Pedro Ruiz and his girlfriend Monalisa Perez. (Photo: Youtube)
Hours before a Minnesota woman shot and killed her boyfriend with a .50 caliber Desert Eagle, she posted to her Twitter account, “Me and Pedro are probably going to shoot one of the most dangerous videos ever. HIS idea not MINE.”
Her post turned out to be more true – and tragic – than she probably imagined.
Monalisa Perez was charged Wednesday with second-degree manslaughter in the shooting of her boyfriend, 22-year-old Pedro Ruiz III, Monday night in Halstad, Minnesota.
Perez told investigators that Ruiz convinced her to shoot at a hardcover encyclopedia he was holding to his chest. Ruiz believed the .50 caliber round would not be able to penetrate the book, and he allegedly showed Perez another book he had shot previously with the same gun.
In Monday evening’s attempt, the round went through the book and struck Ruiz in the chest, killing him.
The couple apparently conducted the stunt in an effort to “get famous.”
“He had told me about that idea,” one of Ruiz’s aunts told WDAY-TV in Fargo, “and I said, ‘Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Why are you going to use a gun? Why?’”
She quoted him as replying, “’Because we want more viewers. We want to get famous.’”
Perez and Ruiz started a vlog-style YouTube channel about a month ago that chronicled the daily activities of Perez, Ruiz, and their young daughter. Perez is also pregnant with their second child.
The couple had more recently begun to post videos of less dangerous “pranks,” including a video in which Ruiz falls a short distance from a tree and one in which Perez feeds him a doughnut covered in baby powder rather than powdered sugar.
But Ruiz wanted to up the ante. He had been “trying to get [Perez]” to fire the gun “for a while,” according to court documents.
“We called him our little daredevil,” Lisa Primeau, another of Ruiz’s aunts, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Primeau added Ruiz was always, “putting a dangerous twist on everything he did.” His antics included “jumping into the swimming pool from the top of the house, no hesitation. He was a crazy driver with go-carts.”
Ruiz “had plenty of guns. He liked guns,” she said.
Primeau and others related to Ruiz “are all supporting Mona. It’s a tragic incident. What she did … she has to live with that. It’s the worst punishment she can get. She is pregnant with their second kid. It’s just heartbreaking.”
The Norman County sheriff’s office has video of the incident, but Sheriff Jeremy Thornton told the New York Times that he will not release it.
they should have called him “their little braindead idiot”. it is too bad that he will be the cause of his girl friend and mother of their children to have to go to jail. i can only hope their off spring have better parenting than these people could have provided for their family. unbelievable!!!
To the posters who brought his and her heritage into the mix, grow up. This is tragic in a number of ways.
We have the right to own firearms, we have the right to drive but we need a license, kids who hunt need a firearms safety course before they get a hunting license, firearms safety should be part of any gun purchase for anyone with no previous training (C&C, law enforcement, military, etc) if you can’t prove you know something, you need a course.
Rhetoric about gene pool cleaning has no place in this discussion. Stupidity and ignorance resulted in two children not having a dad.
Little “Pedro” was from South America (look at all of his postings online). He was a criminal (some like to say illegal immigrant). So is his dumba$$ girl that we now get to foot the bill for. The only good outcome here will be her taking up Russian Roulette to see how the game ends.
I’ve seen and heard of a lot of things, being a retired Airman, i been a lot of places, heard a lot of war stories and war lies, but this takes the cake. Any responsible gun owner would know better. You can take a building down piece by piece with that 50 Desert Eagle
“He liked guns.”
Maybe, but he apparently didn’t know much about them.
And we have another Darwin award winner.
IF there’s a positive to this…
Well, maybe Monalisa can find a much smarter and fitter man to help raise her kids to be sensible and normal. Mr Bulletproof sure didn’t qualify.
HAHAHAHA Natural selection at it’s finest. Stupid people deserve stupid grave consequences!
NOPE!!!! The gene pool is still infected – They’ve already spawned 2 more.
Could we get idiots to do this stuff BEFORE reproducing?
Hahahahaha awesome response!!
Maybe you could use your Facebook account to dare all of the crazy people out there to play Russian roulette with semiautomatic pistols. They’d all be famous and we’d have a cleaner gene pool. Remember, you can’t fix stupid people but you can sure encourage them to do stupid things.
There just aren’t enough words to speak to level of stupidity. I’m glad he killed himself and not the girl. Her life will never be the same….but she still has one.
This story does remind me a bit of one from many years ago when bullet proof vests were just getting big in law enforcement. An over excited salesman killed himself by stabbing himself in the chest with a large knife. He had wanted to shoot himself as a demo but wasn’t allowed. No one had told him that the level of Kevlar vest he had did stop pistol bullets but could be cut with sharp edges. He bled to death in front of dozens of people.
Darwin Award Nominee…
This is freaking awful for this beautiful young woman. The thought that she is going to see this played over and over in her head for the rest of her life is heartbreaking. And believe me, thats what happens when you are up vlose and personal and snatch someone elses life from them, you never get the image out of your head. A brain is a great and tetrible thing and if she lets it, it will ruin her.
Personally, I have to blame the guy.
@ Bill, you call her a “beautiful” woman? LOL, she literally looks like she has down syndrome. Butt ugly!
