The Associated Press
CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (AP) — The Marine killed in what authorities are describing as an apparently accidental shooting at a North Carolina military base has been identified as a 21-year-old Texan on sentry duty.
Lance Cpl. Mark N. Boterf of Crowley, Texas, died after a single gunshot wound to the chest earlier in the week at the main entrance to the sprawling Camp Lejeune base, the Marine Corps said in a statement late Wednesday.
The statement from Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune added that Boterf — a member of the 2nd Radio Battalion, II Marine Expeditionary Force Headquarters Group — was on temporary assignment as a Marine sentry. Boterf joined the Marine Corps in 2012 and had no deployment history, it added.
Camp Lejeune spokesman Capt. Joshua Smith said Wednesday that a Marine colleague discharged a single shot from his M4 rifle in a guard shack at the main base entrance Tuesday and remains in custody. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is investigating.
The name of the shooter, who is male, hasn’t been released. No charges have been filed at this time. There were other guards at the gate, but no one else was hurt, officials said.
On Wednesday, a Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday that the fatal shooting of a Marine on guard duty by a colleague at a North Carolina base appears to have been an accident.
Indications point to a “negligent discharge” as the cause of Tuesday’s death in a guard shack at the main gate to Camp Lejeune, Department of Defense spokesman Army Col. Steven Warren told reporters.
“It appears right now to have been an accident,” Warren said.
But it will take several weeks of examination to confirm that the shooting was accidental, base spokesman Nat Fahy has said in a statement.
The victim was shot once in the chest. Emergency personnel attempted to revive the wounded Marine, but the person was later pronounced dead at a base hospital.
The shooting came less than a week after a shooting rampage by a soldier at Fort Hood in Texas killed three and wounded 16 others. But Fahy has stressed the difference in the two situations.