Florida Teen Fatally Shoots Father In Attempt To Protect Mother, Police Say
By: Fox News
Updated: November 27, 2012
A Florida teen who fatally shot his father in a desperate bid to save his mother from being choked has not been charged, police said.
The shooting happened around 10 p.m. Saturday as a group of family and friends were gathered around a bonfire outside a mobile home in Plant City, a rural area northeast of Tampa.
Police said the teen's parents went into the mobile home and got into an argument that escalated when the father, identified as Christopher Thorpe, began striking his wife, Jill.
"He [Christopher Thorpe] was beating her; [he] kept punching her," Debbie Carter, a spokeswoman for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, told Fox affiliate WTVT. "Then they went from the living room to the master bedroom where he kept beating her."
The couple's 17-year-old son, Channing Thorpe, rushed in and shot his father when he saw him beating and strangling his mother in their bedroom, according to police.
The teenager fired several shots at his father from a handgun. The boy then called the Sheriff's Office to report he had shot his father. Deputies later found Christopher Thorpe, 36, dead in the master bedroom.
One of the bullets also hit 35-year-old Jill Thorpe in the thigh. She was treated at an area hospital and later released.
Police did not arrest the teen, who was left in the custody of his mom.
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