ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. – Andre Milton was in the bathroom inside his Ferguson apartment, when a woman in an upstairs unit shot him. Police caught the shooter, but prosecutors declined charges.
“I don’t understand why they didn’t get charged, even if it was a so-called accident,” Milton said.
Bodycam video reveals how responding Ferguson police officers discussed how close Milton was to being killed.
“Had he been sitting up, he’d have been dead,” one officer said. “He’d probably have been shot in the head or shot in the chest.”
The shooter left the scene as her relative told police she was concerned for her family’s safety.
“If he don’t understand that it was just an accident, that – an accident is an accident,” the relative said.
Later in the video, Milton expressed his frustration with police after returning from the hospital.
“I got kids upstairs. Why your gun even out?” he said.
Police confiscated the shooter’s gun, which they determined to be legal. They also referred the case to the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office as second-degree assault with criminal negligence, which is a felony.
The shooting happened in December 2020. Milton said he called FOX 2, saying he’d never heard what happened to his case, even though the charge was refused in May 2021.
“I got the information from you. I went down to the PA’s office myself and they basically said the same thing,” Milton said.
The prosecuting attorney’s office sent the following statement to FOX 2: “Not every accident rises to the level of a crime. While this shooting was tragic, our staff did not believe there was sufficient evidence that the individual whose firearm discharged accidentally while they were cleaning it had risen to the level of a criminal act.”
We also spoke with the shooter, who we’re not naming since she was not charged. She said she cooperated with the police and never got her gun back.
“It’s still shaking me to this day,” Milton said. He says he carried the bullet in his body for 18 months before he found a doctor to take it out. His mental scars remain. “Any type of loud noise, just the memory of thinking of it—getting hit—I still feel the pain.”
Milton wants his children to grow up in a safer world and hopes debating the result of his shooting makes a difference for someone else.
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