[note: pics and hyperlink at linked article]

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“Intentional discharge of an aimed firearm” leads to rare criminal charges in Colorado death of hunter

Suspect Harry Watkins was “horrified” after fatally shooting his hunting buddy, Simon Howell, in Grand County. “It was reasonable to fire,” Watkins’ attorney says.

DEC 4, 2020 4:15AM MST

Jason Blevins
@jasonblevins
The Colorado Sun — jason@coloradosun.com


Harry Watkins and Simon Howell had hunted together for several years in densely timbered, steep terrain outside Kremmling.

Watkins, a 52-year-old from Pennsylvania, and Howell, a 26-year-old from West Virginia, were avid, experienced outdoorsmen. The annual Colorado elk hunt was a highlight of their season.

On Nov. 9, one of the hunters in their small party shot an elk. Howell and Watkins were among the hunters tracking the wounded, bleeding animal.

What happened next is unclear. Howell was shot and killed. Watkins has been charged with criminally negligent homicide in his friend’s death.

Public records requests sent from The Colorado Sun to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the Grand County Sheriff’s Office and the 14th District Attorney’s Office were denied. So official details about the very rare hunting-related homicide charge are not available.

“The rules of hunting safety exist to keep this exact kind of tragedy from happening,” reads a written statement from 14th District Attorney Matt Karzen, who filed the single felony charge against Watkins on Nov. 19. “Complacency and lack of discipline is all it takes for someone to be killed.”

Watkins’ attorney, David Jones, said the charge means his client acted unreasonably given the circumstances.

“We don’t feel he acted unreasonably,” said Jones, who described Watkins and Howell as friends and annual hunting buddies. “This was a truly unfortunate series of events. Based on everything he had in front of him, it was reasonable to fire.”

Jones, who is still waiting for investigation information from Karzen’s office, provided Watkins’ perspective of the day.

The hunting party — which Jones said was “three or four” hunters — had radios and was working together to track the wounded elk. Watkins saw the animal through thick trees, Jones said.

“He saw the antlers. He saw the brown. He saw the animal was down in the woods,” Jones said. “The problem was that his buddy had taken off his orange and was kneeling next to the downed animal. (Watkins) saw that the animal was about to get up and he fired. That’s what caused his buddy’s death.”

Jones said Watkins is an experienced hunter and knew the terrain around Kremmling and hunted there annually, usually with Howell. He said Howell did not call on the radio to say he was approaching the animal.

“The communication that the elk was down was never called out on the radio and (Watkins) didn’t know his buddy had found the elk,” Jones said. “He’s horrified. He’s been horrified since it happened.”

Karzen, who read a preview of this story in the Sun’s Outsider newsletter, offered a response to Jones late Thursday.

“No reasonable person fires a rifle at something without being 100% certain what they are shooting at, even more so if you know other people are in the area,” Karzen said. “It’s a gun, not a toy.”

Hunting deaths in Colorado involving firearms are uncommon and accidents resulting in serious criminal charges are even more rare. But they didn’t used to be.

In the decade before Colorado required mandatory hunter education for all hunters in 1970, fatal hunting accidents reached more than 10 a year and the state counted more than 200 non-fatal accidents a year. Now all Colorado hunters born after 1949 must undergo both classroom and rifle-shooting education and more than 900,000 hunters have taken a hunter education course in the state. Since 2000, the state sees about 500,000 hunters a year and averages about one annual fatal hunting accident. (Colorado Parks and Wildlife counts hunting accidents as incidents involving a firearm or an arrow and not a medical issue.)

The last hunting death by gun in Colorado also was in Grand County.

Ernest Ackerley, a 43-year-old father of five from Centennial, was shot north of Granby on Nov. 5, 2018, by a long-time friend. The friend was loading his rifle in a trailhead parking lot when the gun discharged.

The investigation into the death of Acklerly involved an accidental discharge, “as opposed to a targeted, intentional discharge,” said Leslie Hockaday with the 14th District Attorney’s Office in an email.

