TALLMADGE TOWNSHIP, Mich. \u2014 A 20-year-old man has been charged in connection with the deadly shooting of a teenager during a party in Tallmadge Township, authorities said.<\/p>\n
Westen Meulenberg, of Jenison, faces charges of discharging a firearm in a building causing death, according to the Ottawa County Sheriff\u2019s Office. He was arraigned Thursday morning.<\/p>\n
The shooting occurred on May 9 at a residence near 2nd Avenue and Lake Michigan Drive NW. Deputies reported that Meulenberg was in an upstairs bedroom at the time, while 19-year-old Connor Lotterman was downstairs. Meulenberg reportedly obtained a gun and fired multiple rounds through the floor. One bullet struck Lotterman in the head.<\/p>\n
Lotterman, a Grand Valley State University student, was transported to a hospital where he later died.<\/p>\n
Officials said alcohol appeared to have played a role in the incident. While the county medical examiner ruled Lotterman\u2019s death accidental, Capt. Jake Sparks of the Ottawa County Sheriff\u2019s Office emphasized the shooting itself was deliberate.<\/p>\n
\u201cMultiple rounds were fired. It wasn\u2019t like as if it were a one-shot accidental discharge. This was numerous rounds discharged,\u201d Sparks said. \u201cAlthough the result of the shooting led to an accidental death, this shooting was intentional.\u201d<\/p>\n
The investigation remains ongoing as authorities continue to gather information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TALLMADGE TOWNSHIP, Mich. \u2014 A 20-year-old man has been charged in connection with the deadly shooting of a teenager during a party in Tallmadge Township, authorities said. Westen Meulenberg, of Jenison, faces charges of discharging a firearm in a building causing death, according to the Ottawa County Sheriff\u2019s Office. He was arraigned Thursday morning. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3203,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-and-safety"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grandrapidspost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grandrapidspost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grandrapidspost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grandrapidspost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grandrapidspost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3198"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grandrapidspost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3207,"href":"https:\/\/grandrapidspost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3198\/revisions\/3207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grandrapidspost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grandrapidspost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grandrapidspost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grandrapidspost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}