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posted by n1 on Monday July 03 2017, @01:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the here-is-your-5-minutes-of-fame dept.

A Minnesota woman has been charged with manslaughter after she shot and killed her boyfriend as part of the pair’s attempt to become YouTube celebrities.

According to court documents, Monalisa Perez called 911 on June 26 at around 6:30pm local time to say that she had shot Pedro Ruiz III. The two had set up two video cameras to capture Perez firing the gun at Ruiz while he held a book in front of his chest. Ruiz apparently convinced Perez that the book would stop the bullet from a foot away. The gun, a Desert Eagle .50 caliber pistol, was not hindered by the book.

[...] A video filmed the day before the shooting features Perez excitedly imagining what would happen when the couple reached 300,000 subscribers on their YouTube channel.

According to a Star Tribune report citing a nearby television station in North Dakota, the shooting took place near the couple's home as their three-year-old daughter was nearby. An aunt of Ruiz, who was not named by WDAY-TV, was quoted as saying that she knew what they planned to do and that she tried to talk them out of it.

The aunt said Ruiz replied, "'Because we want more viewers. We want to get famous.'"

Perez, 19, was released on bail on Wednesday. She is pregnant with the couple's second child.

Further details from The New York Times:

Ms. Perez told investigators that she had shot Mr. Ruiz from about a foot away while he held a 1.5-inch thick book to his chest, the authorities said. She described using a firearm that matched the pistol that was found at the scene.

Mr. Ruiz had been “trying to get her” to fire the gun “for a while,” Ms. Perez told investigators, according to court documents. They state that he had set up one camera on the back of a vehicle and another on a ladder to capture the stunt.

To help persuade her to pull the trigger, Mr. Ruiz had even shown Ms. Perez a book that he had previously shot himself, she told investigators. In that case, she said, the bullet had not gone all the way through the text.

See also: CNN.

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Snotnose on Monday July 03 2017, @02:29PM (18 children)

    by Snotnose (1623) on Monday July 03 2017, @02:29PM (#534434)

    that little woman firing a .50 Desert Eagle. I'm a big guy and a .357 magnum is as large a round as I care to handle.

    Not to mention, if it was gonna be pointed at my chest I'd be running tests on 5, 10, hell 100 books first.

    Clearly neither of these idiots knew anything about guns nor ballistics.

    --
    Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @03:15PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @03:15PM (#534451)

    Precisely. It's an incredibly foolish thing to do, but it's pretty clear they didn't do even rudimentary testing. At an absolute bare minimum they should have shot a similar book from a similar distance and seen what happened. It's not like the bullet ricocheted off the book and struck somebody else.

    Obviously, that's really not enough testing, but in this case that would have shown that the book wasn't anywhere near thick enough to stop the bullet.

    • (Score: 2, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday July 03 2017, @04:44PM

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Monday July 03 2017, @04:44PM (#534487) Homepage

      " Perez, 19, was released on bail on Wednesday. She is pregnant with the couple's second child. "

      Man, it's gonna be awkward explaining to those kids why daddy ain't around no more -- and it's not like it would be easy to get another boyfriend with a rep like that. They may also have a hard time watching those awesome episodes of Simpsons and Family Guy where Homer and Peter both get guns.

    • (Score: 2) by Nuke on Monday July 03 2017, @05:48PM (1 child)

      by Nuke (3162) on Monday July 03 2017, @05:48PM (#534512)

      they should have shot a similar book from a similar distance and seen what happened

      I've heard a suggestion that they were so dumb that they only had one book in the house.

      • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday July 05 2017, @05:19PM

        by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday July 05 2017, @05:19PM (#535278)

        They obviously didn't want to use The Good Book.

    • (Score: 2) by KGIII on Monday July 03 2017, @11:18PM

      by KGIII (5261) on Monday July 03 2017, @11:18PM (#534605) Journal

      You don't even have to test it. I can save you some time.

      It will go through any book you own.

      There, you're welcome.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  • (Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Monday July 03 2017, @03:23PM (5 children)

    by Nerdfest (80) on Monday July 03 2017, @03:23PM (#534453)

    Less kick from a Desert Eagle than from a .357 I'm lead to believe, due to the design, weight, and recoil management. Not first-hand mind you, but a friend who was with a group that had the opportunity to fire both said "The Desert Eagle was pretty cool, but it was the .357 that made everybody giggle after they fired it".

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @04:27PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @04:27PM (#534480)

      Less kick from a Desert Eagle than from a .357 I'm lead to believe, due to the design, weight, and recoil management.

      Not from my experience, a Desert Eagle in .50 AE still kicks more than my .44 Magnum Revolver and the revolver is probably a bit heavier.

      Anyhow as said on Slashdot already, why is this old story from last week even on here to begin with? Just because YouTube was mentioned doesn't mean that it's worthy of a tech news site.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @06:24PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @06:24PM (#534526)

        Anyhow as said on Slashdot already, why is this old story from last week even on here to begin with?

