Man charged with firing gun inside a home

CHIPPEWA FALLS — A Chippewa Falls man who reportedly shot a gun into a wall that entered another residence has now been charged.

Devan Van Aarde, 31, 19041 65th Ave., was charged in Chippewa County Court with one count of endangering safety-reckless use of a firearm, which is a felony.

Judge Benjamin Lane set an initial court date for Feb. 4.

According to the criminal complaint, the incident happened at 3:30 a.m. in August 2023 at a home on 65th Avenue in the town of Lafayette.

The landlord of a duplex called police to report that a person living on one side of the building called him because he heard gunshots in the other unit of the duplex. Bullets had entered through a wall shared by both sides of the duplex.

“(The victim) said sometime before the sun came up which he estimated shortly after 5:00 in the morning, he walked into the bathroom and that’s when he noticed that the bathroom mirror had two holes in it,” the complaint reads.

“The victim then contacted the landlord, and “that’s when he noticed that there was a definitive hole through the eastern bedroom that traveled west through the rest of the residence.”

The officer knew from prior encounters that Van Aarde lived in that unit.

An officer learned that Van Aarde may be suicidal, the complaint reads. He was detained at the scene and placed in a squad car.

“Van Aarde told me he attempted suicide earlier this morning and the gun ‘misfired.’ Van Aarde told me he contacted his parents in South Africa earlier this morning telling his parents goodbye,” the complaint reads. “Van Aarde said he then had a misfire with his firearm and shot through the wall. Vanaarde did not go into details regarding the reason why he wanted to commit suicide.”

Van Aarde walked deputies through the unit and showed where he had fired the gun in a bedroom.

The officers and victim found a second bullet hole that went through the shared wall between units.

“In the far western storage room, one definitive hole could be seen going through the sheetrock and protruding to the exterior wall on the western side of the residence,” the complaint reads.

Court records show Van Aaarde recently got a speeding ticket that now shows his address is 809 Vanness Parkway in Eau Claire. He has no other prior criminal record in Wisconsin, online court records state.

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