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Shooter pleads guilty in death

by: Submitted photo - Ted Barney Jr.

   A 23-year-old Warm Springs man, Ted L. Barney Jr., pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for the shooting death of Delmer Davis, 24, on July 26.
   U.S. District Judge Ancer L. Haggerty accepted the plea on Oct. 3, and will sentence Barney on Dec. 12.
   In pleading guilty to second-degree murder, Barney admitted that he fired a 9mm handgun on July 26, in Warm Springs, that killed Davis.
   According to the government's case, Barney was a passenger in a car driving in a residential neighborhood in Warm Springs Indian Reservation.
   A man standing in the driveway of a home in the neighborhood threw a rock at defendant's car as it drove by. The rock missed the car, but the defendant told the driver to turn around and then stop the car.
   Barney got out of the car and approached the man in the driveway, who was about 75 feet away (the driveway was long). The defendant then began shooting with a 9mm handgun, as the man hid behind a vehicle in the driveway.
   Barney fired approximately five shots, but the gunfire did not hit his intended target -- the man who threw a rock at the defendant's car. However, one of the bullets from Barney's gun went through the window of the vehicle the man was hiding behind, hitting a man sitting in the car.
   Davis, who was sitting in the vehicle holding his infant son, was hit in the head with the bullet that went through that vehicle's window from Barney's gun.
   Davis died en route to the hospital as a result of that wound.
   The defendant, who initially may not have realized he hit anybody since the windows of the vehicle were tinted, turned himself in to the Warm Springs Police Department later that day when he learned the police were looking for him.
   Defendant provided the handgun to the Warm Springs Police, and confessed that he was the shooter and that he was aiming to hit another man in the driveway.
   Under the terms of Barney's plea agreement, a prison sentence of 18 years was recommended.
   The Warm Springs Police Department and FBI investigated the case. Assistant U.S. attorney Craig Gabriel is handling the criminal prosecution.