(NEWSER) – A Minnesota teen is charged with manslaughter after what police say was a YouTube stunt gone fatally wrong. Monalisa Perez, 19, told authorities she was making a video with boyfriend Pedro Ruiz III, 22, outside their home Monday night that involved her shooting a book Ruiz was holding to his chest. Ruiz thought the book would stop the bullet, and Perez says she agreed to the stunt after he showed her another book that had halted a bullet, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports. Police say she shot Ruiz with a .50-caliber handgun from about a foot away, but the book (a hardcover encyclopedia, per the Minneapolis Star Tribune) did not stop the bullet, which entered his chest. Two cameras, both of which were turned over to authorities, recorded the fatal shooting.
A still from the couple’s most recent YouTube video. (YouTube)
Emergency workers could not save Ruiz, who was later declared dead. Ruiz’s aunt says the couple’s 3-year-old daughter saw the shooting. Perez, who was charged with second-degree manslaughter, is also currently pregnant with a boy due in September. The couple often recorded YouTube videos together—Perez’s channel can be seen here—and just an hour before the shooting, Perez had posted on Facebook that they were in the process of making Ruiz his own channel, which would be full of “crazy stuff.” “They were in love. It was just a prank gone wrong. It shouldn’t have happened like this,” Ruiz’s aunt tells WDAY-TV. “I wish they wouldn’t have done it. I wish he would’ve just done another prank.” Another aunt says Ruiz’s family is supporting Perez: The death of her partner of six years is “the worst punishment she can get.”
!snip!
“I wish he did some other idiotic jackass prank.”
Great wish, Auntie.
How about, “I wish he was smart”?
Thankfully, only this Willing Imbecile assumed room temperature. God knows if some future “prank” would have injured or killed their kids or some other innocent bystander.
Sadly, he had already passed along his genes
and thus is not suitable for a Darwin Award.
Maybe he should have submitted an inquiry to Mythbusters to determine if a book really could stop a bullet before trying it on himself.
With the right cartridge, the S&W .50 generates over 3,000 ft-lb (4,100 J) of muzzle energy. Even if the book had stopped the bullet, it may well have knocked him over for a back-of-the-skull fracture, and those can easily be fatal.
These two people didn’t have enough brain cells between them to fill an amoeba.
Rules to live by.
#All guns are Always loaded.
#Never put your finger on the trigger until your sights are on the target.
#Never point the muzzle of your weapon at anything you do not intend to destroy.
#Be aware of your target and what’s beyond
Having most of my family in Minnesota, I can speak with authority that the residents there are not as smart as they think they are.
Best case scenario happened. Lets say they had used a 25 or something of the sort and succeeded on posting. How many kids would have tried it and killed themselves?
@cato – Excellent rules, those are.
(one nit: Never point the muzzle of your weapon
at anything you are not willing to destroy.)
Can’t find the proper words for such stupidity.
Guess he did not think to test the idea without himself or another living being behind the book?
Wanna bet these unmarried cretins were on welfare?
Defenitely Not Going to DisneyLand !
@Uncle Al
Absolutely correct !
Colonel Jeff Cooper would be proud.
Thank you sir !
She wanted him dead and it wasn’t his child she’s carrying. My guess.
A .50 caliber? What’d they have, a Desert Eagle?
What was next on their list, sticking their heads in a wood chipper?
Yeah MJA, when the kid’s born he’ll be as black as Harlem.
“… it was just a prank gone wrong.” No, it isn’t; everything worked the way it was supposed to. The gun fired, it was supposed to. The bullet entered the book, it was supposed to. The bullet exited the book, it was supposed to (books are designed to be read, not to stop bullets). The bullet entered his chest and destroyed his thoracic cavity, as it was supposed to, by design. NOT a prank gone wrong.
MJA, you have a mind like a Forensic Files episode!
The .50 Action Express round has a velocity of about 1,500 FPS and about 1.500 lb-ft of energy at the muzzle with bullet weights of 300 grains or better. That’s pretty awesome for a semi-auto pistol. The recoil cor this round is such that the the slide by itself for this pistol weighs about 2 pounds to help dampen the recoil (most semi-auto pistols in there entirety don’t weigh this much these days, some even fully loaded).
I read where the idiot had shot into a “similar” book before trying this stunt and the bullet didn’t penetrate all the way through. I’m guessing that he just propped the book up against something flimsy and a lot of the energy was expended by the book flying backward.
It was a different story when he held it up against his chest which was a backstop that didn’t allow the book to go flying when it was shot. It would have been stupid to do this with a .22, much less a cartridge with muzzle energy characteristics about the same as the round from an AK-47 rifle (7.62×39 mm).
