Posted on 01/02/2003 4:48:39 PM PST by blam
Gunfire again rings in new year in area
01/02/03
JEB SCHRENK
Staff Reporter
Laura Hopper was standing outside her Mobile house last New Year's Eve when a falling bullet dented the hood of her car, she said. This time, she stayed inside.
Her gold Saturn wasn't dinged Tuesday night, but Hopper said the booms and pops of people ringing in the New Year by shooting into the air seemed even worse.
"It was like they were having a little war on who could be the loudest," said Hopper, who lives on New St. Francis Street in the Old Dauphin Way Historic District. "You thought you were in the middle of the Middle East."
Area police departments on Wednesday reported no injuries, arrests or property damage from celebratory shootings the previous night, and the extent of the gunfire remained unclear.
Such gunfire has long drawn criticism from law enforcement, because of the dangers posed by falling bullets.
Said Hopper: "What comes up has got to come down somewhere."
Mobile City Council members Clinton Johnson and Fred Richardson made comments a couple of years ago that seemed to condone the practice. Both later said their comments were misinterpreted.
The Mobile Police Department did not have numbers available Wednesday on how many people reported hearing gunfire, said Sgt. John Goodwin.
But police officer Michael Williams, who works out of the mini-precinct in the Roger Williams public housing community in north Mobile, said officers received "several reports of shots fired in the area" Tuesday night.
Williams said he didn't know whether the shots were fired at someone or to mark the arrival of 2003.
Harry McGadney, spokesman for the city of Prichard and its police, was not aware of any property damage or injuries from New Year's Eve gunfire, but said he would have a better idea of possible problems today.
Jonathan Danzer, spokesman for the Mobile County Emergency Medical Services, said he had no reports of anyone being struck by bullets in the unincorporated areas of the county. There was no known property damage in those areas, according to a Sheriff's Department dispatcher.
Hopper said she noticed her husband and 10-year-old son had gone outside on the porch this year. "Don't have him out here," she said she told her husband. "He's going to get shot."
Hopper said she felt protected inside her sturdily built, circa-1909 home.
In Mobile's Oakleigh neighborhood, Rosalind Jackson said she remained inside her apartment complex with her 2-year-old son to avoid bullets and revelers. "I heard them, a lot of them," she said of gunshots. "As long as I was inside, it didn't bother me. I knew it was going to happen."
One Mobile resident taking a walk Wednesday afternoon reported to the newspaper that he found a spent bullet near the corner of Dauphin and Houston streets.
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