New details have emerged about an incident involving a gun near Central Avenue in Oil City on Thursday afternoon.
A criminal complaint filed through District Judge Andrew Fish’s office said officers with Oil City police were sent to the area of Hazel Place and West Third Street at about 3:30 p.m. for reports of two males pointing a scoped rifle at houses.
Patrolman Scott Hargenrader was driving up Central Avenue and saw a man with short dark hair holding a scoped rifle that he recognized as a juvenile, the complaint said.
Hargenrader also saw a man with red hair with the juvenile, and when the suspects saw Hargenrader, they started running up the hill through a backyard, the complaint said.
Later, Hargenrader knocked on the front door of a home in the 300 block of Central Avenue, and the two men whom he recognized as the ones who had the rifle came to the door, the complaint said.
One of the men was identified as 18-year-old Tanner Phillips.
Phillips and the juvenile admitted to having the rifle and they told Hargenrader it was upstairs, the complaint said.
The juvenile told another officer that he was planning to shoot a squirrel and he had to go down the alley to follow it when it moved, the complaint said.
The juvenile also said they hid when officers arrived in the area, the complaint said.
Phillips said they were shooting the rifle in the garage and he followed the juvenile outside and down the alley before police arrived, the complaint said.
A witness told police he saw both men holding the rifle, and at least one of them was pointing it toward houses, the complaint said.
Phillips was charged with misdemeanor counts of corruption of minors and disorderly conduct. He was arraigned by Fish and released on $15,000 unsecured bail.
The juvenile was charged with felony juvenile possession of a firearm and a misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct.
He was referred to juvenile court supervision and placed in juvenile detention.
