A 40-year-old man was sentenced Thursday to 29 days on a work crew for discharging a firearm in the direction of his Orchards area neighbor in March.
Eugene P. O pleaded guilty in Clark County Superior Court to amended charges of unlawful carrying or handling of a weapon and aiming or discharging a firearm. O received a single day’s credit for time already served.
He originally faced a charge of first-degree assault for discharging a firearm in the direction of Bruce F. Fournier, then-58. The two men live next door to each other, county property records show.
Deputies were dispatched at 8:26 a.m. March 5 to the 15200 block of Northeast 91st Street for a report of an assault with a weapon.
Fournier told responding deputies that O had shot at him, and he believed he’d been struck in the leg. It turned out Fournier wasn’t wounded, but his pants were ripped, Clark County sheriff’s Sgt. Craig Randall previously told The Columbian.
O had already left the area, but deputies reached him by phone and he agreed to return to the scene. O gave his own version of events, Randall said, but deputies determined a crime had occurred.
An affidavit of probable cause says the two men had been arguing over weeds in one of their lawns. The men yelled profanities at each other, with O instructing Fournier to get off his property before he raised his still-pocketed right hand and fired a single round. Cellphone video showed Fournier was on his own property during the argument.
Fournier was arrested in March 2019 for pointing a gun at O’s head and then firing it into the ground and air, according to a probable cause affidavit. He was charged with second-degree assault.
However, the case was dismissed in November after doctors determined that Fournier did not have the capacity to understand or assist in his defense following an evaluation at Western State Hospital, court records say.
Defense attorney Shon Bogar filed a victim impact statement with the court, stating Fournier remains incompetent and is in a physically weakened state due to illness. He said his client does not feel the system has taken his safety seriously, and Fournier does not support the plea agreement.
