A young man while drunk mistakenly shot and killed his high school friend and teammate at a party in a Winona apartment, according to charges.
Lucas R. Schultz, 20, of Winona was charged Tuesday in Winona County District Court with second-degree manslaughter in connection with the Nov. 11 shooting of 20-year-old Riley Holden Sass-Loken, also of Winona. Schultz playfully pointed the gun at his friend's face while drunk and shot him.
A preliminary breath test measured Schultz's blood alcohol content at 0.172 percent shortly after the shooting, according to the criminal complaint.
Schultz was more than four months away from being legally old enough to drink.
County Attorney Karin Sonneman said Wednesday that the combination of alcohol and an accessible firearm was "a recipe for tragedy."
Sonneman added that manslaughter, and not a murder count, was the most serious charge she could file because "based on the evidence, it appeared that [the shooting] was not intentional."
Sass-Loken and Schultz graduated in 2014 from Winona High School, where they were varsity hockey teammates.
Schultz was charged by summons and has a Dec. 29 court appearance scheduled. The court file does not list an attorney for Schultz. A message was left with his family seeking a reaction to the allegations.
