‘Marine of the Year’ charged with firing into crowd

December 08, 2005
‘Marine of the Year’ charged with firing into crowd
By Beth Zimmerman
Times staff writer

A grand jury on Dec. 7 indicted a decorated Reserve Marine sergeant who served in Iraq on charges he fired a shotgun into a noisy crowd below his window, injuring two people.

Sgt. Daniel Cotnoir, a small-arms repairman with Ordnance Contact Team 1, Ordnance Maintenance Company, 4th Maintenance Battalion, Devens, Mass., was charged with two counts of assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon and one count of discharging a shotgun within 500 feet of a building, according to the Essex County, Mass., district attorney’s office.

Cotnoir pleaded innocent in September to allegations that he pointed a 12-gauge shotgun out the window of his second-floor apartment and fired a single shot at a crowd leaving nearby nightclubs at 2:30 a.m. on Aug. 13.

Fragments struck and injured Lisette Cumba, 15, and Kelvin Castillo, 20, both of Lowell, Mass.

Cotnoir, a married father of two, told police he feared for the safety of his family after someone threw an empty juice bottle through his bedroom window.

Marine Corps Times named the reservist “Marine of the Year” in July.

Cotnoir helped pioneer a new mortuary affairs military occupational specialty for the Marine Corps by training 40 Marines in mortuary and remains-recovery skills.

While deployed to Camp Taqaddum, Iraq, he and his unit of 20 men, most of them junior Marines, handled the bodies of 180 fallen Marines. “It’s a lot harder to talk about the job now than it was at the time to actually do it,” Cotnoir said. Caring for the bodies of fellow Marines is much tougher than civilians, he said, because of the camaraderie and brotherhood of the Marine Corps.

After his tour in Iraq, Cotnoir returned home in November 2004. He and his father, Daniel Cotnoir, operate the Racicot Funeral Home in Lawrence, about 30 miles north of Boston.

Cotnoir is free on $5,000 bail. He is scheduled to be arraigned in Salem Superior Court in the next two weeks. Meanwhile, he is still actively serving with his unit, Ordnance Contact Team 1, according to Chief Warrant Officer 3 Blair Brown, Inspector-Instructor for the unit.

“He’s still a hard charging sergeant of Marines,” said Brown.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Ellie