Lawyer Says Accused Marine Defended Family

[Rose Siding]

SALEM, Mass. -- An Iraq war veteran who was named Marine of the Year was defending his family when he fired his shotgun into a parking lot toward early morning revelers and injured two of them, his attorney said Tuesday.
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But victim Kelvin Castillo, 21, who acknowledged that there was a boisterous crowd in the parking lot, testified that Cotnoir wasn't aiming for the ground.

"I felt like the gun was pointed at me," he said. "I pushed my mom hard to the left. I dove." Castillo later discovered he had been shot in his left leg....

Cumba, now 16, testified that she was shot in the right side of her neck and in her right leg as she scrambled to get into the back seat of her sister's car.
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Cotnoir was named Marine of the Year by the Marine Corps Times last July. He served in Iraq for 10 months in 2004, using his training as a mortician to prepare the bodies of dead U.S. soldiers for burial.

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