Dec 3, 2018 2 min read

Police officer faces charges in shooting

SPRING GROVE(AP) – Pennsylvania State Police officials say they have charged a police officer who says he meant to use his stun gun when he shot a handcuffed man in the leg.

State police filed charges against Southwestern Regional Police Officer Stuart Harrison on Friday – six months after the shooting at a bank in Spring Grove.

The York Dispatch reported the 56-year-old faces a second-degree misdemeanor charge of simple assault.

Harrison’s attorney characterized the shooting as accidental, but said he needs to review the charging documents. Southwestern Regional police said Harrison has been placed on unpaid leave until further notice.

Police said Harrison wounded the 33-year-old man while attempting to arrest him.

Woman pleads guilty to causing death

ERIE (AP) – An approximately 300-pound woman has pleaded guilty to third-degree murder for killing her nearly 120-pound boyfriend by beating him with a table leg and sitting on him, rendering him unable to breathe.

Authorities said 44-year-old former home health aide Windi C. Thomas entered the plea in Erie County court on Monday, agreeing to a recommended sentence of 18 to 36 years.

Defense attorney Mark Del Duca said Thomas passed out on top of 44-year-old Keeno Butler as a result of drinking. He says it wasn’t intentional.

Del Duca says the “actual cause of death is she collapsed on him and he basically died of suffocation.”

Prosecutors said she stabbed him in the hand and head and beat him severely in the head with the table leg.