Girl, 12, Shot by Pal in Face Is Recovering

The 12-year-old shot in the face by a friend at the friend’s house Friday was alert and walking Tuesday, only a few days after a major operation, her father said.

John Johannessen said he was grateful to see his daughter Shanelle improving but angry that the owner of the gun is apparently a federal criminal investigator.

“I was shocked,” Johannessen said. “You would think that he would have better control over his gun situation, knowing that there were little children in the house.”

Shanelle’s friend lives with her mother, Sue Curtis, and her mother’s boyfriend, Eric Braun, who is a federal agent with the Department of Defense Criminal Investigative Service, sources confirmed.

The service’s western regional offices are based in Mission Viejo, officials said.

Neither Braun nor Curtis could be reached for comment.

Johannessen said Shanelle told him Tuesday in notes that she did not harbor any resentment against her friend.

Authorities said Shanelle and the 13-year-old were alone in an upstairs bedroom on Calle Gazapo when the older girl found a 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol.

Perhaps thinking that the weapon was not loaded, she pointed the gun at Shanelle, and it went off, authorities said.

John Johannessen said deputies told him the friend had found the pistol in a briefcase in one of the bedrooms.

Though authorities say the shooting was accidental, Orange County Sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Ron Wilkerson said the owner of the gun could be held criminally liable for not securing it out of children’s reach.

“There is no indication that there was a crime,” Wilkerson said, stressing that the case is still open. “It could well be that our investigation leads us to believe that California law has been broken. That has not been decided yet.”

In 1991, the California Legislature passed a law making it a crime for an adult to leave a loaded firearm within reach of a child if the child is injured by the weapon.

Stressing that he did not know specific details of the case, Donald Mancuso, deputy inspector general for the Department of Defense, said agents are required to undergo many hours of weapon safety training and procedure. Every three months, agents receive updated training, which includes locking and securing weapons, he said.

Local gun control advocates say the 1991 state law was meant to prevent unintended shootings like Friday’s.

“The law is pretty clear,” said Luis Tolley, western director for the nonprofit Handgun Control Inc. “It may be unclear as to which adult is responsible, but whatever adult brought the gun into the house and left it accessible should be held responsible for it.”