“I don’t know what happened, but … he shot himself,” said a caller at the Meadowview Drive home. “There were a bunch of people here, we were in bed and we just heard something and a lot of the kids left.”
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The caller tells dispatchers she knows the victim’s first name, but not his last name or age and asks a girl in the background for the victim’s last name.
After providing it, the girl can be heard screaming, “My boyfriend’s gone! Oh my God … He’s gone! My boyfriend’s dead!”
The caller tells the dispatcher the teen has been shot in the head. Prompted by the dispatcher to ask if the boy did it to himself or if someone else did it, the girl answers that the boy did not do it to himself and that somebody else did it.
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The dispatcher then tells the caller to put the weapon in a safe place.
UPDATE @ 2:33 p.m. Nov. 20:
The Butler County Coroner’s Office has identified the gunshot victim in the West Chester Twp. incident Saturday night.
The 19-year-old victim was Connor Michael Szul and the cause of death was a gunshot, according to the coroner’s office.
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The manner of death is pending, according to a coroner’s report.
An investigation into the shooting is ongoing by both the coroner’s office and West Chester police.
INITIAL REPORT, Nov. 19:
West Chester Twp. officials are reporting an accidental shooting Saturday night.
Township spokeswoman Barb Wilson said police were called to a shooting in the 8600 block of Meadowview Drive at around 9:30 p.m. Wilson said a preliminary investigation reveals there was an accidental discharge of a firearm and a 19-year-old man died.
Wilson said the Butler County Coroner’s Office will have to provide the name and that report will not be released today.
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