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A teenager is hospitalized and a Rossville man is dead after an accidental shooting, fol-lowed by a suicide, Wednesday night in Rossville.

According to Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson, investigators were out late Wednesday night and into the early morning hours Thursday investigating the shooting.

The incident occurred between 5 and 6 p.m. Wednesday in an apartment at 20-B Longstreet Road in Ross-ville. However, law enforcement was not notified of the correct address of where the shoot-ing occurred until 10:41 p.m.

“Our preliminary investigation has revealed that this shooting was a accidental shoot-ing/suicide,” Wilson said at a news conference Thursday afternoon. “Apparently what took place, sometime around 5 to 6 p.m. yesterday afternoon, the 21-year-old Hispanic male and three juveniles Hispanic males were in the apartment at number 20B Longstreet Road in Rossville. As I have seen happen in the past, they were not utilizing safety measures when they were handling a handgun.”

Wilson said that the handgun used was a .380-calibur handgun.

“Apparently the 21-year-old had the gun in his hand, the gun discharged, striking the 16-year-old in the throat,” he said.

According to Wilson, the bullet entered the side of the 16-year-old’s larynx and exited out his neck.

“Seeing what had happened, the 21-year-old became distraught, upset (and) told the other two teens (in the residence) to leave the apartment and we believe shortly thereafter, that because what had taken place, he decided to put the gun to his head and shoot himself,” Wilson said.








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Wilson said that it was about 8 p.m. Wednesday when investigators believe the two teens, who witnessed the accidental shooting and left, were able to make contact with the 16-year-old victim’s mother. The mother then called Hamilton County (Tenn.) 911 and the call was routed to East Ridge Police Department dispatch and they went to the mother’s residence.

Wilson said the mother told authorities she only had knowledge that her son had been shot in Georgia and described the location to be somewhere off of Ga. 2, near a church with a lighthouse in front of it.

The East Ridge Police then relayed the information to Walker County 911 and the sher-iff’s office began searching the area, but it took several hours to locate the victim, due to the lack of information and the abundance of residences in the area, Wilson said.

Around 10:41 p.m. Wednesday, Walker 911 received a direct call of the shooting and the location was then discovered.

“This came about because the 21-year-old’s roommate had arrived home from work and discovered the crime scene,” he said. “It was at that point that law enforcement was able to go in, where we found the 21-year-old deceased and the 16-year-old suffering from a gunshot wound to the throat and neck area.”

Wilson said that the 16-year-old was taken to Erlanger Medical Center, where he was ad-mitted Wednesday night and is in stable-but-critical condition and is still in the hospital with a serious gunshot wound to the neck.

“The only silver lining, I guess, with his injury, would be the fact that the bullet did not penetrate a major artery in his neck. Apparently it was a clean wound that went front to back. Otherwise he would have lost a substantial amount of blood and would have also died,” he said.

Wilson said the victim’s prognosis is probably not that good in the longterm, as medical physicians informed investigators at the hospital.

Wilson said the other two teens were being interviewed.

Wilson said investigators have been told the two teens witnessed the accidental shooting, but left the scene prior to the suicide.

“What we want to know, the answers we need to know, is what took so long in them notify-ing someone who could communicate this to law enforcement. As it turned out, I don’t see that that would have changed the outcome of anything,” Wilson said. “But it could have.”

Wilson said the two teens waited two to three hours before the 16-year-old’s victim’s mother was notified, with very limited information.

“I do believe, probably, the age of those two young men, coupled with their nationality, with the fact that they had been in the United States only a limited amount of time, probably played a large role into that and we will take all of that into consideration,” he said. “If there were to be charges, it would be in juvenile court, but I am not saying that there will be.”

Wilson said it was not reported in a timely manor and around four to five hours had elapsed before they arrived at the scene.

Wilson said the 21-year-old might have been hazardous with the handling of the weapon and possibly showing off with the weapon.

No names have been released at this time. The 21-year-old’s identity will not be released until his family in Honduras has been notified. The 16-year-old victim’s name is being with-held because of his age.

Wilson said that the 21-year-old and the 16-year-old had been friends for about four to five months.

According to Wilson, the handgun was in the 21-year-old’s possession, but no one knows at this time if he is the rightful owner of the gun, or not.

“It was an Italian-made .380 handgun, which is somewhat unusual around here to find an Italian handgun, but we have not traced that back and I do not have any information on that,” he said.

“We can’t stress handgun safety enough. Handguns are good. They can be used for sportsmanship, they can be used for self-defense, but they can also, if someone does not properly know the operations of handgun or a shotgun or a rifle, it can turn deadly when there is no intention,” he said.

Wilson said free gunlocks have been offered in the past to anyone who would like to have one, especially in homes where children reside.

“I would encourage any parent or grandparent that has a child in that home to get a gun lock and to keep that gun in a safe place in a safe, where young children cannot get in touch with them,” he said.

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