{"id":412608,"date":"2026-01-17T09:02:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T09:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/412608\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T09:02:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T09:02:17","slug":"us-boy-11-allegedly-shoots-father-to-death-after-nintendo-switch-taken-away-pennsylvania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/412608\/","title":{"rendered":"US boy, 11, allegedly shoots father to death after Nintendo Switch taken away | Pennsylvania"},"content":{"rendered":"

An 11-year-old Pennsylvania<\/a> boy allegedly shot his father to death after previously having his Nintendo Switch handheld gaming system taken away.<\/p>\n

The boy is facing criminal homicide charges after a 13 January shooting at his family\u2019s home in Duncannon Borough.<\/p>\n

As put in court documents obtained and reported by WGAL News 8<\/a>, the case illustrates how easily children can access guns in the US, where firearms are ubiquitous.<\/p>\n

Police were dispatched to the family\u2019s residence at about 3.20am, after a report of an \u201cunresponsive male\u201d. The news site says that officers found a 42-year-old man named Douglas Dietz dead in bed from a gunshot wound to the head.<\/p>\n

The victim was reportedly discovered in the bedroom he shared with his wife, which court documents say is connected to their son\u2019s bedroom by a closet.<\/p>\n

The news outlet states that after investigating, authorities identified the man\u2019s 11-year-old son as the suspect.<\/p>\n

Police reported it was the child\u2019s birthday, and he had entered the bedroom shouting: \u201cDaddy\u2019s dead.\u201d Troopers at the scene also reportedly said that they heard the son tell his mother: \u201cI killed Daddy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Police said the shooting occurred after the couple had gone to bed shortly past midnight. The child reportedly told authorities that he had had a good day with his parents, but the documents reportedly state that he became \u201cmad\u201d when his father told him it was time to go to bed.<\/p>\n

The affidavit, cited by WGAL News 8, reportedly states that when officers asked the boy what had happened, he replied: \u201cI shot somebody.\u201d The sworn police statement also said: \u201cHe admitted that he had someone in mind whom he was going to shoot, whom he identified as his father.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the news outlet, the court document says that the boy told police he found a key to the gun safe his father\u2019s drawer in his parent\u2019s bedroom. He reportedly unlocked it while attempting to locate his Nintendo Switch \u2013 which had previously been taken away from him \u2013 and found a gun.<\/p>\n

The son then allegedly admitted to \u201cremoving the gun from the safe, loading bullets into it and walking over to his father\u2019s side of the bed\u201d, according to the affidavit. \u201cHe pulled back the hammer and fired the gun at his father,\u201d the affidavit adds.<\/p>\n

When asked what he believed would happen when he fired the gun, the boy responded that he was \u201cmad\u201d and that he had \u201cnot thought about that\u201d, according to investigators.<\/p>\n

WGAL News 8 reported that the child was denied bail after being taken into custody. A hearing is tentatively scheduled for 22 January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An 11-year-old Pennsylvania boy allegedly shot his father to death after previously having his Nintendo Switch handheld gaming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-412608","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}