STRATFORD, Conn. - An off-duty New Haven police officer shot and critically wounded his 18-year-old daughter, apparently mistaking her for an intruder after she sneaked out of their Stratford home and re-entered through the basement.

Eric Scott, 41, on the New Haven force for nine years, has not been charged in the Tuesday shooting.

“Mr. Scott was under the impression his daughter had gone to bed for the night,” Stratford Capt. Thomas Rodia said. “He did not expect his daughter to be outside or down in the basement.”

Investigators said Tasha Scott left her home late Monday to meet a boyfriend. She triggered a backyard motion sensor light as she tried to enter through a basement door.

Awakened by the light, Eric Scott spotted someone moving in the basement bathroom, police said. He fired his department-issued pistol once, hitting the teen in the knee. The bullet traveled up her leg and lodged in her thigh area, police said.

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Dad shoots teen he mistook for intruder

OK, there are a couple of things wrong with this story, for one, the girl shouldn’t have been sneaking out of the house to meet her boyfriend, that is her mistake and she is seriously paying FOR that indiscretion…

My biggest problem is with her Dad though, he fired on an unidentified individual, in HIS home, in the dark apparently, and has inadvertently wounded his own daughter, and for that, there is NO excuse…

For one thing, you NEVER fire on an unidentified target, ever, that is one of the most important rules of shooting, ALWAYS identify your target…

And the father had the upper hand, regardless of whether it was his daughter or if it truly had been an intruder, the father was in HIS house, his environment and he should have been in control of this situation, he’s a trained police officer, he should know all this, but he fires blindly in the dark on the assumption that there was an intruder in his basement??

There have been very few days in the last 35 years that I haven’t carried a weapon of some sort, I am almost never without a sidearm, at any time, and I have always had a house full of kids too, and none of them have EVER been mistaken for an intruder, with gun ownership there comes responsibility, and you’d think that as a cop this father would have been a bit more aware of all the whys and wherefores, and I have to ask the question of why did he fire on an unidentified target, that is the part that really blows my mind…

But I’ll bet you some BIG money, that girl will NEVER try to sneak in OR out again…