Five men are facing criminal charges after bullets fired during a backyard target-shooting session tore into a home on Brewer Road in Clinton Township, striking a residence where five people, including a minor, were gathered. State police say the shots went off around 5 p.m. Sunday, sending rounds into the Saxonburg-area house rather than staying contained to whatever target the men had set up nearby.
All five men now face a charge of reckless endangerment, according to ButlerRadio.com. The men range in age from 19 to 25 and come from a scattered mix of towns: a 25-year-old and a 21-year-old from Pittsburgh, a second 21-year-old from Finleyville, a 20-year-old from Butler, and a 19-year-old from Brockline. State police reported that five people were inside the Saxonburg home when the shots hit, including a minor, per the same outlet's account of the incident.
Local paper the Butler Eagle had earlier reported that the shooting actually took place on Sunday, September 20, days before the arrests became public — meaning the case had already been under investigation for roughly a week before broader radio coverage caught up. That timeline places the original incident just over a week before this week's charges were confirmed.
What Pennsylvania Law Requires for Backyard Shooting
The charge each man faces, Recklessly Endangering Another Person, is graded as a second-degree misdemeanor in Pennsylvania and carries a maximum of two years in prison and a $5,000 fine per count, according to Madsen Law Offices. With five defendants each facing the charge, the combined criminal exposure is significant even though the offense is a misdemeanor rather than a felony.
State law does allow private target practice, but only under specific conditions. Under the Pennsylvania Game Code, shooters must be on property they own or have permission to use, and they're required to have a backstop capable of stopping projectiles from traveling more than 15 yards past the target or deflecting more than 45 degrees, per guidance published by Solebury Township. Separately, the 150-yard safety-zone provision applies to hunting and related privileges, not to target shooting solely on one's own property.
A Rural Township Where Target Shooting Is Common
Clinton Township is a sparsely populated, largely rural stretch of southern Butler County covering 23.6 square miles and bordering Allegheny County and Saxonburg Borough, with a population of just 2,913 as of the 2020 U.S. Census, according to Wikipedia. That kind of low-density, large-acreage landscape is exactly the setting where informal backyard target shooting tends to be routine — and where the risks of an inadequate backstop can go unnoticed until something like Sunday's incident happens.
This isn't the only case of stray target-practice rounds striking an occupied home in Pennsylvania. In a similar incident, East Cocalico Township police said a 22-year-old woman inside her Reinholds Road home was struck in the neck by a bullet fired by target shooters practicing on a nearby parallel road, according to a report logged on CRIMEWATCH; that victim required emergency hospitalization. In Washington County, meanwhile, residents complained to police last October about hours of uncontained target shooting near homes, parks, and walking tracks, a friction point between shooters asserting their rights and neighbors worried about stray bullets, as reported by WPXI.
Part of a Broader Pattern in Butler County
Two days after the Brewer Road shooting, Butler Township police arrested a 42-year-old man after a gun went off during an argument on Metzger Avenue, striking a woman. Matthew Swarens was charged with simple assault and possession of firearms prohibited, as Hoodline previously reported.
The Brewer Road case involved informal backyard target practice.
