CLAYTON-GENE

ACCIDENTAL  SELF  INFLICTED  FIREARM  DEATH

Gene “Geno” Clayton Jr. was born May 22, 1989, in Youngstown, Ohio.  Following graduation in 2007 from Boardman High School he attended Youngstown State University before enlisting in the Navy in 2010.  In December 2011 he completed SEAL training and was assigned to Seal Team Seven.  On the evening of January 8, 2012, Clayton was with a woman in a house in the Pacific Beach area of San Diego.  The two of them were drinking when Clayton exhibited several firearms to the woman and insisted they were unloaded and thus safe to handle.  Although the woman asked him to put them away, he pointed a 9mm handgun at his head and pulled the trigger which fired.  Clayton was rushed to a nearby hospital where he died.  He has been buried at Lake Park Cemetery in Youngstown.

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)