The District Attorney’s Office charged Ackerly’s friend with hunting in a careless manner and prohibited use of weapon, “after close consultation” with the Ackerly family, Hockaday said. But the case was settled before a trial.

Ackerly’s family, Hockaday said, “supported the charging decision and the negotiated resolution of that case, which although not dispositive, is important to the healing process.”

Howell’s death, DA Karzen said, involved the “intentional discharge of an aimed firearm, as opposed to an accidental discharge.”

That is a “critical distinction” between the deaths of Howell and Ackerly, he added.

Howell, who had a sprawling family and equally large collection of friends he called brothers, had years of experience hunting and fishing. His obituary said “his finest days were spent deep in the woods with his family and friends” and noted that “at a very young age it was evident that Simon was a skilled marksman.”

States closely guard the application details of hunters who apply for hunting licenses, and Colorado Parks and Wildlife declined to share where Watkins received the hunter education certificate required to hunt in Colorado.

Agency spokesman Randy Hampton said everyone in Howell’s hunting party had received hunter education, but not in Colorado.

On Nov. 9 in the rugged terrain of the Gore Range, Watkins failed to follow the most basic directive in hunter education: “know your target.”

Karzen apologized for the lack of information publicly available about the shooting. He used a felony summons instead of an arrest warrant for Watkins, which means there is not an arrest affidavit supporting the charges against Watkins in the court file. Watkins is scheduled to appear in Grand County Court on Dec. 22.

“The stuff in our DA file we always hold while the case is pending,” Karzen said, citing potential risks to his case by releasing information before a trial.

Bad stuff, but thanks for the article.
Most accounts of such incidents contain such scant detail as to be all but worthless in knowing what happened and especially how. In this incident I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s ultimately ruled to have been an accident even though it was an intentional shot, but the DA may have decided it’s best to let a jury decide.

It’s also good that the article pointed out how few firearms-related hunting accidents occur here. I suspect that many people have highly exaggerated fears of the dangers hunters face from others. I remember how many hunting accidents were regularly reported when I was a kid, and that’s very rare now.

Not condoning firing without clear knowledge of what one is firing at - always a horrible idea - but (if true) this behavior on the part of the hunter who got shot seems odd to me:

quote:

“The problem was that his buddy had taken off his orange and was kneeling next to the downed animal.”

I'm not sure why someone would take off their orange jacket while still in the field, but I'm not a hunter. Any suggestions as to what the motivation might have been for that?

I too find it odd that he took off his orange while in the field with other hunters looking to find a wounded animal. Especially when you know there are others in the area also looking to locate said animal and put it out of its misery. Seems like there's something missing from this story.

quote:

Originally posted by joel9507:


Not condoning firing without clear knowledge of what one is firing at - always a horrible idea - but (if true) this behavior on the part of the hunter who got shot seems odd to me:

quote:

“The problem was that his buddy had taken off his orange and was kneeling next to the downed animal.”

I'm not sure why someone would take off their orange jacket while still in the field, but I'm not a hunter. Any suggestions as to what the motivation might have been for that?

As Sigfreund noted, there are details included that you usually don't find in most articles about these tragedies, and you picked up on one of several of the details that caught my eye as well.

I haven't hunted in several years, but my best WAG as to why the hunter removed his blaze orange was that it might have been binding or restrictive and he wanted increased movement while preparing to field dress the animal...or, perhaps it was in a form that might have added to his body heat and as, depending on temperatures, perhaps it was warm enough that whatever form his blaze orange took, he was getting ready to perform a physical activity that would've made him even hotter...or, perhaps he just didn't want to get any hair or blood on the orange.

