Hawthorne man arrested for shooting into neighbor’s house

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

Kevin Harse Pitts, 55, was arrested last night and charged with seven counts of possession of a weapon or ammunition by a convicted felon and one count of firing a missile into a building.

At 10:00 p.m. on December 10, a Sheriff’s deputy responded to a report of shots fired in the 6600 block of SE 175th Terrace in Hawthorne. The victim said he’d heard four or five shots fired, some of which hit his house while he was inside. One round entered his home and struck a filing cabinet. The victim and a witness both said it sounded like the shots came from the yard of his neighbor, Pitts.

When deputies arrived, Pitts met them outside, and they could see the barrel of a gun through a large hole in a grill on his property. He consented to a search of the grill, where deputies found a large bag containing a barrel of a shotgun, a .38 revolver, multiple large hunting knives, and “hundreds of rounds” of ammunition. The ammunition included several different calibers, including .38 caliber.

Because there were several different types of ammunition, deputies believed there may have been more firearms inside Pitts’ house, and Pitts granted written consent to search his house. Two additional types of ammunition were found, but no additional firearms were located.

Investigators recovered an intact bullet from the victim’s home, and it matched the .38 caliber rounds found in the grill. Using trajectory rods, forensic investigators concluded that the bullets had entered from the direction of Pitts’ home.

Post Miranda, Pitts reportedly stated that he is a convicted felon, so he tried to hide the .38 revolver inside the grill as law enforcement arrived. He was charged with seven counts of possession of a firearm or ammunition for the revolver and the six types of ammunition, along with a count of firing a deadly missile into a dwelling.

Pitts was adjudicated guilty on November 2, 2021, in Putnam County on charges of possession of ammunition by a convicted felon and possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia. He was sentenced to 20 days in jail and 3 years of drug offender probation.