Target of Gunshot West Des Moines Police Heard May Surprise You

West Des Moines police officers thought they heard a gunshot when they responded to a possible domestic situation around 4:30 on a recent Sunday morning, but their investigation turned up an unlikely target: The couch.

And it appeared it wasn’t the first time the sofa had been shot. Several bullet holes were found in multiple cushions, according to Officer Ryan Purdy’s report.

The incident occurred Dec. 16 at an apartment building in the 4400 block of Woodland Avenue.

Purdy reported that he followed the trajectory of the bullet believed to have been discharged from a Firestar M40 pistol and found that it had traveled through the sofa to the outer wall of the apartment building, where it appears to have been stopped.

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No arrests have been made, but a 19-year-old woman who lives at the apartment, a 19-year-old West Des Moines man and a 29-year-old Altoona man are considered suspects in the investigation into reckless use of firearms.

The three were uncooperative when police arrived and found another couch – which apparently had no bullet holes – and a coffee table turned over. One of the men said the noise police thought was a gunshot was actually him tossing the furniture and slamming a patio door. He and the other men maintained throughout the incident that no one had fired a gun.

The woman, the occupant of the apartment, finally admitted a gun had been fired when Officer Blain Brinkmeyer found an empty .40 caliber casing on the floor near the overturned couch.

The gun was located between the mattress and box springs of the bed where she had been laying when police arrived. The resident reportedly said that she heard the shot while she was in the bedroom, but did not know who fired the gun or how it came be hidden in her bed.

The pistol and narcotics were seized by police. According to Purdy’s report, the gun was loaded, with one round in the chamber. The magazine, which would hold seven or eight rounds of ammunition, had six rounds loaded, including the one in the chamber, the officer reported.

“At this time there are no known independent witnesses and possession of the firearm and narcotics could not be determined,” he said.

Purdy wrote that the pungent odor of marijuana filled the apartment and a search of the overturned couch revealed a bag in the bottom that contained 10 smaller bags containing less than a gram each of marijuana, but none pf the three admitted to owning it.

Also seized was a small amount of cocaine.