I mostly hunt from a tree stand - I think that is very safe when shooting at something because your aiming down and any stray shot will hit the ground - it is safe as long as you don't fall out of the stand - over the many years that I've been hunting I have on a couple occasions heard bullets flying over my head when I was on the ground that's why I feel a lot safer in a tree -
We can't really say what happened from the news report - I remember years ago when someone shot a cow in a field - it happened a couple months after the farmer had some hunters charged for trespassing - no one was charged because there wasn't any proof who did it -