OMAHA — In delivering his sentence to a teen who fatally killed his best friend, Douglas County District Judge Peter Bataillon shared the wise words his father had repeated when he was a boy:
"The most dangerous gun is the unloaded gun," Bataillon said.Â
That advice apparently hadn't reached Blake W. Miller when he was handling what he believed to be an unloaded .22 caliber rifle that killed 18-year-old Tanner Farrell on March 12. Miller pointed the gun at Farrell's chest while "fooling around" and drinking beer, prosecutors said, and pulled the trigger.Â
Bataillon on Tuesday sentenced Miller to four years of probation on a manslaughter charge. Miller faced up to 20 years in prison.Â
In brief comments during the 11-minute hearing, Miller apologized for causing "so much pain."Â
"I wish I could fix this and change what happened," he said. "But I can't. I'd just really like to move on for everybody. That's all. I'm sorry for everything."
Authorities have said that a small group of friends were at Miller's house drinking beer without his parents home when Miller, then 18, pulled out the rifle to show it off. Miller was a Millard West High School senior and Farrell had transferred the summer before from Millard West to Ralston High School.
After Farrell was shot, one teen called parents to come and another called 911. Miller had said he accidentally shot his friend, Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine had said.
“It just shows you what can happen when somebody who doesn’t apparently know what they’re doing is handling a firearm in an inappropriate manner, and we see the results,†Kleine had said. “It’s tragic. And it should bother everyone.â€
Miller's attorney, William Bianco, said Miller graduated from high school and began working at a farm in Cedar Rapids with the goal of owning his own farm. Bianco said Miller stayed in close contact with Farrell's family, who were upset when the manslaughter charge was filed and had issued a statement of support to the teen.Â
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More than two dozen family and friends of Miller and Farrell attended the sentencing. All declined to comment after the hearing.Â
Prosecutor John Alagaban said probation was an appropriate sentence in this case.Â
"We are wishful that things could be different," Alagaban said. "Some mistakes, though, are criminal. This was truly one of those."Â
Under state law, manslaughter occurs when someone causes the death of another without malice either upon sudden quarrel or unintentionally while in the commission of an unlawful act.Â
Kleine had said that Miller pointing the gun at Farrell was unlawful and not a true accidental shooting.Â
In November, a similar scenario occurred in Imperial. Tristan Ferguson, 19, told authorities that he pointed a shotgun at his roommate Jesse Krausnick, 19, and pulled the trigger once, thinking the gun was unloaded, according to court documents. Krausnick died at Chase County Community Hospital.
A Nebraska state trooper said in an affidavit that Ferguson had purchased alcohol at a local convenience store with a fake ID and that minors had been drinking at the Imperial residence where the shooting occurred. Krausnick now faces manslaughter and firearm charges.
But other recent horseplay-type fatal shootings garnered more prison time for the young people who pulled the trigger.Â
Last year, a Douglas County district judge sentenced 20-year-old Mason Beaverson to 5 to 10 years in prison after pleading to a manslaughter charge. While at a party and high on an assortment of illegal drugs at an Omaha Motel 6 room, Beaverson aimed a gun at 17-year-old Evan Latto on Sept. 4, 2020, and pulled the trigger, killing him.
And in 2021, another judge sentenced Keat Thon, 19, to 10 to 12 years in prison for fatally shooting his new friend, 19-year-old Nuer Yuek in July 2020. An Omaha police detective had said the two were messing around with a gun, passing it back and forth until Thon, believing the gun was unloaded, pulled the trigger while pointing it at Yuek.Â