By Conor Berry
The Berkshire Eagle
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — A Pittsfield man who accidentally shot himself outside the Berkshire County Courthouse complex last month is now facing felony firearms charges, according to Pittsfield police.
Ricky Lee Reynolds, 26, of Cherry Street, is scheduled to appear Wednesday in Central Berkshire District Court, where he will be charged with carrying a gun without a license, discharging a gun within 500 feet of a building, improper storage of a gun, and possession of ammunition without a firearms identification card.
Police said Reynolds accidentally shot himself in the leg in an alley behind Patrick’s Pub on the afternoon of June 24. The alley borders the parking lot of Berkshire Probate and Family Court and is only about 30 yards from the front entrance to District Court.
Reynolds cut through the courthouse parking lot and several Wendell Avenue lots before collapsing at a service station at the corner of East Housatonic and South streets, where he had attempted to flag down passing motorists for help. Police said Reynolds lost a lot of blood from the single gunshot wound to his left leg, leaving a clear blood trail from the alley to the service station.
Police recovered the gun — a loaded .22-caliber revolver with a black barrel and white handle — inside a shed at the service station. Police said Reynolds threw the weapon through a large crack in the shed’s door.
Investigators initially were looking into the possibility that Reynolds, who had past skirmishes with the law, may have been targeted by a rival. But witness testimony corroborated Reynolds account that the wound was accidental and self-inflicted, police said.
Officer John P. Bassi, an investigator with the Pittsfield Police Department s crime scene services unit, said in a report that investigators were unable to perform a gunshot residue test on Reynolds, who underwent emergency surgery at Berkshire Medical Center.
Bassi said the residue test must be performed within three hours of a gun being fired, and it would have been too late for police to conduct the test by the time Reynolds was released from surgery.
Police said a female employee of Patrick’s Pub was with Reynolds at the time of the June 24 shooting. Margaret Catalano, who works at the well-known Bank Row pub and restaurant, told police she had briefly dated Reynolds, who also worked at Patrick’s Pub.
According to police, Reynolds was on his way to pick up his paycheck when the gun discharged. It wasn’t immediately clear if Reynolds is still employed by Patrick’s.
Catalano, in a June 25 statement to Detective Dale M. Eason, told police that after she heard a loud pop, she turned around and saw a gun lying on the ground and Reynolds “bleeding very badly” from his left leg.
Catalano said she initially contemplated calling 911. Instead, though, she asked Reynolds what he wanted her to do, and his reply was, “Just go to work,” according to police reports now on file in District Court.
Catalano told police she was unaware Reynolds was carrying a gun.
“Ricky is a really nice person, and I am very surprised that he would even have a gun,” she said.
The day after the shooting, Catalano told her boss, Dave Powell, an owner of Patrick’s Pub, about what she had witnessed. Police said Powell urged Catalano to speak with investigators immediately and drove her to the police station to make a statement.
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