Scenario: Defendant and his wife are at trailer park rental location. THey get into a fight and husband pulls out handgun and shoots inside the bedroom--we have pics of bullet hole in the ceiling fan. He goes outside and shoots at his own vehicle parked in the front--11 bullet holes in the car.

Wife and kids are hiding under another trailer by now--not sure where they were when shooting in the house, but he shot up at the ceiling, so he didn't shoot at or in the direction of them. Other older kids and young adults are in the back of the house outside--this is all at around midnight.(I'm guessing drinking but no one is really telling).

Reed v. State for the CCA says that deadly conduct cannot include firing inside a house---only at the house from outside. I don't have any evidence that there was any danger to any people around him, or that the defendant was reckless that the car he shot was empty--all people were elsewhere.

Other trailer renters were very scared and called 911, wife was scared at the time but no longer helpful.

I don't even think I have misdemeanor deadly conduct--imminent danger required, much less the felony. Any good ideas? Or bad ones, for that matter?

Terroristic threat? Criminal mischief (if the trailer is owned by someone else)?

But I guess I really want to know why this isn't at least misdemeanor deadly conduct - there's no telling where those bullets are going to end up if they deflect or go through walls.

What goes up, must come down.

You can file it under "bad idea" if you want, but Mythbusters did a special on firing guns into the air where they found two people injured by falling bullets (though admittedly they were not fired straight up).

If Del Rio was over 100,000 you could use 42.12.

Disorderly Conduct 42.01(a)(7) (discharging firearm) is a Class B misdemeanor.

I think the imminent danger of the misd deadly conduct is what worries me. Webster's says it means "ready to take place." So I would think imminent if the gun were pointed at someone, but that would be the felony version, or an agg asst.

If at least two of you think it's worth a try, then maybe I am just overthinking it. I will just let my grand jury wade through it.

I will keep the discharging as a back up also, thanks.

It sounds imminent to me. Any one of those bullets could have ricocheted off the vehicle and gone into any one of the trailers and hit somebody.