        Ammosexual clickbait perfection! Large caliber pistols, with a cool name like "Grim Reaper" or "Desert Eagle" or "MILF of Death!" Youtube, young people successfully having sex and procreating, and having firearm sex right there on the internets! What is not to love, if you are a Second Amendment enthusiast?

        (P.S.: What is "Slashdot"?)

        • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @06:42PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @06:42PM (#534534)

          What is not to love, if you are a Second Amendment enthusiast?

          We say "Here comes a shitstorm from some moron making us all look bad." and move on to more important things.

          (P.S.: What is "Slashdot"?)

          You're not fooling anyone. I'm done with this ghost town now as Slashdot has gotten much better in the past year and rarely does this site get stories that aren't already covered there.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @11:53PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @11:53PM (#534613)

        Depends a lot on the .357, though. People persist in buying itty bitty aluminum/titanium/what-not framed revolvers in .357 magnum, and those little numbers make quite an impression with full-power loads.

        Off-topic, but since I probably sounded way too negative there, I'll be clear: I really don't class such guns as "no practical use", like derringers in .45-70 or 5.56 NATO; with enough training, many if not most people could shoot them well, and they're undeniably nice to carry. I'm just annoyed at how many people buy a tiny magnum they simply aren't ready for, instead of starting with a bigger, easier gun (or even a .327 snubbie, where you can start out with .32 S&W to learn how to shoot, then work your way right up through longs, .32 H&R, to .327 when you can handle it), and "graduating" to the featherweight snubbie once they're in a position to handle it.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by aclarke on Monday July 03 2017, @03:38PM (1 child)

    by aclarke (2049) on Monday July 03 2017, @03:38PM (#534458) Homepage

    Why not just not do it? I'd never point a gun at something I wasn't planning to kill. Then again, I don't want to be famous on YouTube.

    There's no amount of testing that makes this a good idea. Especially not when you put it on YouTube for even dumber people to try at home. It's just reckless, selfish and foolish in so many different directions.

    • (Score: 2) by Nuke on Monday July 03 2017, @05:46PM

      by Nuke (3162) on Monday July 03 2017, @05:46PM (#534510)

      They were planning to kill the book.

  • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Monday July 03 2017, @03:52PM (2 children)

    by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Monday July 03 2017, @03:52PM (#534464) Homepage Journal

    When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're sending people that have lots of problems. Who don't know how to use guns safely. I love the poorly educated, but everyone needs to know about gun safety. Very important. When you don't know, it's a problem. And YouTube has big problems too. They're demonetizing -- that's what they call it -- taking away the ads from conservative videos. The Young Turks, plenty of ads, great, I mean, it's not great, it's great for them. But go to a conservative channel? No ads. Where are the ads? YouTube took them away. And took away the money. No money for conservative vloggers, folks. Very unfair! Trust me, I don't need the money, I'm making plenty because I'm the President. But it's unfair to my conservative vloggers. And the babies are another problem. What happens is they're in Mexico, they're going to have a baby, they move over here for a couple of days, they have the baby. I don't think they have American citizenship and if you speak to some very, very good lawyers -- and I know some will disagree, but many of them agree with me -- and you're going to find they do not have American citizenship. We have to start a process where we take back our country. Our country is going to hell. 🇺🇸

    • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @04:22PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @04:22PM (#534475)

      That's funny because in the past six months I haven't seen unemployment decline at all. The jobless who were unemployed a year ago are still unemployed now. I see even more homeless beggars on the streets. I still see shuttered businesses everywhere. Retail spaces that were available last year are now abandoned as owners give up hope of ever renting. I see houses for sale that remain vacant while no one can afford to buy. The one thing I don't see is job creation happening.

      I just searched for border wall jobs and I found nothing. Where are the jobs?

    • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday July 03 2017, @04:24PM

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Monday July 03 2017, @04:24PM (#534477) Homepage

      Yes, that's right. When people see the submission they may think that it's White American rednecks being White American rednecks.

      Well, it was a couple Mexicans -- and as we all know, they are "quick and dirty" people. They can fix your car faster and cheaper if you don't mind it falling to pieces in a couple months. Even White American rednecks know how to safely handle guns, and when they don't then it's deliberate, like that time when Gregg Allman had a foot-shootin' party to get out of the draft.

  • (Score: 2) by Bot on Monday July 03 2017, @06:49PM

    by Bot (3902) on Monday July 03 2017, @06:49PM (#534539) Journal

    > Not to mention, if it was gonna be pointed at my chest I'd be running tests on 5, 10, hell 100 books first.
    Yes, because the angle of impact counts too.

    And, once you found the perfect books you'd have the pistol firing at your chest at the wrong instant and the blow causing you a nice heart attack [wikipedia.org]...

    --
    Account abandoned.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @08:45AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @08:45AM (#535105)

    There's no need to even test it. Just search on youtube: shooting book desert eagle

    And one of the first search results I got: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFKotz4ur50 [youtube.com]

    Perhaps the idiots didn't know how to use youtube either... :).