Felon accidentally shoots friend in the head, deputies say

A felon trying to attach a make-shift stock onto a rifle accidentally shot his friend in the head, Shasta County Sheriff’s Office said on Friday.

Victor Donald Beaubier, 50, of Anderson, was in a garage at a home on Telephone Gulch Road in Happy Valley with his friend, Robert Curtis Burlew, also 50, Thursday evening. Beaubier tried to attach a PVC pipe-fitting to the loaded rifle’s frame when a bullet shot out, hitting Burlew in the foreheard, about 10 feet away.

The round stayed in Burlew’s head, deputies said. Beaubier and two others gathered up Burlew and drove him to the hospital. Burlew was in critical condition Friday morning, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

Police were called to Mercy Medical Center around 10 p.m. after health officials reported that a man was brought in with a gunshot wound. Deputies learned that Beaubier, Grabielle Obrien, 23, and Jadanna Kuykendall, 39, brought Burlew to the hospital.

At first Beaubier and the other witnesses told deputies that Burlew was shot by an unknown person while the four drove on Churn Creek Road. But after further questioning, deputies learned that Beaubier accidentally shot Burlew in Happy Valley.

Deputies arrested Beaubier on suspicion of negligent discharge of a firearm causing injury, as well as on suspicion of being a felon in possession of a firearm. He was booked into Shasta County Jail in lieu of $25,000 bail, deputies said.