Two Men Arrested For Firing BBs At Passing Cars

Two local men were arrested Wednesday afternoon for allegedly firing BBs at a school bus and two cars on Curtis Corner Road according to South Kingstown Police Captain Jeff Allen.

Officers were summoned to the area of Curtis Corner Road and Stony Farm Way for reports of young men firing BBs or pellets at passing cars around 3:15 p.m.  Wednesday afternoon.  They discovered that a First Student School Bus had sustained damage to a window as a result of impact from a high-velocity projectile of some type.  According to the South Kingstown School Department, four Elementary School students were on board the bus at the time, but were unhurt according to Allen.  A Volvo and a Ford Mustang had also been shot and their occupants reported visible damage to the vehicles’ body panels. 

A statement released Thursday afternoon by the South Kingstown School Department read that the bus driver immediately pulled over to check on the students.  School Department administrators also responded to the scene and notified parents of the incident after calling the police. The students were transferred to another vehicle and transported home.

Following footprints leaving the scene in the snow, the officers tracked the suspects to a house off Curtis Corner Road.  The occupant called one of the suspects, later identified as Louis Northup, 19, of 910 Curtis Corner Rd. and asked him to return to the scene.

Police met up with Northup and Zachary Paone-Hart, 19, of 138 East Shore Rd. in Narragansett and placed them under arrest after they allegedly confessed to the crime, according to Allen, who added that Police also seized two pellet rifles with scopes from the men.  “The police officers on scene did a great job apprehending them in a timely fashion,” Allen said.

Northup and Paone-Hart were held at the South Kingstown Public Safety Complex overnight and arraigned in Fourth District Court Thursday morning on six misdemeanor counts apiece – three counts of firing across a road or highway and three counts of vandalism.