FIRST OFF . . .

A Kansas City, Mo., teen-ager has been arrested on charges he killed a sleeping friend after they both got drunk and then stayed up to watch the 1944 war film “The Purple Heart” on videocassette. Samuel Levi Erwin, 17, was scheduled to be arraigned Monday for second-degree murder in the death of Aaron David Cochran, also 17. Kansas City police said Cochran was killed early Saturday by a shotgun blast to the back of the head while he slept. After the movie ended about 3:15 a.m. Saturday, Cochran, whose parents were not home, went upstairs to bed and, according to police, Erwin went down to the basement to fetch a shotgun. Before going upstairs and shooting Cochran, Erwin first fired several 12-gauge shotgun rounds in the basement, damaging water pipes. Police said there was 6 to 10 inches of water on the basement floor when they arrived. Erwin was interested in war games and the military, and the movie apparently excited him, an officer said. “He wanted to see what it would be like to be a war hero.”