Yellow Pages
MOUNT VERNON — A judge today found a Concrete boy guilty of being criminally negligent when he fired the shot that killed a hiker Aug. 2 on Sauk Mountain.
Cook acquitted the now-15-year-old boy of first-degree manslaughter, finding that he didn’t act recklessly. But she ruled he was guilty of second-degree manslaughter with a firearm.
Referring to the statement the young defendant wrote in his own hand the day he shot 54-year-old Pamela Almli of Oso, Judge Susan Cook said the teen disregarded that he was on a popular hiking trail and shooting into the fog. He was 14 years old at the time.
“(The defendant) was painfully honest with the deputy at the scene …” said Cook and then read from the statement: “’The shot I took was about 150 yards away and I could only see the outline of bear in the fog.’ What he said takes this outside the realm of a hunting accident.”
The teen could serve up to 3 months in a juvenile detention facility and he is scheduled to be sentenced July 10.
But his lawyer Roy Howson will present arguments July 1 against Cooks’ inclusion of the firearms enhancement ruling, which increased his possible sentence from 1 to 3 months.
Lois Peterson, who was standing next to Almli the day of the shooting, declined to comment on the verdict.
The young defendant and his then-16-year-old brother were scouting for bear on popular Sauk Mountain on Aug. 2 when they spotted what they thought was a bear moving below them.
No one disputed that the younger brother fired the bullet that killed Almli. Descending the trail, the teen mistook Almli for a bear. His older brother has testified that he also mistook the hiker for a bear and had told his younger brother to take the shot.
His defense lawyer argued that although a reasonable adult should have taken the busy hiking trail into account before firing a gun, the same expectation couldn’t be applied to a 14-year-old, just two years past the age in which a juvenile can be held criminally responsible.
The prosecutor had argued that it didn’t matter if the teen was 12, 14 or 44, he hadn’t followed hunting rules and fired into the fog.
• Marta Murvosh can be reached at 360-416-2149 or .
