PRESS RELEASE – GUNSHOT WOUND

WARREN COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE

200 SKYLINE VISTA DRIVE · FRONT ROYAL, VIRGINIA 22630

Mark A. But­ler, Sher­iff

PRESS RELEASE – GUNSHOT WOUND

On the 19^th of May 2023, War­ren Memo­r­i­al Hos­pi­tal staff report­ed that a gun­shot wound vic­tim had arrived at the hos­pi­tal to seek treat­ment. This report was ini­tial­ly inves­ti­gat­ed by the Front Roy­al Police Depart­ment who quick­ly deter­mined that the shoot­ing inci­dent took place out­side the juris­dic­tion of town lim­its. War­ren Coun­ty Deputies were con­tact­ed to respond and took over the investigation.

Dur­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion, it was deter­mined that the vic­tim sus­tained the injury from a reck­less dis­charge of a 9mm Glock hand­gun. At approx­i­mate­ly 2215hrs. the female vic­tim was oper­at­ing a motor vehi­cle in tran­sit from Shenan­doah Coun­ty via Rt 55/Strasburg Rd. Occu­pants had recent­ly left a res­i­dence where many were con­sum­ing alco­hol to include the sus­pect, Nathaniel Liam Dun­can, 19 years of age. Wit­ness state­ments indi­cat­ed that Dun­can pro­duced the Glock firearm and began show­ing it off. Sev­er­al of the wit­ness­es indi­cat­ed they were unaware of the exis­tence of the firearm until it was pro­duced. One female pas­sen­ger, seat­ed next to Dun­can, urged him to put it away as it was unsafe under the cir­cum­stances. In the process of han­dling the firearm, Dun­can neg­li­gent­ly dis­charged the firearm send­ing a bul­let through the driver’s seat and into the body of the dri­ver. The female vic­tim was able to get all intox­i­cat­ed occu­pants to a place of res­i­den­cy before trans­port­ing her­self to the hos­pi­tal for treatment.

Dun­can was locat­ed at a res­i­dence in War­ren Coun­ty and tak­en into cus­tody with­out inci­dent. Deputies also recov­ered the sus­pect­ed Glock firearm used in this inci­dent which was con­cealed in a shed out­side of the same res­i­dence. War­ren Coun­ty Sheriff’s Office would like to thank the Front Roy­al Police Depart­ment for their involve­ment and assis­tance in this case which aid­ed in the quick han­dling of the investigation.

Nathaniel Liam Dun­can was charged with Code of Vir­ginia 18.2–56.1 – Felony Reck­less han­dling of a firearm caus­ing seri­ous bod­i­ly injury of anoth­er result­ing in per­ma­nent and sig­nif­i­cant phys­i­cal impairment.

This inves­ti­ga­tion is ongo­ing and any­one with infor­ma­tion regard­ing this case is asked to con­tact Lieu­tenant M. Glavis at (540) 635‑7100 ext. 1

Approved for release:  Cap­tain R. C. Mumaw 

UNCLASSIFIED | FOR PUBLIC RELEASE