Mass. club pleads no contest in 2008 Uzi death of 8-year-old Conn. boy who shot self at show

Mass. club pleads no contest in boy’s Uzi death

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — A Massachusetts sporting club is donating $10,000 to children’s charities as part of a deal settling criminal charges in the death of an 8-year-old boy who accidentally shot himself in the head with an Uzi during a gun fair.

Christopher Bizilj’s parents approved the Westfield Sportsman’s Club’s plea deal reached Thursday in Hampden Superior Court, where his mother’s written description of their grief left the judge visibly shaken.

“We trusted this event would be fun and safe,” Suzanne Bizilj wrote in a statement read in court by a family attorney. “My family has been ripped apart, and relationships have been badly damaged.”

Christopher, a third-grader from Ashford, Conn., died after the accidental shooting during an October 2008 gun fair at the Westfield club. His father, Dr. Charles Bizilj, and brother were a few feet away.

Three men who arranged the gun fair and provided the weapons are scheduled to stand trial in June.

Through its attorney, the Westfield club pleaded no contest Thursday to a charge of involuntary manslaughter and paid a $1,000 fine, the maximum it faced under state law.

It also will donate $10,000 in Christopher’s name to two charities: $5,000 each to the Shriner’s Hospital for Children and to the Children’s Miracle Network through Baystate Children’s Hospital.

The club faced four charges of illegally providing a machine gun to a minor that will be dismissed after one year if the donations are made. The club’s attorney, Thomas Drechsler, said that will happen as soon as possible.

“(Club members) want to put an end to these proceedings and not put the court, the district attorney, the family or anyone else through the trauma of having a trial,” Drechsler said, joined by Robert Gorham of Springfield, who became the club’s vice president about a year after the accident.

Gorham said told the judge that “one of the hardest days I ever spent in my life” was helping Christopher’s mother put up balloons at the club last fall to mark what would have been the boy’s ninth birthday.

Christopher lost control of the 9mm micro submachine gun as it recoiled while he fired at a pumpkin at the Oct. 26, 2008, event.

Christopher’s father was 10 feet behind him and reaching for his camera when his child fired. The boy was briefly conscious but died at a hospital still wearing the outfit he chose for the event, which he had anticipated for months.

Suzanne Bizilj said they mourn their son every day. She said she has been unable to shake the image of Christopher in the hospital with a bloody towel around his head and tubes connected to his small body.

She described snipping locks of his hair and taking plaster casts of his hands and feet after he died so she would have remnants of his short life.

Hampden Superior Court Judge Peter Velis called her statement “one of the most, if not the most, bone-chilling things I’ve heard since I’ve been on the bench, and I’ve heard a lot.”

“This poor young fellow lies in his grave. … What in God’s name was anyone, if not everyone, thinking?” he said. “The good memories of this boy are going to be kept alive, not the bad memories — this community does not deserve anything less.”

Prosecutors have said Bizilj selected the compact Uzi for his 4-foot-3, 66-pound son after he was assured it was safer than a larger weapon. The opposite was true, District Attorney William Bennett has said. The father was not charged.

Three men face charges of involuntary manslaughter: Edward Fleury, Pelham’s former police chief and owner of the fair’s sponsoring company COP Firearms & Training; and two men who brought the Uzi to the show, Carl Guiffre of Hartford, Conn., and Domenico Spano, of New Milford, Conn.

Fleury also was indicted on four counts of furnishing a machine gun to a minor. Bennett said Fleury wrongly assured Guiffre and Spano it was legal for children to use the Uzi.

The fair had promised in an advertisement that shooters would have certified instructors, but prosecutors said Christopher was supervised by Spano’s uncertified 15-year-old son.

All three men have pleaded not guilty.

Still pending is a $4 million federal lawsuit the boy’s family has filed against the club, the event’s promoters and those who supplied the weapon and ammunition.

A proposal to increase Massachusetts’ penalty for corporations convicted of manslaughter to $250,000 is still awaiting action in the Legislature.