A western Wisconsin man allegedly shot bowling balls from a cannon during a Fourth of July party, piercing a barn roof and possibly killed a horse.
One ball apparently was fired through the roof of a neighboring barn in the town of Richmond leading to thousands of dollars’ worth of damage, according to a criminal complaint filed this month against self-described firearms enthusiast Ricky A. Thorne, 65.
St. Croix County prosecutors charged the Spring Valley man with one count of felony second-degree recklessly endangering safety. He is also charged with misdemeanor negligent handling of a weapon.
A horse was found dead, with a head wound, in a nearby pasture the day the barn damage was discovered, though authorities said no direct connection could be established between the death and the cannon fire.
Thorne made his initial court appearance in St. Croix County Circuit Court, where Judge Eric Lundell ordered him to post a $2,500 signature bond.
According to a criminal complaint:
St. Croix County sheriff’s deputies were dispatched last July 5 to 1341 Highway 65 for damage to a building by an apparent bowling ball strike.
A resident said she discovered a large hole in the roof of her horse barn and found a bowling ball on the floor near a horse stall.
The resident said she suspected the ball had been fired from a cannon at a neighboring property the previous night during a July Fourth party. The bowling ball was found scratched and smeared with what appeared to be grease.
The cannon shots were fired while her guests were sleeping in camper trailers outside her barn, the woman said, adding, “a bowling ball dropping on them probably would have resulted in their death,” a deputy wrote in the complaint.
The woman told the deputy she didn’t report the cannon fire while it was happening because she didn’t realize the barn damage at the time and didn’t want to interfere with the neighbors’ Fourth of July celebration.
Damage to the barn was estimated at $3,000 to $4,000.
The deputy went to the neighboring property at 1332 130th Ave., where the homeowner said her brother had been there the previous night with his cannon. She estimated 10 bowling balls had been shot from the cannon between 4 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
The resident said her brother, Thorne, had assured her that the bowling balls would land in her property due to the trajectory of fire and would embed themselves in the ground “so deep that no one would be able to find them,” the complaint states.
She told the deputy her brother was a firearms enthusiast. She trusted that he knew what he was doing, she said.
The deputy spoke with Thorne by phone and described the report. Thorne immediately apologized, saying he didn’t expect the cannon fire to affect the neighbors at all.
“He admitted they had been shooting bowling balls out of a cannon but seemed surprised that any of them could have reached a neighbor’s property, much less impact a building,” the complaint states.
Witnesses said bowling pins also were shot out of the cannon during the Fourth of July party.
The victim of the damage at first said she planned to sort out the problem through insurance companies, but later called the deputy to report she found more bowling balls and bowling pins in her field.
Then the woman found one of her horses dead in a pasture on the property.
She reported seeing the horse alive earlier in the day. The lump on its head was noticed after the horse was found dead.
She suspected the fatal injury was caused by a flying bowling ball, though she “knew there was no way to prove that a bowling ball or pin hit the horse causing it to die,” the complaint states. No bowling balls or pins were found near the horse, which was valued at about $10,000.
