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FRUITLAND, Duchesne County — A man accused of shooting his friend Sunday during an argument is now facing several criminal charges.
Robert Trent Cooper, 28, was arrested Sunday and charged on Wednesday in 8th District Court with discharge of a gun causing serious injury, a first-degree felony; aggravated assault with serious injury, a second-degree felony; possession of a weapon by a restricted person, witness tampering, and production of a controlled substance, third-degree felonies; assaulting a police officer, a class A misdemeanor; and carrying a gun while under the influence of alcohol, interfering with an arrest, and possession of drug paraphernalia, class B misdemeanors.
Just before 10 p.m. Sunday, Duchesne County sheriff's deputies were called to a camper in Fruitland on a report of a shooting. Deputies arrived to find a man shot in the left forearm with a tourniquet tied around his shoulder area, according to a police booking affidavit.
As investigators tried to sort out what had happened, they were told that Cooper and the victim, who are friends, got into an argument that culminated in the victim being shot. Deputies say Cooper told his girlfriend to tell police that she was the one who shot the victim. When interviewed by detectives, the victim also "was dishonest about this because he didn't want to get Robert in trouble" and initially claimed the girlfriend shot him before later admitting that "he was behind the closed screen door inside the RV trailer when Robert shot him from the outside," the affidavit states.
Deputies found a bullet hole in the screen door, blood on the door frame and several shell casings outside the trailer.
Cooper was given a portable breath test that allegedly measured his blood-alcohol level at 0.154%. When asked by deputies to tell them what happened, Cooper "became very defensive and began yelling" at detectives and threatened to head-butt one of them, the affidavit states.
"When Robert was brought to the jail on his last charges he told (a deputy that) if he gets bail he's going to leave state like he did in Ohio where he currently has two warrants," according to the arrest report.
Doctors told police that the victim "would have to have bone grafts taken from his hip to repair his left arm."
