Posted on 01/02/2006 7:01:20 AM PST by radar101
Falling bullets injured two people and narrowly missed a half-dozen children after New Year's Eve revelers fired guns into the air across San Diego County.
The most serious injury involved a 27-year-old woman whose shoulder was pierced by a stray bullet as she stood on her apartment balcony on Felicita Avenue in Escondido.
Thirty miles away, a man was hit on a hand by a bullet that had passed through a wall of his Chamoune Avenue house in the Swan Canyon neighborhood of San Diego. Additionally, a family in the Chollas View neighborhood of San Diego had a close call when a bullet came through the roof of their house on Lise Avenue, landing in a bedroom where six children slept. The children were not hurt. Two adults also were in the house.
Police say San Diego residents usually don't face the danger of falling bullets, which can be common during New Year's celebrations in other cities and elsewhere in the world.
This year there were fewer calls about gunfire than in the past couple of years, authorities said. However, a review of newspaper articles indicates that yesterday's injuries from falling bullets were the first in five years in San Diego County.
On Jan. 1, 2001, a 35-year-old man was struck on the top of the head by a falling bullet in San Diego's Mountain View community. He wasn't seriously hurt.
Law enforcement agencies across the county reported 911 calls from people concerned about gunfire after midnight. No exact figures were available, but officers estimated they took fewer complaints than last year.
Dispatchers said the cold, damp weather that doused many New Year's Eve parties might have been a factor in the drop in the number of gunfire calls.
"From time to time, we get these incidents," San Diego police Sgt. Joe Molinoski said. "It usually is rare here, and we often hear about it happening elsewhere, such as in Los Angeles."
In Escondido, police received a 911 call at 12:12 a.m. yesterday from a woman who told them she had been standing on a balcony when she felt a sharp pain on the top of her left shoulder. She was taken to a hospital by paramedics and treated for the wound.
The bullet had passed through the woman's shoulder and lodged near her left elbow, Escondido police Lt. Bob Benton said. The injury was not believed to be life-threatening, he said.
"We believe she was struck by celebratory gunfire," Benton said. "We don't know where the bullet was fired from, who fired it or the caliber of the round."
Benton said police were investigating.
At the time of the Escondido incident, the police tactical operations unit had been visiting parties in the city, reminding revelers that firing guns into the air is dangerous and a felony, Benton said.
The Escondido police team didn't make any weapons-related arrests on New Year's Eve.
Police often compare the grave nature of the act to firing into a crowd or a drive-by shooting.
Catching those responsible can be difficult. Successful prosecution often requires a witness who saw the person fire the weapon in an area where someone was injured by a falling bullet, police said.
A bullet that has been fired into the air can travel up to two miles and remain in flight for up to a minute before plunging toward the ground, according to police ballistics experts.
In the Swan Canyon incident, the victim told police the bullet passed through a wall about 12:20 a.m. and struck him on a hand, breaking the skin. He refused medical treatment, San Diego police Sgt. Bob Dare said.
Five minutes later, a bullet fell through the roof of the Chollas View home where the six children were sleeping.
"There was a lot of gunfire about midnight," said Eurie Williams, who lives next door to the home. "The man next door said a bullet had crashed through his roof and almost hit his children," she said. "He had no phone and he wanted to use our phone to call police."
What goes up......
I have a hard time believing a bullet can "FALL" through the roof of a house. I don't condone firing weapons in the air but that sounds a little suspect to me.
Another great Mexican tradition makes its way north...
If this were actually a case of a "falling" bullet, terminal velocity wouldn't be any greater than an acorn falling on this woman's shoulder.
Liberals should be handing out blanks in the weeks leading up to New Year's Eve.
I mean, they hand out condoms and refuse to tell people that pregnancy can be avoided by not having sex. Why not hand out blanks or rubber bullets?
Have they had these injuries in the past, or is this something new?
It happens every year in every city with a Mexican illegal population. My bro is an EMT here in Texas.
It comes down at the same speed it goes up.
What really annoys me is that reports like this will gear up the gun control/confiscation crowd. Look to see CA get even more hysterical about private ownership of guns--never mind that these shooters were already breaking laws on the books. It's the legal gunowners they will go after.
--no, it doesn't --unless you are on the moon---
NO.. Going up it is powered by gunpowder... coming down it is powered by gravity.
Any comments from ICE or were they sleeping in?
I don't think the report you heard was accurate.
"coming down it is powered by gravity."
As is everything that falls. The weight of any falling object, as well as its wind resistance, plays a role.
It has zip to do with Mexico/Mexicans. That's a pretty bigoted statement.
Idiots have been firing guns into the air in the US LONG before the influx of Hispanics.
Anyone who does so is a fool - including the one or two that will inevitably show up here to defend it.
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