TEWKSBURY, MASS. (WHDH) – The father of a 23-year-old man who was shot in a random attack at Hampton Beach in New Hampshire before the shooter turned the gun on himself spoke with 7NEWS Thursday about his son’s recovery.
On July 5, officers responded to a reported shooting in the area of 29 Ocean Boulevard at approximately 1:20 a.m. and found a 23-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman suffering from gunshot wounds, according to a joint statement issued by Attorney General John M. Formella, New Hampshire State Police Colonel Mark B. Hall, and Hampton Police Department Chief Alexander J. Reno. Both were taken to a nearby hospital.
Robert Perault said his son Chase was shot three times while he was walking with his 25-year-old girlfriend at the beach.
“Bullet was lodged in his left arm, and then two in the lungs,” Perault said. “It just blows your mind that this happens. I can’t explain any other way, it’s just a random act of violence.”
Soon after, at the intersection of P Street and Ashworth Avenue, officers encountered the suspect, Tyshawn Cooper, 21, of Taylors, South Carolina, who pulled a handgun, raised it, and shot himself in the head as an officer fired at him, officials said. Cooper was a sailor in the United States Navy.
After an autopsy, Cooper’s cause of death was determined to be suicide.
Perault said his son and his girlfriend have both been released from the hospital but are continuing to recover from their injuries.
“The fact that he was threatening, so they say, people – to shoot somebody prior to that was kind of an indication that this was something going on,” Perault said.
He said his biggest questions are what Cooper was doing with the gun, and how he got the gun in the first place. He said he has received “not a word” from the Navy in the wake of the attack.
Chase graduated from Tewksbury High School, loves fishing, and now works in construction with his father. Perault said his son has only had one question on his mind since he first woke up at the hospital.
“‘Why did he shoot us?’ That was the very first thing to come out of his mouth,” Perault said.
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