Man confused mohawked woman with bird, shoots her

A gentleman in Grand Junction, Colorado was put on probation after shooting a woman in the head. Apparently, he thought the woman was a red bird but really she just had a red mohawk. The woman, who did survive, "may have been passed out from intoxication prior to being shot" and that a bag of suspected meth was found near her, according to UPI. The man, Derrill Rockwell, 49, was ordered to pay $10,000 in restitution and put on five years probation. From UPI:

Rockwell, who was banned from owning a gun for a 1995 attempted burglary conviction, told police he had gone outside with his .22-caliber rifle Oct. 5 to shoot a bird that had been harassing his cats. He shot once at what he thought was a red bird on a hilltop about 90 feet away, then heard a woman moaning in pain. He discovered a 23-year-old woman with a head wound.

"Shooter says he mistook woman for bird"

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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carlodog

See, in Colorado, when you shoot someone you suffer some consequences. And this woman didn’t even die! Take a hint, Florida.
- Culturedropout
  
  Isn’t there something about eating what you shoot, too…?
http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

There’s so much madness in this story.

My favourite bit, although mild in comparison to the shooting itself, is the fact that the man was attempting to protect his CATS from a BIRD. Given that urban cat populations are an active and significant factor in the decline of bird populations, this strikes me as being heaped with irony.
- http://plagmada.org Tim H
  
  I’ve seen particular birds harass particular cats, dive bombing them and drawing blood. It’s a real thing.
  - Sparg
    
    Yes, I’ve seen blue jays go after a couple of my cats over the years. Blue meanies!
- bob d
  
  Also, he was shooting a bird (that may have been protected) in what presumably was a public space with a gun he shouldn’t have had. Even if he had been right and had shot a bird, he should have been more severely punished.
- timquinn
  
  Not a given that cats are a significant factor in bird decline, that is a notion under attack as pseudo-science.
  
  (warning: toxoplasmosis-sufferer’s opinion)
Robert Cruickshank

Punks not dead. Just badly wounded.
adamrice

This headline is an excellent crash blossom. I initially read it as “a woman in possession of both a mohawk and a bird was befuddled by a man, who then shot her.”
bluest_one

Ah, the little-used Max Ernst Defence.

Ernst developed a fascination with birds that was prevalent in his work. His alter ego in paintings, which he called Loplop, was a bird. He suggested that this alter-ego was an extension of himself stemming from an early confusion of birds and humans. He said that one night when he was young he woke up and found that his beloved bird had died, and a few minutes later his father announced that his sister was born.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Ernst
- http://plagmada.org Tim H
  
  I never saw this before, and I’m an Ernst fan. It makes him sound like a crazy furry type.
  - PinkWithIndignation
    
    Or rather feathery?
  - lovelystrangeness
    
    If you’re a fan of surrealism, you’d better expect some surreal artist anecdotes. ;)
http://profiles.google.com/winterseale Winter Seale

Hey in Maine, there was a hunter who shot a woman wearing white mittens in her yard because he thought she looked like a deer.
Navin_Johnson

moaning in pain

You mean she didn’t let out a “Hu-hu-hu-ha-ha! – Hu-hu-hu-ha-ha!” and run away?
phor11

Am I reading this wrong?
He was banned from owning a gun, but yet he only got probation after shooting someone with a gun that he was banned from owning?
- Brainspore
  
  WHY DO YOU HATE THE SECOND AMENDMENT?
  
  If guns are outlawed for outlaws, then only… wait. Hmm.
- Mister44
  
  It depends on the state. Felons with guns in other states can receive a mandatory prison sentence. I believe Missouri ran a campaign that said “1 will get you 5″.
  - http://profiles.google.com/davearonson Dave Aronson
    
    It’s SUPPOSED to be FEDERAL law (i.e., state law can go pound sand) that being a convicted felon in possession of so much as a single round of ammunition, gets you a minimum five years in Club Fed. But nooooooo….
noah django

>a bag of suspected meth was found near her
no word yet on the shooter’s drug-of-choice.
Mister44

re: “to shoot a bird that had been harassing his cats.”

What kind of… pussy cats… does this guy have?
AsteriskCGY

Tangentially related to that one CSI:Las Vegas episode.
- Brainspore
  
  Oddly that episode seemed ridiculously implausible at the time. Then again, most of what happens on that show seems ridiculously implausible to me.
HahTse

Wait, 10.000$? Don’t you guys “over there” usually settle for…let’s see…at least 10 times as much?
Agrajag

There are a lot of things about this story that don’t sit right with me. I live in Colorado. We don’t really have any red birds which are the size of a human head. The red birds we do have tend to be tiny, or not especially red. 90 feet is plenty close enough to clearly distinguish a tiny bird from a human being. And is the reporter suggesting that the woman was passed out from using meth? If so, I don’t think they understand how meth works. And even if she were a meth user, it seems pretty irrelevant to the fact that she was shot in the head from 30 yards away.

Knowing first hand just how red-necky Colorado can be, especially in the mountain towns, it seems to me just as likely that he shot her just because he didn’t like the look of her (didn’t want no goddamn freakers on *his* property) and then made up some dumb story to cover his ass. It’s like the red neck version of the Twinkie defense. Part of me is surprised he didn’t say, “She was coming right for us!”
- blueelm
  
  I’m with you. This story is a mess.
Green Ghost

The idea that any part of this guy’s story is true is highly unlikely. Too many of these bumkins just enjoy the idea of shooting anything that moves. The most exercise their brains ever get is trying to come up with a good excuse for their idiocy.
Daneel

I remember a few years ago in Washington State a kid killed someone that he claimed he mistook for a bear.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008088293_apwahikershot.html
http://www.facebook.com/people/Sean-Burns/845868306 Sean Burns

Please tell me what is wrong with this post that you feel you must delete it! Twice! What is “offensive” about saying the problem with the second amendment is that most of the people that want to own guns are the ones you wouldn’t trust with a dull knife? That they end up shooting themselves, other people, or their kids get their guns and shoot themselves? Please, Mr. Politically Correct Censor of naughty things, TELL ME what offends your sensibility so I never transgress you again. Dicks.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  The fact that it’s you injecting your political agenda into an apolitical post. In this case, the perp was legally banned from having a gun, so your insertion of 2nd Amendment politics is entirely off-topic. Here’s the basic rules:
  
  - Don’t ever bring up guns unless they’re mentioned in the post.
  - Don’t ever bring up gun control unless it’s mentioned in the post.
  - Don’t ever bring up the 2nd Amendment unless it’s mentioned in the post.
  - The fact that guns are in the post does not mean that you get to grind your political ax.
  
  Imagine if every time there was a picture of a baby in a post, somebody started talking about abortion politics. Because that’s exactly what gun politics is like to those of us who don’t want to hear about it all the time. And that goes for both sides of the issue.
- noah django
  
  I’ve butted heads with Antinous before (sometimes I drunk-post;) but whatever he is, I can assure you he is not a dick. His response to you is exactly what is called for.
  - cdh1971
    
    Agreed…if Antinous was, or wanted to be a dick…he’d leave my (and others) drunk posts up…