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Last updated on Thursday, March 8, 2018
(BLOOMINGTON) - Former Indiana University student Jason Cox was sentenced on Wednesday to prison after he accidentally shot his then roommate in the face on November 9, 2016.
Judge Kenneth Todd sentenced Cox to the maximum sentence of two and a half years in prison.
Cox pleaded guilty in January to criminal recklessness with a deadly weapon and pointing a firearm at another person.
Police were called to an apartment in the 500 block of South Junya Street, off Patterson Drive near West Third Street, just before 10 p.m. after the Trenton Kirchmeier's girlfriend called police to report the incident.
Kirchmeier was transported to IU Health Bloomington Hospital, then flown by medical helicopter to IU Health Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis in critical condition. He suffered permanent damage to his mouth and vocal cords.
Cox told the court the ordeal began when he and Kirchmeier decided to stay home drinking and were upset that Donald Trump had been elected president.
According to the girlfriend, she and Kirchmeier had stepped outside to smoke a cigarette when they noticed, as they looked through a gap in the window blinds, that Cox had out a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun, waving it around.
Cox told the court that he and Kirchmeier played a game with the gun where they pretended to be paranoid about people breaking into their vehicles outside. He was pointing the gun in a joking manner as if Kirchmeier and this girlfriends were intruders.
When he moved to pull the gun away after the joke, Cox told the court that the gun got caught in the blinds, but his hand kept moving back on the trigger.
While this was happening, Kirchmeier approached the window and was peering inside. There was a gunshot and Kirchmeier had been shot in the mouth, and fell to the ground.
Cox ran outside, apologizing, saying he had not intended to fire the weapon.
The bullet tore through Kirchmeier's mouth, shattering his upper palate, knocking out multiple teeth and severing his left carotid artery. He was rushed to IU Health Bloomington Hospital then airlifted to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis where he underwent emergency surgery. The doctors and his parents say it was a miracle he survived - Kirchmeier lost all of his blood three times over.
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