Man Arrested For Shooting Gun Into Floor Through Ceiling

Zane Burrier uttered the truest statement on Friday that you will read all week.

"'Well, I guess I should have gone to a more appropriate place to shoot my new gun,'" Burrier told Casper police officers when they responded to a call of shots fired at an apartment building on Zion Court.

Burrier, 32, is scheduled to make his initial appearance in Natrona County Circuit Court on Monday to hear charges against him that probably will include four counts of reckless endangerment, felony property destruction, being under the influence of a controlled substance, and possession of marijuana.

Friday afternoon, a tenant who lived in the apartment below his was walking into her bedroom when she heard a loud noise, she told police.

She walked into the bedroom and saw the glass window above her bed was broken out. She first thought it was a rock kicked from a lawnmower, but then saw the hole through the ceiling and knew it was a bullet, according to the police affidavit. "(She) began to panic and feared for her life. (She) only heard the one shot but feared that there may be another round that would come through her ceiling. (She) ran out of her apartment and went into the management office building next door."

Burrier told officers he was shooting his newly purchased .40-caliber handgun, but that was two days earlier. He sat in his recliner and used his newly purchased television, still in the box on the living room floor, for target practice. He also told police he though it was okay to shoot his firearm in his own home.

He admitted to drinking four or five beers and smoking marijuana earlier that day.

Officers saw an entrance and exit hols in the television box. The round hit the stone border around the fireplace insert and lodged there.

They also saw the handgun in its case with no magazine in the magazine well, but a round in the chamber.

One officer saw three spent casings on the bathroom floor and three full-metal-jacket rounds on the ground, and tin foil molded in the shape of a pipe on the ledge of the bathtub with residue field-tested positive for marijuana.

He also saw two bullet holes underneath the bathroom counter. One of those rounds went through the ceiling of the tenant, out the east window of her apartment,and hit a vehicle in the parking lot. Three children were playing less than 100 feet from the apartment at the time of the shooting.

Officers estimated the property damage would exceed $1,000. Burrier blew a .13 percent blood alcohol content rating in a portable breath test device.

Burrier was taken to the Natrona County Detention Center without incident.