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Girlfriend shot in the face; Erie man charged after apartment incident

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(This story has been updated to add new information.)

A 20-year-old woman was in stable condition Thursday at UPMC Hamot after Erie police said she was shot in the face by her boyfriend at an apartment building on East 22nd Street Wednesday evening.

Investigators say the friend now faces aggravated assault and other charges in the incident, which the victim said was an accident.

The shooting was reported around 7:50 p.m. Wednesday when city police officers were dispatched to the 700 block of East 22nd Street to investigate a report of a gunshot victim. Officers found the woman with a gunshot wound to the face in a second-floor bedroom, police reported.

Investigators said the woman’s boyfriend, 25-year-old Nicholas T. Chastang, identified his .22-caliber Kel-Tek pistol as the weapon used. When investigators interviewed Chastang, he said he pointed the gun at the woman and pulled the trigger. He also told investigators that this was a common occurrence in their daily activities, as he and the woman both pointed unloaded firearms at each other and pulled the trigger, investigators wrote in the criminal complaint filed against Chastang on Thursday.

Investigators wrote that the firearm had not been identified on Wednesday.

Officers who traveled with the woman to UPMC Hamot after the shooting said while speaking with hospital staff that the woman claimed her boyfriend shot her, but they were just joking and it was an accident, investigators wrote in the affidavit Statement of Complaint of Probable Cause.

Chastang was in Erie police custody Thursday morning and was later arraigned by Erie 2nd District Judge Ed Wilson on charges of aggravated assault and misdemeanor counts of weapons possession, simple assault and recklessly endangering another person. According to court records, Wilson set bail at $100,000.

Contact Tim Hahn at [email protected]. Follow him on X @ETNhahn.

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