ANY human death is a tragedy, but it is hard to get too upset when the death results from the victim’s voluntary election, even insistence, on doing something this patently stupid:. “Well, duh, I already shot one book and it didn’t penetrate it, so this is obviously safe…” Ya’ know, I think I’d have at least insisted on shooting more than one book as a “test” before I even thought about standing behind it (and I doubt seriously that, having thought about it, I would do it, no matter how often the test worked…). While the .50 AE is a fairly weak round compared to, e.g., the .50 S&W and, esp. the .50 BMG, it’s not “gutless’, throwing a typical 300-325 grain bullet as fast or faster than a comparable, 240 to 300 grain, .44 Mag, and delivering at least 25% more energy. If “Dirty Harry” was pretty sure that he could take your head off with his .44 Mag, it’s hard to imagine why you’d think your book was up to the task of stopping an even bigger, more powerful round. I guess he was just “feelin’ lucky” that day. He obviously misjudged that one.
How about this statement. Never ever point a weapon or shoot at anything that you don’t intend to destroy or kill. I don’t clean my guns when they are loaded and I know the difference between cover and concealment. I am sorry that the young man lost his life but, as people that should know the power and destruction of weapons we should not do STUPID STUFF.
there’s stupid. and there’s tagic stupid. a dumb idea usually cannot be repeated.
I feel bad for his family and those left behind. And, I am sorry he died, but ignorance and stupidity are expensive. It is too bad he paid the ultimate price. This incident is a prime example why TV shows announce \”do not try this at home\” even though it is obvious one shouldn\’t.
I only hope his death serves as a lesson to others.
You can bet there are others saying he didn’t do it right. The ones who say “here, hold my beer and watch this.”
I’d read about this before, but the previous articles didn’t mention that it was a .50 Desert eagle. Wow, what was this moron thinking?
Every time I read a story such as this my first thought is Fake news. Then I realize, stupid is what stupid does! Everyday some one does something to clean up the gene pool!
Follow all safety rules! Do not point your gun at anything you are not willing to destroy. Simple for most, but not all.
I remember in the early 80’s at the Onyx Mine one of the owners, (Fletcher) had a friend that had developed a new type of Bullet Proof Plastic, and knew that Fletcher had an Old 308 Rifle from when he retired as an Officer with a War Dept Card. He wanted Fletcher to shoot the rifle at him standing behind the Plastic. Fletcher being a bit smarter said, “Why don’t we lean it against the power pole and shoot if first as a test, then if it’s safe, I’ll do it!” They leaned it upright, Fletcher took aim … Fired … and it sailed through the plastic, hit one of the metal support plates, and ricocheted harmlessly into the mountain behind. When his Friend finished emptying his wonderful lunch by the pole, and some color returned to his face, all he could do was thank Fletcher for having some common sense. Every Generation has people who will do these things, and this man was really smart as an Engineer, but pushing the limits for little gain just makes this event more of a wasted Tragedy.
Call that culling the herd . I mean hell he must have been mentality handicapped or something don’t ya think
Let her do like 10,000 hours of community service…talking about the dangers of misusing a firearm.
What she did was stupid but not a crime.He wanted her to do it.
Now she has to live with the consequences… and the kids have no Dad.
Will be interesting to see what the courts have to say.
One quote says he has..”lots of guns”.
He is 22. What does he do to afford “lots of guns”?
Just curious.
And we have another “Darwin Award” winner!! Pedro!
The only tragedy here is that he bred before taking his big step into “stardom.”
…..i guess he made a mistake in his calculations
I’m absolutely against the idea of prosecuting her, she has a kid and we don’t need to take care of the kid when she can.
He was a dumbass, plain and simple, and brought on his own demise.
I believe she is a dumbass, but that’s NOT a crime.
I also believe she will live with this and all that that entails, and is therefore not a danger to anyone.
Chalk it up to stupid, and let her go and grieve and get on with her and her daughters lives.
She will get a slap on the wrist. The sad thing is that no one sees the real problem. As long as women are attracted to trash like him, stupid stunts like this will continue. She thought this prick was a good guy to start a family. She could have chosen a decent guy who wouldn’t have her, oh, I don’t know, shoot him so he could get famous. But she didn’t. She chose this. How many people are out there who would give anything to have children but can’t? Yet she does this, while she knew she had a child and one on the way. Being famous was more important to them than their children. She doesn’t deserve children. Take them away. Lock her up, and throw away the key.
Fine, YOU raise them then. That’s my point, if you get your way, WE subsidize their lives, when they would be better off with their mother.
Yeah, I said she’s stupid, and it’s NOT a crime.
I would also point out that the BF probably made himself out to be an ‘expert’ to her, she may well have believed him.
NOT that ANY guy EVER made himself out to be an ‘expert’ in things to a woman, right?
It isn’t her fault, it’s ALL on HIM.
What makes you think we’re not already subsidizing her kids?
Guess they are just helping to clean up the Gene Pool.
What an idiot. This ought to get an honorable mention in the Darwin Awards, if not 1st place.
“You can’t fix stupid!”
I was thinking something like that, or “Stupid is as stupid does.”
Actually, I think she did fix stupid, permanently.
Yes you can, Bill. He just showed how to do it. He’s cured, stupid no more. To bad he bred first.
I was going to say ‘Natural selection at work’… but then I read he has already reproduced, and has another in the oven… what a shame.
“Stupid is as stupid does”….get a smarter baby-daddy when you get out of prison, girl
Idiots off the streets…two for one special
Who was holding his beer?
Probably tequila…
Something about “don”t point it at anything you don’t want to destroy” still – very sad for the girlfriend and her (soon to be )2 children.
This brings to mind those famous last words
“Hey Moe, Hey Larry, watch this”…
LOL
We already know that lots of dummies have guns. This sad story did not need to be posted.
Darwin’s theory in practice.
He is not eligible for a Dawin award because he, unfortunately, has already reproduced.
Yeah, I think you are right. Let’s hope the kids did not get to strong a hit of his genes for the thinking department. It sounds like he was working on a baker’s dozen, so at least they will not come to fruit. Now we can test the nature vs. nurture question (provided she learned something from this).