A 57-year-old Minot man was sentenced to 20 hours of community service and one year of unsupervised probation for accidentally discharging a handgun in March and nearly hitting a 5-year-old boy in a neighboring trailer.

Court records show that Russell Wayne Brandt pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment, a Class A misdemeanor. Judge Stacy Louser also ordered Brandt to obtain a chemical dependency evaluation, to surrender the gun to law enforcement, and to have no contact with the victims. He must pay $1,374.36 in court costs. Louser also sentenced him to 360 days in jail, with all time suspended except the four days he has already served.

According to a probable cause affidavit filed with the court, Brandt told police he had been drinking. He was sitting in his recliner with his handgun pointed in the direction of the neighboring trailer when he accidentally pulled the trigger and the gun went off. A man, a woman and the woman’s 5-year-old grandson were in the neighboring trailer in Holiday Village at the time. A bullet was later found in the arm rest of a chair that the child was sitting in when the shot went through the living room wall. No one was injured.

Brandt told a judge last spring that he gives thanks to God that no one was hurt.

– Andrea Johnson