Sheriff’s Deputy Faces 4 Felony Charges in Wisconsin Youth Turkey-Hunt Shooting

A 35-year-old Wisconsin sheriff’s deputy faces four felony charges after letting his 3-year-old daughter trigger the 12-gauge shotgun blast thatwounded a 40-year-old turkey-hunting mentor and the man’s 7-year-old sonduring April’s two-day youth-only turkey season.

James D. Lehman of Union Grove was charged Aug. 17 in Racine County Circuit Court with two counts of second-degree reckless injury with a dangerous weapon and two counts of injury by negligent use of a dangerous weapon. His initial court appearance is scheduled for September 10. Local news outlets report Lehman is on administrative leave from the Racine County Sheriff’s Department.

The shooting occurred near Burlington in the Cherry Lake Sedge Meadow State Natural Area around 2:20 p.m. on April 12, the second day of the state’s turkey season for youths 15 and under. Wisconsin has no minimum age for hunting, but young hunters must stay within arm’s reach of a certified mentor. Youngsters must buy a hunting license once they’re 12, but cannot hunt alone until 14, provided they pass the state’s hunter-education course.

Hunting mentors must be at least 18 and have passed a state-certified hunter-ed program or completed basic training in the U.S. military. Lehman holds a military exemption, but told investigators he was an inexperienced hunter and had seldom before hunted alone.

Initial reports in mid-April indicated Lehman and the shooting victims didn’t know each other, but the two men were co-workers, according to Lt. Renee Thok, the Department of Natural Resources’ hunter education administrator. According to the criminal complaint filed Aug. 17, Lehman asked his co-worker for tips on where to hunt. Lehman told investigators he didn’t think the colleague and his son were hunting that afternoon.

When investigators interviewed the shooting victim that night after his release from the Froedtert Medical Hospital in Milwaukee, the man said he told Lehman about the state forest lands but asked him not to hunt his spots.

When DNR warden Jason Roberts arrived to investigate the shooting, Lehman took him to the shooting site. Roberts said the distance between the shooters and victims was 39 yards, and the victims were not using decoys or a turkey fan. They were seated against a tree and metal post, watching a field with their backs to Lehman and his daughter.

Earlier reports said the woods had a brushy understory, but it wasn’t dense. The man who got shot told Roberts he was using a turkey call, and sitting with his left arm around his son. Though both victims wore leafy-patterned camouflage, the father said they were not wearing any red, white, or blue items that could’ve been mistaken for a turkey’s head and neck.

The man told Roberts he thought Lehman mistook his hand for a turkey’s head because they got shot seconds after he used his call. Lehman told Roberts he was blind-calling when he saw movement that he mistook for a turkey fan and a white turkey head. He aimed his 12-gauge semiautomatic shotgun by resting its barrel on a fallen tree, and held its buttstock against his shoulder. His daughter was sitting in front of him, and pulled the trigger at his instruction.

The shooting victims suffered multiple pellet wounds. The man instantly yelled, “they were people, and they had been shot,” Roberts reported. The victim told Roberts he recognized Lehman when his co-worker ran in and said “something similar to ‘I didn’t know you were out here. I’m so sorry.’”

The wounded man, seeing his boy was hit and bleeding from his head, told Lehman to call 911 because his son needed immediate medical help. The man also felt pain in his own arm and applied a makeshift tourniquet. He told investigators that pellets penetrated his lower torso, left hand, forearm and upper arm.

The victim also told Roberts his son suffered multiple pellet wounds that penetrated his skull and reached his brain cavity. Another DNR warden, Michael Hirschboeck, interviewed the boy’s mother June 7. She said surgeons removed as many pellets as possible, but had to leave individual pellets in the boy’s spinal cord, skull and brain.

A review of online DNR hunting-incident summaries since 2007 found this shooting involved the youngest shooter and victim on record in Wisconsin. Previously, a 9-year-old boy shot a 48-year-old man in the upper right arm with pellets from his 20-gauge shotgun while hunting mourning doves in Walworth County in September 2012; and a 13-year-old boy shot a 9-year-old boy in the foot with a .22 rifle while plinking at birds in Polk County in May 2019.

Wisconsin is one of an estimated 35 states with no minimum hunting age. Wisconsin’s minimum hunting age was 12 throughout the 1900s, but in 2009 lawmakers lowered the restriction to age 10 for children being mentored. They changed the law again in 2017, letting parents decide when their children can hunt with a mentor.

Turkey hunting in Wisconsin is generally a safe activity, even though hunters wear camouflage clothing from head to foot to avoid being spotted by the sharp-eyed birds, which see colors like blaze-orange extremely well. Though Wisconsin issued 208,000 to 230,000 hunting permits each spring the past 20 years, the state has recorded only four fatalities in 31 shooting incidents during turkey season. No one got shot during three of the past four seasons, and the state’s most recent shooting fatality during turkey season was 2017.

Wisconsin held its first modern turkey season in 1983 after restoring the birds to the Badger state beginning in 1976. The statewide harvest during this spring’s season was 47,704, while the harvests in 2024 and 2025 surpassed 50,000 gobblers and jakes (1-year-old males).

Thok said she is thankful the victims didn’t suffer worse injuries, and hopes they’ll continue to hunt. She also encourages prospective hunters to takeWisconsin’s hunter education course, no matter their age or military training. It’s mandatory for anyone born after Jan. 1, 1973. The curriculum is written at a sixth-grade level (ages 11 and 12), but parents can decide if their child can meet the course’s requirements.

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