I used to wear a blaze orange fleece vest over my camo hunting jacket, along with a blaze orange knit cap, and the vest would sometimes bind me up a tad if I was bending or twisting. The friend that I would hunt with had a camo hunting jacket that had nifty hidden front and back pockets with attached pull down blaze orange panels so that he could essentially just wear his jacket without any additional blaze orange clothing to get in his way, and then tuck the panels back in the hidden pockets when not hunting in the field, and I always thought that would've been a better way to go

Modern Day Savage makes some good points about why someone might remove a floppy or restrictive safety vest in a situation like that: “Hey, the hunt’s over and now the hard part begins.” People (not me, of course ) have done countless things that turned out to have been unwise in retrospect, but seemed like good ideas at the time.

ISTM, regardless of why he did it, but for the victim removing his orange he would not have been shot.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
Bad stuff, but thanks for the article.
Most accounts of such incidents contain such scant detail as to be all but worthless in knowing what happened and especially how. In this incident I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s ultimately ruled to have been an accident even though it was an intentional shot, but the DA may have decided it’s best to let a jury decide.

It’s also good that the article pointed out how few firearms-related hunting accidents occur here. I suspect that many people have highly exaggerated fears of the dangers hunters face from others. [B]I remember how many hunting accidents were regularly reported when I was a kid, and that’s very rare now.[B]

You picked up on several of the details in the article that I had, but I hadn't considered that the DA may have some doubts as to the charges and decided to play it safe by kicking it over to a jury, so thanks for the insight.

I completely agree with you that hunting deaths are far less common than years ago. When I was a kid my Dad was an avid bird hunter, and our next door neighbor in our tiny rural town used to be an avid hunter, until a hunting accident in which his shotgun had been leaned against a boulder, fell over, and fired, with the blast striking his friend in the chest killing him instantly. At least that was the way it was explained to me as a kid, when my Dad was drilling gun safety into me while teaching me to shoot.

I think, as Modern Day Savage said, it is plausible that the hunter took his coat and safety vest off prior in preparation for field dressing the elk. I've taken my bulky coat off before field dressing a deer, both for less restrictive movement and to avoid getting blood on my sleeves. However, for safety sake, I take the orange vest off my coat and put it on again over my shirt while I'm doing the work and dragging the animal out, so as to avoid overheating. If that's the case, and he was using an orange vest over a coat, he should have donned the vest again.

quote:

Originally posted by Modern Day Savage:
At least that was the way it was explained to me as a kid ....

That’s always a question if there were no independent witnesses and it was the official story given to the police. It’s obviously possible for something to get on a trigger if a gun falls, and there have even been accounts of dogs stepping on triggers to fire guns, but even with older designs how many will discharge if they just fall over? And if they fell over, how many would be pointed as someone’s chest? (My investigator’s mind at work.)

I also tend to believe that at one time law enforcement and society in general had somewhat different attitudes about such things: “You didn’t mean to kill your friend, and it wouldn’t do anyone any good to tell the real story, so let’s just blame it on the gun.” And sometimes I believe that that sort of thing may still occur.

Seems odd that you would go to the trouble of carrying a radio and then not use it in exactly the situation that calls for it's use.
Also in the earlier case of the guy loading and accidently shooting his friend, why is that less irresponsible or intentional than this one?

These sorts of things always lead to endless speculation, so a bit more:

If the shooter thought the elk was getting up to run again and had no reason to believe any of the party was by it, there wouldn’t have been time or really any reason to use the radio.

This incident involved a deliberate, aimed shot. That’s what’s being cited as the basis for the felony charge. We don’t have the full details of the other incident, but according to what was reported, it was unintentional mishandling, not deliberate point and shoot. And there was a charge in that case, but the resolution wasn’t described. If it had been a military case I investigated, the shooter in such an incident would probably have been charged and convicted of negligent homicide—as happened several times in my experience.

A few issues with the story presented by the defense attorney (but he's an attorney, so what else is new?).

What kind of experienced hunter:

A.) Fails to communicate over the radio he's carrying that he located the downed animal

B.) Removes his Orange hunting gear in the field

C.) Kneels next to a downed animal that's moving around and about to get up

The first one I can see...maybe he got excited, or maybe he tried and the radio didn't work, or the shooter didn't hear it. As someone who carries a radio daily at work, I can see any number of explanations for this. Our radios suck.