1. Illegals on welfare? Had her first baby with him at 15? Still unmarried 4 years later and pregnant again? Trash.
2. Too bad she couldn’t have arranged to fire through herself first.
3. YouTube is full of videos already showing actual Class III vests, and much lower calibers, that leave the Guinea pig bleeding with broken ribs or worse.
4. Used a .50 Eagle and a book because they couldn’t find a scoped .308 and a National Enquirer.
“Hold my beer and wa–” BANG.
Yup. Pregnant at 15. This wasn’t her first “bad choice.”
Monalisa Perez? Is there such a thing as a Mexican Redneck?
A .50 caliber handgun?!!!… A Desert Eagle?!!!… A Ruger Super Redhawk?!!!… Black Powder?!!!… From a foot away?… What the ever loving fuck?… Maybe you could pull that stunt off with an acceptable degree of “safety” using a .22SR from ten feet and a really thick book, but for fuck’s sake!!!… Where did they ever get the idea that a monster caliber gun from a foot away was okay? What a pair of fucking idiots.
@Tony R … probably not, but I’m sure there is such a thing as a Mexican Wetneck.
I just went back and read the longer news accounts that identified the pistol as a Desert Eagle. The shorter story I read earlier just said .50 handgun and I assumed the worst: S&W .50 which is much more energetic than the Eagle.
I was wrong. But they were still deadly stupid!
I’m guessing neither ever took a physics class.
Well, you know, I think I covered this with my boys when I disciplined them during our time with things that could hurt/kill.
#1 rule. Don’t point this dangerous thing at anything you don’t want destroyed. If you do, it is assumed it is on purpose. You’ve been told.
Covers the whole spectrum of power levels.
#2 son never saw his paint ball gun again after “accidentally” shooting a cousin in the shoulder at about 25 ft. (He was getting out-of-hand, from my POV.)
Pointing guns at yourself is stupid. Regardless of her participation – he won the Darwin Award himself. She’s guilty of not doing everything she could to stop him. That’s not nothing.
Thanks for researching that Uncle Al. Did you also happen to find out the poor deceased fella’s occupation and career to afford such upscale weaponry as a Desert Eagle? My limited budget = Taurus.
If only the book WAS ABOUT BALLISTICS and gun safety
A while back, I was at a friend’s house in Oak Cliff and a 15 yo Mex/Am girl came over to visit my friend’s son.
While she was waiting, I eventually asked her what she wanted out of life and what would make her happy.
She wanted to get pregnant ASAP and live at home with Mom and Grandma raising the child.
This was her sole ambition, I shit you not.
We see “bad choice” in a young pregnancy. They see the natural flow of their culture.
Western Culture is being out-bred. No matter how “bad” those choices look, this is the result.
You makin’ me laugh tonight, Rufus. 😀
Dadof4, you don’t need to be Mexican to think like that. I saw it coming with my oldest son’s girlfriend. We’ve raised our grandson and I couldn’t be prouder of him.
“She wanted to get pregnant ASAP and live at home with Mom and Grandma raising the child.”
I’m going to take some shit for saying this, but a lot of that attitude in the Hispanic community is do to the Catholic Church, or at least the way they perceive he message from the Catholic church. I had a Mex Girl friend when I as young and his isn’t uncommon.
May we now assume that YouTube replaces the Guinness Book of World Records as the main inspiration to get people to do stupid things?
Outside their house or the government’s uh I mean taxpayers house?
These are the same people who say wearing rubber sole shoes during a thunderstorm will prevent you from being struck by lightning. Yeah. An electric charge powerful enough to pass through a mile of non-conductive air can be stopped dead in its tracks by one inch of rubber.
The stupid shall be punished.
Thank you Mr. Darwin.
Tell me again why gun safety can’t be taught in school?
@Dadof4 June 28, 2017 at 9:38 pm
Your judgmental misogyny is deplorable! Ain’t general suffrage in a republic grand? It’s what allows you to be, rightfully, silenced for badthink. ¡Vivé meh Constitution!
“Monalisa Perez, 19”
“Ruiz’s aunt says the couple’s 3-year-old daughter saw the shooting.”
So she shot and killed a statutory rapist. That’s probably not a bad thing to happen.
Even though in leftist Minnesota they probably would say it’s o.k. since he was a minority…
The only “tragedy” I’m getting is that they weren’t BOTH killed.
Shame the recoil didn’t cause the pistol to split her melon.
That’s pretty dumb; even for dummies.
izlamo delenda est …