All it took was one performance, and Steven Cowan lost his cool. The 67-year-old man from Vermont, Wisconsin, had dinner, then sat down to watch Dancing With The Stars. Everything was fine until Bristol Palin came onto the show, then he lost his cool. Not only did he pull an Elvis and shoot his TV, but he did The King one better. According to police, Steven Cowan shot the television with a shotgun, threatened his wife with the gun, then got into an all-night stand off with police and the SWAT team, all thanks to Bristol Palin.
Cowan, who has bipolar disorder, was drunk at the time of the incident. Red-faced and screaming curse words related to politics (Bristol is former Vice Presidential candidate and wordsmith Sarah Palin’s daughter), Cowan otherwise has no criminal record; he does have a long history of psychiatric treatment, and has been under financial stress lately, having recently turned control of his rental properties over to the family attorney.
“He scared the bejebees out of me,” said 66-year-old wife Janice Cowan after the incident. Steven Cowan faces up to 10 years in jail if convicted. Given his clean record and history of mental problems, I imagine he’ll get some kind of mandatory psychiatric treatment and be barred from reality television, but no real jail time.
Tags: Dancing With the Stars, Bristol Palin, reality television, Vermont, Wisconsin, man shoots TV over Dancing With the Stars, man shoots television, man has stand-off with police after shooting television, Sarah Palin, Steven Cowan, bipolar disorder, Janice Cowan