Shooting in Springs Was an Accident
When I heard about Frank Hanna shooting another man in Springs, my blood pressure went up a little bit, because I happen to know Frank Hanna and his family.
Frank Hanna, also known as Franky Hanna, was my fullback in eighth grade on the East Hampton Football team for awhile. He’s a nice guy, he’s funny, I’ve seen him around town and have often run into him while he was working for his family rug-cleaning business.
I know that, over time, people can change for the worse, but I breathed a heavy sigh of relief this morning when I heard that the shooting that took place in East Hampton appears to have been an accident and was not intended with malice.
This doesn’t excuse Mr. Hanna, but it certainly changes my opinion about the whole incident. When it was reported, everything seemed to indicate that this was an intentional shooting and that Hanna was going to go to jail for a long time.
But according to a number of people I’ve spoken to, it was an accident. He was joking around with a loaded gun and it went off.
Dumb ass is a good term for this kind of situation. What are you doing with a loaded gun? What are you doing playing with it as if it were a toy? ARE YOU KIDDING ME FRANKY!?!?
It’s just so stupid. I’m pro gun ownership for citizens, but this kind of thing just makes me shake my head in disbelief.
Again, for the record, it was an accident. But I hope that the punishment is appropriate for what happened when all the facts are figured out. That not to say that Frank Hanna is necessarily going to go through a true learning experience that will stick with him for the rest of his life. I just hope he gets it.
And I think I’ve learned something too, and it’s a lesson I seem to learn over and over again—you can’t jump to conclusions too quickly. You have to really find out what is the truth before judging a situation.
On a related note, if the young woman who drove the injured man directly to Southampton hospital while being followed by police gets convicted of any wrongdoing, it would appear to be unbelievably unjust. Her name is Kim Delrio, a 22-year-old from Springs who is currently charged with wreckless driving and fleeing police. She probably saved the life of the shooting victim.