Skunk Costume Girl Shot by Cousin
An eight-year-old girl, dressed in a skunk costume for a Halloween party, was in critical condition at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh after being shot by her cousin, who thought she was a skunk.
The shooter, 24-year-old Thomas Grant grabbed a shotgun when someone at the party said there was a skunk wandering nearby, and his mother held a flashlight for him as he took aim.
The eight-year-old was shot in the neck, back and shoulder. She was flown to the hospital and placed in intensive care.
According to the Associated Press:
The Grant house sits of the side of a small hill, and at least two other houses appear to be within 100 yards. That could be important because it is a violation of state hunting regulations to shoot a firearm within a 150-yard safety zone around another occupied residence.
State officials also say that while it is legal to hunt skunks and to hunt them at night, that requires what is known as a furtaker license. It’s unknown if Grant had one.
Skunks are beautiful, harmless animals, whose only defense is to spray an attacker. Mother skunks generally forage at night to feed their babies.
It would have been nice if the human mother were as harmless as the skunk she wanted dead.