Charges Filed After Saint Paul Man Shoots Himself While Drunk

Nov 6

A Saint Paul man is charged after police say he accidentally shot himself in the leg while handling a loaded gun in a home where a one-year-old child also slept nearby.

Prosecutors have charged 23-year-old Boe Reh with felony reckless discharge of a firearm within a municipality and a gross misdemeanor for negligent storage of a loaded firearm accessible to a child.

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The incident happened around 6:45 a.m. on Sept. 25 at a home on the 900 block of Cypress Street on the city’s East Side.

According to the criminal complaint, police were called after Reh’s girlfriend reported waking up to find her intoxicated boyfriend had shot himself in the leg. Officers arrived to find Reh in an upstairs bedroom suffering from a gunshot wound to his thigh, bleeding heavily. They applied a tourniquet before paramedics transported him to the hospital.

Reh’s girlfriend told officers that the two had been in bed when he began playing with a 9mm handgun while on the phone with a friend. She said she suddenly woke up to the sound of the gun firing and saw Reh had shot himself. She said Reh also kept an AK-style rifle in the bedroom closet.

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Investigators photographed the scene and recovered a spent casing and bullet from the bedroom floor. The bullet was a hollow-point round that had expanded on impact. The handgun, still loaded with a live round in the chamber, was moved to a nearby room after the 911 dispatcher advised Reh’s girlfriend to secure it.

Police found the loaded rifle sitting unsecured on an open shelf in the same bedroom where the couple’s one-year-old child regularly sleeps. Officers also interviewed family members who said they heard the gunshot and helped Reh after the shooting.

Reh, who has a permit to carry a firearm, was unable to be interviewed at the hospital and has not returned investigators’ calls since the incident. If convicted, he faces up to two years in prison and fines for the reckless discharge charge, and up to one year for negligent firearm storage.

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