MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – A 58-year-old Brooklyn Center man was sentenced to four years in prison, with a stayed five-year sentence, in connection with the accidental shooting death of his son last November after the two had been drinking.
Howard Glenn Bascomb pleaded guilty Thursday to second-degree manslaughter in Hennepin County Court. In addition to his stayed sentence, he will have to spend 273 days in a workhouse.
According to a criminal complaint, Brooklyn Center Police responded to a report of a shooting at about 3:20 a.m. on Nov. 2, 2011, at a residence on the 6800 block of York Place North. The caller, a woman at the residence, said she was woken up by a gun shot. She told police she then saw her boyfriend and his father, later identified as Bascomb, had been sitting at a table drinking and playing with a handgun that had discharged.
When authorities arrived, they found that the victim, later identified as 23-year-old Alexander Aaron Bascomb, had suffered a gunshot wound to the chest and was slumped over in a chair. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Howard Bascomb told police the gun was his and that he and his son had been drinking late the night before and early that morning. He said at some point they decided to field strip the gun and put it pack together. When they were attempting to put it back together, the safety was off and Howard Bascomb’s finger was on the trigger when it discharged, striking his son.
The complaint states Howard Bascomb wasn’t paying attention to the safety when the gun went off, and the shooting was his fault.
