Army veteran, 28, ‘calmly shot up his street with an AR-15 – blowing out neighbors’ windows and peppering his own car – after learning his wife was cheating on him’
- Harold Beard unleashed at least 29 rounds from his second-floor window
- Army man called officers on himself after taking gun apart, leaving it on porch
- Police records showed he told responding officers his wife was cheating on him
- He was arrested and charged with reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon
A US army member is said to have unleashed a barrage of gunfire out his window into a Brooklyn neighborhood on Tuesday, after learning his wife cheated on him.
Harold Beard, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, allegedly pointed his AR-15 into his car, and a neighbor’s home, from the second-floor window of his Dyker Heights apartment in the early hours of January 7.
Officials said the man, 28, fired at least 29 rounds of bullets into the otherwise quiet block at 12:30am.
A Google street view of the house where Harold Beard is thought to live. The army member is said to have shot several rounds of bullets outside the second-storey of the house after discovering his wife was cheating on him
Police records showed the man told responding officers his wife was cheating on him, and he had fired off bullets at his car and out the window.
No one was injured, but two rounds of bullets hit his Cadillac, and other rounds crossed 82nd Street to shatter a pair of windows at his neighbor’s home, officers said.
‘Thank God we were in the back because the bullets went straight through the window,’ a neighbor, who declined to give his name, told the New York Post.
‘They could’ve killed my baby,’ the father-of-three said.
Neighbors, in the otherwise quiet spot, described their narrow miss, after the army man unleashed a barrage of bullets at his car and over the street into a neighbor’s window
Another neighbor said the alleged shooter was ‘very calm’ as he self-defused the situation and called police on himself.
‘I get up… and I see all the cop cars coming down . . . [police] running out of the car,’ the local was reported as saying.
‘He was very calm,’ he said. ‘He took the gun apart, left it on the porch and called the cops on himself.’
He added that Beard came from a military family that had a history of service that dated back to ‘colonial times’.
The army vet was arrested and charged with reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon.
He was released into the custody of the army, which put him on restrictive duty. It is unclear if the gun was issued to Beard by the military.
The Legal Aid Society, representing the suspect, said: ‘Mr. Beard is a highly decorated member of the U.S. Army with no prior contact with the criminal justice system.
‘At Mr. Beard’s arraignment, his commanding officer stated on the record that the Army would guarantee Mr. Beard’s return to all future court dates if the Court consented to his release to Fort Hamilton on restrictive duty.
‘The Court agreed. Judge Dougherty was right to release our client – who has served in both Iraq and Afghanistan – to his community at Fort Hamilton instead of remanding him to a cage at Rikers Island.’