined to comment on Monday’s incident but called his daughter a “beautiful girl. Everybody loved her,” he said. “She was my baby girl.”
Givens had allegedly brought the .40-caliber gun to the party, where he shot it off several times to celebrate the New Year — a common occurrence in Sussex County, police officials said.
According to police, Givens removed the gun from a backpack in the car on the way home to unload it. While it was in his lap, the gun fired once, piercing the front passenger chair and Harris’ back, police said. A female friend of Harris was driving the car and her brother was in the back seat next to Givens, who was sitting directly behind his girlfriend.
After the shooting, they reportedly drove to Harris’ parents’ house, which was nearby, called police and attempted to perform CPR.
“(Givens) removed the gun from the backpack to allegedly unload it, and while it was in his lap, it just fired one round,” said Cpl. Jeff Oldham, Delaware State Police spokesman. “So, obviously, he had to pull the trigger for it to go off.”
Harris and Givens had been dating for about four years and were both home from college on winter break, Oldham said. They attended separate schools in Pennsylvania, he said.
When police arrived at the scene early Monday morning, officers took Givens into custody without incident and found the gun on the floor of the back seat on the passenger side, according to police. Everyone in the car confirmed the accidental-shooting story, Oldham said.
Delaware State Police dispatchers received “multiple” reports of gunfire throughout Sussex County at the turn of the New Year, late Sunday night and early Monday morning, Oldham said, calling the shootings “common” and usually legal. Oldham said that Givens’ gun was purchased legally and no prior incidents kept him from carrying the firearm.
“Some people might shoot off fireworks. Some people might bang pots. (Shooting guns) is a common occurrence here during New Year’s celebrations,” Oldham said, admitting that alcohol consumption is another common occurrence on New Year’s. “It’s obviously not something the state police would recommend you do, (but) if it’s on somebody’s private property and it’s not near other dwellings, it’s legal.”
Ken McLaughlin, Ocean View’s chief of police, said no one within the town reported gunshots on Monday, calling it a non-problem there. Selbyville’s Police Department has only received one such complaint in the last two years, Chief Scott Collins said.
“We haven’t had those problems in town and, hopefully, we won’t,” McLaughlin said. What goes up must come down. People ought to be cognizant of that.”
The apparent mixture of alcohol and a gun was the glaring, fatal mistake that likely contributed to Monday’s incident, McLaughlin added.
“You don’t mix alcohol and firearms,” he said. “That’s one of the cardinal rules.”