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Stray bullet narrowly misses neighbor during target practice

by | May 23, 2026

focus on hammer, group of files on judge table covered with dust - concept of pending old cases or work at judicial court.
(Courtesy/Adobe Stock)

Nine people appeared in Rappahannock County District Court Tuesday after their March target practice led to a stray bullet narrowly missing a neighbor’s head. 

On the afternoon of March 21, a call came into the Rappahannock County Sheriff’s Office (RCSO) dispatch line from a home on Harrison Lane in Amissville reporting a stray bullet that had come through the front wall, flying over the unidentified caller’s head and lodging in a rear wall, Capt. Jim Jones wrote in a criminal complaint filed in District Court. 

According to the complaint, the bullet came from a group of people who were shooting at steel targets in a field off of South Poes Road, next door to the complainant’s home. Jones wrote that after interviewing the 11 people that were there, nine of them admitted that they had been shooting at the targets, which were right in front of the home. 

Mitchell Clarke, Nolan Dougherty, John Hawley, Niall Kingdale, Colin Robert, Robert McGoff, Benjamin McMurry, Benjamin Peters and Noah Taylor — from across Virginia and Maryland — were charged with reckless handling of a firearm. 

“[I] sat at the shooting bench where the individuals had been shooting from, looked at the targets and saw that directly behind the targets, in plain view, was a white two-story house,” Jones wrote in the complaint. 

During their court appearance Tuesday, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney David Walls told Judge Jessica Foster that a deal had been reached with the group’s attorney, Blair Howard, and a $1,000 restitution check had been written to the victim. Walls said all nine had completed a gun safety course. 

Each defendant received a 90-day suspended jail sentence that will be dismissed along with the charge in August if “there are no further issues,” Walls said. He added that the victim in the case did not want any of the defendants to “lose their rights.”

Jones spoke at the hearing, saying that the group had been “100% cooperative” and had “jumped on their sword and accepted responsibility for this.

“They did absolutely what they should do,” he said.

Author

  • Ireland Hayes

    Ireland joined Foothills Forum as a full-time reporter in 2023 after graduating from the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication with a degree in journalism and minor in music. As a student, she gained valuable experience in reporter and editor positions at The Red & Black, an award-winning student newspaper, and contributed to Grady Newsource and the Athens Banner-Herald. She spent three years as an editorial assistant at Georgia Magazine, UGA’s quarterly alumni publication, and interned with The Bitter Southerner.
    Growing up in a small town in Southeast Georgia, Ireland developed a deep appreciation for rural communities and the unique stories they have to tell. She completed undergraduate research on news deserts, ghost papers and the ways rural communities in Georgia are being forced to adapt to a lack of local news. This research further sparked her interest in a career contributing to the preservation of local and rural news.
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By Ireland Hayes

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Ireland joined Foothills Forum as a full-time reporter in 2023 after graduating from the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication with a degree in journalism and minor in music. As a student, she gained valuable experience in reporter and editor positions at The Red & Black, an award-winning student newspaper, and contributed to Grady Newsource and the Athens Banner-Herald. She spent three years as an editorial assistant at Georgia Magazine, UGA’s quarterly alumni publication, and interned with The Bitter Southerner. Growing up in a small town in Southeast Georgia, Ireland developed a deep appreciation for rural communities and the unique stories they have to tell. She completed undergraduate research on news deserts, ghost papers and the ways rural communities in Georgia are being forced to adapt to a lack of local news. This research further sparked her interest in a career contributing to the preservation of local and rural news.