Posted on 11/22/2006 12:13:48 PM PST by SmithL
The couple had been arguing on Sunday evening, said sheriff's Lt. Charles Skuce. At the peak of the row, Jan Kamp stood behind her seated husband and fired a gun at the back of his head, Skuce said.
But because she fired through the top of the recliner, the bullet only slightly wounded Norman Kamp, Skuce said.
Investigators said the man got up from the chair and followed his wife into the kitchen. "You shot me," he said.
She still had the gun and Jan Kamp fired a second shot at her husband, but missed, Skuce said.
He retreated to a neighbor's house on Damascus Loop, where he called 911.
Norman Kamp was conscious and talking when deputies arrived.
Deputies arrested Jan Kamp, 58, on suspicion of attempted murder. She was booked at County Jail in Martinez.
Norman Kamp, 57, was treated at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek and released.
PACHECO - A Pacheco man who was shot by his wife said Tuesday that the shooting was accidental.
Jan Kamp, 58, was arrested Sunday after she shot her husband, Norman Kamp, as he sat in a chair, according to Contra Costa Sheriff's Office.
Initially arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, prosecutors on Tuesday amended the compliant against Jan Kamp to assault with a deadly weapon.
Norman Kamp said Tuesday that he was watching football in a leather recliner when his wife began fiddling with a gun in their dining room, some 20 feet away from where he was sitting.
The bullet traveled through the chair and struck him in the back of the head, inflicting a superficial wound.
"The whole thing was an accident," Norman Kamp, 67, said. "She was in another room looking at the gun when it went off. She couldn't believe that she shot me."
Norman Kamp said his wife was on pain medication for severe arthritis and had been drinking alcohol.
He said after the bullet hit him, he approached his wife, who appeared to be in shock. He said that's when she accidentally fired the gun a second time, hitting the ceiling. He noted the gun, .357 Magnum, has no safety device.
"She was white as a sheet, she couldn't even speak," Norman Kamp said.
While he was at the hospital receiving stitches for his wound, his wife was being jailed.
"We are the tightest couple. Neither of us have a record of domestic violence. I just can't believe police are holding her for this," Norman Kamp said.
Sheriff's spokesman Jimmy Lee said regardless of Norman Kamp's account, his wife is negligent for firing the gun.
"It happened. It was a crime, and we have to take action," Lee said.
The couple's daughter, Jennifer Hewitt, said her mother's arrest has caused a great deal of stress for the family.
"She feels so bad, so sad. She doesn't know how it happened," Hewitt said. "I still feel like, when am I going to wake up from this. Knowing my mother and my father, it's just unbelievable."
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/email/news/16073765.htm
>>He said after the bullet hit him, he approached his wife, who appeared to be in shock. He said that's when she accidentally fired the gun a second time, hitting the ceiling. He noted the gun, .357 Magnum, has no safety device.<<
Sorry but someone who accidently fires a gun will put the weapon down, not fire it again. She's going to prison.
Sheriff's spokesman Jimmy Lee said regardless of Norman Kamp's account, his wife is negligent for firing the gun.
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