Gunfire lands Aleppo man in jail
State police say a feud between neighbors in Aleppo Township led to one man shooting at a pickup truck and home near where two residents were standing Tuesday night.
Multiple troopers responded to the incident at 516 Greene Valley Road about 9:15 p.m. and found one shotgun blast through the pickup’s windshield and pellets that penetrated the home’s living room wall.
Police said they spotted Neil Robert Young, 54, driving in a pickup truck near his home at 389 Quiet Dell Road and stopped his vehicle after he turned without signaling. Troopers said Young was “very intoxicated” and they found a shotgun and two shell casings in his truck, along with an open beer container resting between his legs, according to court documents.
Police said Young fired one shot at the pickup truck while driving on Green Valley Road and then returned moments later and fired his shotgun again, this time hitting the residence in “close proximity” to where Teresa Jones and Chloe Jones were standing. One person inside the home, Shane VanBuskirk, was just a few feet away from where shotgun pellets penetrated the wall, police said.
Young allegedly told police that a feud between he and one of the residents, Dusty Jones, prompted him to fire the two shots. He alleged that the neighbor had broken his vehicle’s windshield with a brick earlier that day and that he was “tired of (the) criminal acts and something just clicked.”
Police said Young told them he did not fire the shotgun toward the people standing outside the residence.
“He stopped at the house and fired a round up high on the trailer,” Trooper Christopher Babirad wrote in the criminal complaint. “He stated that he was not trying to hurt anyone.”
Young faces charges of discharging a firearm into an occupied structure, reckless endangerment, criminal mischief and driving under the influence, along with several traffic offenses.
District Judge Glenn Bates arraigned Young early Wednesday morning and he was taken to Greene County jail on $50,000 bond. A preliminary hearing before Bates has been tentatively scheduled for July 1 at 2 p.m.