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Santa Rosa Man Pleads In Shotgun Play Death
January 24, 2015
James Hunter Gates entered a plea Friday in Santa Rosa County to manslaughter with a firearm and possession of a firearm by a convicted delinquent. Circuit Court Judge John Miller ordered a presentence investigation and scheduled sentencing for March 17. Gates faces a maximum sentence of 45 years in state prison.
Gates, 20, was arrested on August 25, 2014 after deputies responded to a shooting at a residence on Keyser Lane in Pace. They found 24-year old Romeo Wolff dead from a gunshot wound to the head. Investigators with the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office determined that Gates and Wolff were drinking alcoholic beverages in a bedroom that evening while playing with a shotgun that belonged to Gates.
As a convicted delinquent, Gates was prohibited from possessing any firearms.
Wolff pointed the barrel of the gun at his face and dared Gates to pull the trigger. Gates responded by pulling the trigger which caused the gun to fire. Wolff was struck in the face with the blast and died at the scene.
Comments
7 Responses to “Santa Rosa Man Pleads In Shotgun Play Death”
Hunter is a great guy!!!! Even though a lot of you have been bashing on him he’s still a great guy to me and all his other friends!
To Ms. Sanders, it doesn’t matter if they were clowning around or not, you don’t play with guns, besides that, the boy should not have even been in possession of a gun. Also, boys will not be just boys @ times, sometimes boys have to act right & be expected to not be stupid, all boys don’t play with guns. I’ve never really agreed with that saying, boys will be boys, if people taught their boys to be respectful, they wouldn’t agree with that either. Just because they’re boys doesn’t give them an award to be stupid.
To Bob’s brother…Gates took a plea bargain…the other guy is not alive to tell us that they were just clowning around….
Surely a terrible waste of two lives.
@DHG…..right on, from the annals of “Hey y’all watch THIS….”
Dumb and dumber.
The perp has it hard enough in this case, but isn’t it a felony to possess a firearm after conviction of a felony? And if that’s the case, a death that occurs in the commission of a felony is supposed to be a murder is it not?
Hard lesson to learn
Drinking and playing with firearms.
What could go wrong?