A fight between two women, who are friends, resulted in one firing a bullet into the radiator of her friend’s Jeep in Portage on Christmas Day, court documents show.
Delise Marie Ross, 26, who lives in the 1900 block of Truman St., Portage, now faces three Level 5 felony counts of criminal recklessness for firing a gun at the car occupied by her friend and two children, who are 12 and 7. She is also charged with a Level 6 felony of pointing a firearm and misdemeanor counts of unlawful carrying of a handgun and invasion of privacy, records state.
The woman was visiting the Ross home in Portage with her two children. Anissa Ross, Delise’s mother, was also present.
The two friends were cooking and drinking Tequila before they started arguing about the friend not watching Ross’s children, a probable cause affidavit said.
“Anissa stated Delise and (the friend) were on the floor throwing punches at each other and it was over something stupid,” Portage Police Detective Robert Nichols said.
Anissa Ross broke up the fight, and the friend went out the door with her children.
Then the woman started pounding on the door, stating that “she was going to kill them,” Anissa Ross told police.
Delise Ross fetched a handgun that was stashed in her mother’s purse, up on a bedroom shelf, court records state. The woman said that she returned because she was trying to get an Airpod case that one of her children had left.
Anissa Ross told the detective she believed her daughter fired a gun once in the air before she was able to get the gun away from her daughter and stuff it under a mattress.
Police found Delise Ross trying to hide in a closet, records state.
The woman said as she was trying to back out of the driveway as fast as she could when Delise Ross fired shots twice toward them.
Portage police later found one of the bullets struck the Jeep’s radiator, the affidavit states.
“Everything was my fault,” Delise Ross later told the detective at the Portage police station. “I shot at her, I did.”
Delise Ross said she believed she fired the gun only once and that it was in the air, court records state, and she felt bad about what happened.
Delise Ross is being held in the Porter County Jail. She also had a pending case where she was charged with a Level 6 felony count of domestic battery in the presence of a child, stemming from a Dec. 30, 2024, incident. Under the terms of her release in that case, she was ordered not to have contact with her mother and was prohibited from having a firearm.
Jim Woods is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.