DELAND — DeLand police are investigating a bizarre shooting at a cemetery that involved bullets used in a military funeral service but no gun.
Howard Sheppard, 30, of Deltona, was shot in the left biceps and went to Florida Hospital DeLand for treatment, Officer Jacob Hudson wrote in a report.
Sheppard, who works at DeLand Memorial Gardens, told a nurse he picked up six rounds of ammunition and one of them discharged and struck him in the arm, Hudson said. When Sheppard said the other five rounds were in his shirt pocket, a security guard took the shirt and called police.
Sheppard initially said the ammunition was on a shelf and one of the bullets may have discharged because he threw a hammer and a string trimmer on the shelf, police said. After being pressed, he told Hudson that he secured the sixth bullet in a vise clamp, placed a metal punch into the cartridge primer and hit the punch with a hammer.
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