Friday, Aug. 5, 2011 | 5:11 p.m.
Mark Patterson
A Las Vegas man was arraigned Friday on felony child abuse and neglect charges after an accidental shooting in the southwest valley that sent his stepdaughter to the hospital with critical injuries.
Mark Patterson, 46, was trying to clear the chamber on a handgun owned by his wife Wednesday night at his home in the area of Blue Diamond and Fort Apache roads when the gun fired. Patterson's 13-year-old stepdaughter was struck in the head by a bullet and was taken to University Medical Center in critical condition.
He was arrested and booked into the Clark County Detention Center.
According to a police report released Friday, the family had been on edge recently due to threats made by a man who they believed had gang ties. The man had been contacting a family member who lives in Reno, but Patterson and his wife intervened and told him to stop.
An unexpected knock at the door the night of the shooting prompted Patterson's wife to get the handgun before seeing who was there, the report said. When no one was at the door, she returned upstairs, where Patterson was talking with his stepdaughter and her sister in their bedroom.
After his wife asked him to clear the gun's chamber, Patterson pointed the gun into the upper corner of the girl's bedroom, the report said. But when he "attempted to depress the magazine release with his right thumb … his right index finger inadvertently flexed, pulling the trigger."
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