The second...Even if you know where all your buddies are, you don't know for sure that there's not somebody else out there. And presumably you're all closing in on a downed animal, you're gonna want your buddies to see where you are. Not to mention it's illegal (at least around here). But I do agree with MDS, there may be some plausible (although stupid) explanations.

The third just makes no sense at all. No "experienced hunter" in their right mind is going to approach and kneel next to a downed bull elk that's "about to get up". If there's even a thought that it's still alive, they're either going to stand off and wait to be sure it's down, or shoot it again from a distance to avoid spooking it. I've never hunted Elk, but I've hunted deer, and my first year I spooked a downed doe by being an idiot, getting excited, and approaching too soon. It's not a mistake that I'd repeat...and definitely not one an "experienced hunter" would make.

The story doesn't jive with the facts as presented. Either the buddy wasn't as experienced as the article claims, or he was extremely stupid...or it didn't go down the way the lawyer is claiming it did. My money's on the last one.

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:
Kneels next to a downed animal that's moving around and about to get up

Yes, that occurred to me as well.
Your last comment about the lawyer's claim is very likely correct, although that sort of thing hardly ever happens—right?

Additional information we don't have, or skepticism about the shooter's account could well be the reason for the criminal charge in this case.

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:
The story doesn't jive with the facts as presented. Either the buddy wasn't as experienced as the article claims, or he was extremely stupid...or it didn't go down the way the lawyer is claiming it did. My money's on the last one.

Not saying you are incorrect, but as I have aged I have made the depressing discovery that contrary to the total brilliance and infallibility I had (or at least thought I did) as a youth, I am fully capable of screwing up in all kinds of head scratchingly puzzling ways. Whether it is, “I can get away with it just this once.”, “It won’t really matter.” Or some other equally wrong justification, I am fully capable of making stupid decisions, even though I do know better. (And most who know me would not describe me as stupid.) I realize it is a logical stretch, but I ass-u-me that if I can do things that in retrospect seem incredibly stupid, even to me, while not actually (at least in my own mind) being stupid, then others can probably do the same.

Another thought that occurred to me is that perhaps the elk was actually down and done and what the shooter perceived as the elk getting ready to get up was his friend moving around, or moving the elk around getting ready to dress it.

And of course, leaving aside the game of telephone and the fact that the attorney may not have a hunting background, an attorney’s job is to present his client and the facts in the best light possible. (Where best is defined as most likely to result in the client being acquitted, or better yet, not even charged.). A good attorney will never lie, but they present the truth in a fashion that leads the listener to infer things beneficial to the client that may or may not be correct. I’m not saying the lawyer couldn’t possibly be lying (or repeating a lie that his client swore to him was truth), but that this isn’t the only possible explanation.

ETA: In the end, clearly a tragedy. I hope that the court will discover the truth of the matter and reach an appropriate verdict.

Truely upsetting that this incident occurred and the Truth will probably never be known. And as far as a good defense lawyer goes I have heard several state in my presence that they would do and say anything to get their client acquitted even if they had first hand knowledge that their client was actually guilty. Lady justice is supposed to be blind but sometimes someone attempts to tip the scales of justice. ............................... drill sgt.

It might be hunters safety courses, but I doubt it. I think it’s more likely to be that hunters now are more committed to being hunters. And, most importantly, drinking and hunting is no longer acceptable- at least, heavy drinking, while in the field.

I have a pre-WWII Esquire handbook for hosts. The amount of liquor to allocate for a “pre-hunting breakfast” was staggering.

And, I agree about the “kneeling next to an animal trying to get up”

I’m thinking more “buddy started field dressing and moron walked up much later and shot”

Or, “first hunter was an idiot and thought he’d try to slit the elks throat and took off his vest to avoid getting it dirty.”

Hmmm... The whole "he took off his orange vest" thing sounds like BS to me.