AI Summary
5 min readA Three-Year-Old Didn't Really Shoot Another Hunter
During Wisconsin's annual youth turkey season last spring, a 35-year-old deputy with the Racine County Sheriff's Department took his three-year-old daughter hunting on public land. The man was carrying a 12-gauge shotgun and walking around blind calling—he had never taken a hunter education course, though Wisconsin exempts military veterans from that requirement. According to the criminal complaint, he rested the shotgun on a log, aimed it, and then instructed his daughter to reach over and touch the trigger when he said so. He had mistaken movement forty yards away for a turkey. That movement was a fellow deputy from the same sheriff's department, who was mentoring his seven-year-old son.
The shot hit both victims hard. The father had his arm around his son's shoulders, and that arm caught some of the pellets. But the boy took the worst of it—multiple pellets to the head, upper neck, and back. He spent several days in the hospital. Doctors later removed every pellet they could, but as of this reporting, the boy still has one pellet in his brain, one in his skull, and one in his spine. The father had twelve pellet wounds, mostly on his left side.
How the Details Emerged
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What you'll learn
- 1 (03:23) **Show Kickoff and Youth Turkey Shooting Tragedy** - Steve introduces the episode's lead story: a three-year-old who shot another hunter during a youth turkey hunt, and brings in reporter Pat Durkin to discuss the case.
- 2 (10:38) **Charges and Uncovered Details** - Durkin reveals that the shooter faces four felonies and that the victims were not strangers but fellow deputies.
- 3 (14:16) **The Psychology of the Mistake and Hunter Ed Exemptions** - The panel discusses how hunters invent details in their minds, and the controversy over exempting veterans from hunter safety.
- 4 (21:50) **Debate on Age Requirements for Youth Hunting** - Steve and Pat discuss the wisdom of eliminating minimum age laws for mentored hunts.
- 5 (28:56) **Meat Grind Calculator and a Game Warden's Letter** - A new tool for calculating burger fat ratios is introduced, followed by a game warden's perspective on the Wyoming elk abandonment case.
- 6 (44:40) **Panel Debate on the Wyoming Elk Case** - The crew argues about the legitimacy of leaving a wounded animal overnight and the hunter's actions with the grizzly.
- 7 (50:52) **Gray Areas: Dispatching Wounded Game After Dark** - A discussion on the legality of using artificial light or a knife to finish a wounded animal.
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Guests on this episode
Show Notes
Steven Rinella and the MeatEater Crew Discuss: last spring’s Wisconsin turkey hunting tragedy; how to get the right blend with your burger meat; is the snow goose free-for-all coming to an end; a kid gets busted for peddling black market turtles; 14 bears are euthanized in Bozeman thanks to an illegal bait pile; and more!
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