Area man charged with firing shot into house
A Monongahela man was arrested Tuesday night by Monongahela police after he allegedly fired a shot into a neighbor’s house, with the bullet lodging in the doorjamb of a boy’s bedroom.
Walter L. Banahasky, 56, was inside his apartment at 205 Chess St. about 9 p.m. when he allegedly fired a shot from his .40-caliber handgun into a house at 300 Second St.
“One of the officers had just turned from Second to Chess when a neighbor was yelling from her window that her house had just been shot,” said police Chief Brian Tempest. “He just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
The woman, identified in court documents as Janine Spence, and her husband and their two children were in the kitchen of the residence when the shot was fired. Spence told police they heard the sound of glass breaking but were initially unaware it was caused by a bullet. The bullet was found in the doorjamb and recovered by police.
The officer said he was asked other residents of 205 Chess if they called police when a man later identified as Banahasky said he accidentally fired his gun through his window into the neighbor’s house.
“He had been in his residence and came out wearing a shirt with ‘Gun Doctor’ written on it,” the chief said.
The officer saw a broken window in Banahasky’s apartment, as well as a broken window at the house across the street. Banahasky allegedly admitted to police he was intoxicated.
Police asked Banahasky where the gun was located, and he told them it was in the living room. The gun, a Glock 27, was found on the dining room table along with two spare magazines.
Police said Banahasky was kept in the department’s holding cell until he sobered up, then was arraigned before District Judge Mark Wilson on charges of reckless endangerment, discharging a weapon into an occupied structure, criminal mischief and public drunkenness. He was placed in Washington County jail on $50,000 bond. He is scheduled for a Sept. 1 preliminary hearing before Wilson.