Petersburg police cordoned off middle harbor Wednesday morning and took one person into custody following gun shots in the harbor.
Police chief Kelly Swihart said his department had a report of multiple gun shots fired from a boat in middle harbor around 6:20 a.m. “Officers responded to investigate and heard more gun fire. Weren’t exactly able to tell where it was coming from, from their position and called for assistance. We were able to develop a little bit of information pinpoint where it was coming from and we have taken one person into custody,” Swihart said.
Police arrested 56-year-old Terry Slafter and he’s facing a charge of reckless endangerment. Slafter was living on a boat in the harbor. Police recovered a rifle from the scene and maybe a couple dozen empty shell casings. Swihart says no shots were fired by police officers during the incident and no shots were fired at police during the incident. Slafter did receive some minor injuries during his arrest. Police have not heard of anyone else injured by the shots or any damage.
Swihart says officers closed off middle harbor during the response as a safety measure. “Yeah anytime we’re responding to a dynamic situation like that we wanna make sure that we do what we can to keep the public safe to keep them out of the immediate area. And you know we wanna be able to keep our officers safe too. The fewer people we have to manage the more we can focus our attention on the situation at hand.”
The police investigation into the gun shots is ongoing and they do anticipate forwarding additional charges against Slafter.