AKRON: A 22-year-old woman is expected to survive after her father mistook her for a burglar and shot her, Akron police said.
Police said the incident unfolded like this in the 1400 block of Onondago Avenue about 1 a.m. Thursday:
A 42-year-old Goodyear Heights man thought he heard someone breaking into his kitchen.
When he yelled to see who was there, no one responded, but he could see a shadowy figure moving in his house.
The man assumed it was an intruder, aimed and fired, police said.
The bullet hit the man’s daughter.
There was no burglar, it turns out. The man’s daughter had been house-sitting elsewhere and had come home, apparently without warning.
It’s unclear why the daughter didn’t respond to her father when he yelled to see who was in the kitchen.
Police continue to investigate the shooting. No charges had been filed as of early Thursday afternoon.
An unrelated, but similar incident happened in off-campus housing last year when a University of Akron football player shot his house-mate, who was also his teammate, mistaking him for a burglar.
In that case, which happened in March 2016, the football player entered a Rentschler Street apartment about 3 a.m. without knocking or announcing himself. He and the shooter had apartments in the shared house.
Both the student who fired the shot and the student injured agreed it was an accident and no charges were filed.