According to police, a married couple's discussion about separating escalated to the husband threatening to kill himself with a Ruger rifle, having a round fire into the ceiling of their Garden Grove home when his wife struggled to take the gun away, having him fire a second round at her (but missing, thank God) and finally having him fire a round into his stomach (and not missing this time).
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This all went down just before 1:40 a.m. Wednesday in the 12200 block of Pearce Avenue in Garden Grove, where police arrived to find 40-year-old Fermin Soto in the garage suffering from a gunshot wound to his stomach and the loaded, .22 caliber Ruger rifle nearby, according to a Garden Grove Police statement.
Officers secured the weapon and then administered first aid to Soto until medics arrived, says the statement, which also indicates he was taken to UCI Medical Center in Orange, where he underwent emergency surgery and was listed in critical condition.
His wife, who was not identified, explained the events that led to the shooting and included Soto first holding the rifle to his head, police said.
The couple's two teenage daughters were home at the time, but neither was injured or involved in the incident, which will likely lead to an attempted murder charge against Soto should he recover from his wound. Police say they have obtained a temporary restraining order against Soto in the meantime.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.