Posted on 01/01/2010 4:46:43 PM PST by rawhide
A 4-year-old boy attending a New Year's Eve church service with his family was killed when a stray bullet came through the roof, hitting him in the head.
The boy, Marquel Peters, was sitting beside his mother in the sanctuary during an intermission, said Lloyd Phipps, senior pastor at the Church of God of Prophecy near Decatur.
About 350 people were gathered in the DeKalb County church on Covington Drive, waiting for a concert to begin at 12:30 a.m. Friday, Phipps said.
"We heard a loud pop, which we now assume was when the bullet came through the roof," Phipps said.
The child, who had been playing a video game moments before the incident, fell to the floor.
"He appeared to be unconscious at first, and then he started crying," Phipps said.
Phipps said the church members prayed for the child, and continued with the planned concert, believing the child would survive his injury.
The child was rushed to a hospital, where he later died, according to Officer Jason Gagnon with DeKalb police.
The pastor and the parishioners where still in the church when they learned of the child's death about 3:30 a.m., Phipps said. He said during the concert, the boy's family kept him updated on the child's condition, which he believed was improving.
Investigators returned to the church later Friday, where they discovered the point of entry for the bullet: in the roof of the church. Phipps said police believe someone fired a celebratory shot into the air, and it went through the roof on its way down.
"It's one of those things that you just cannot make any sense out of," Phipps said. "This lady took her kid to church, which is the right thing to do. And her son got killed because of someone’s irresponsible behavior."
(Excerpt) Read more at ajc.com ...
depending on how it is hit and at what angle it can either shatter or chip or the bullet could pass staright through... any of which could affect the bullets trajectory/velocity...
>There is no excuse for discharging a killing tool for other than it’s designed purpose, including practice.
According to how that statement reads, you believe that police and military should NOT train. That would, ultimately, lead to some horrible body-counts. (The navy SEAL snipers would NEVER have been able to do those synchronized shots w/o practice.)
Tell ya what, junior. Put up a pane of window glass in a stationary frame and a piece of 1/2” plywood with a layer of roofing felt and a layer of shingles on it in another one. Now hit the plywood with your fist as hard as you can. Then hit the pane of glass the same way.
Angle matters a great deal. A bullet passing through a window would be propelled for the force of the charge. A bullet falling on to a roof would certainly have less force behind it.
The “straight up” shot was likely on an angle up in the air. Grab something like a pistol and point up. It’s not a straight up shot, and still has a lot of it’s velocity.
true.....then your going form what this is celebratory gunfire... to someone firing at a house straight on or at very shallow angles..where as the article and the wiki entries are related to the shots being fired into the air at a greater then 45 deg angle...
January 1, 1996: A grandmother in Detroit named Sandra Latham was killed on New Year's Day from bullet from celebratory firing as she sat in her living room.
I don't know any more about this than what you got from wikipedia. So, I speculate here, but I would guess that this celebratory gunfire came from some idiot who fired a gun and accidentally sent a bullet through a window. A move like that could certainly kill some poor unfortunate.
As to the incident with the 4-year-old, I can't see how a falling bullet could pass through a root and then go on to kill someone.
But I don't know for sure that is didn't happen, so I don't wish to make any bold claim one way or another.
The rate of acceleration of a falling body is 32 feet per second per second. In other words, it falls 32 feet 1st second, 64 feet 2nd second, 96 feet 3rd second. So on and so forth. It’s simple physics. The terminal velocity of a falling body depends on the altitude at which it begins to drop. a penny dropped off the empire state building will kill you at street level.
>The disturbing thing is it points more strongly, if it occurred that way, to an intentional shot taken at the church rather than a stray shot.
And THAT is a question that occurred to me as I read the story.
It is the only reason to seriously question what appears to be an unlikely occurrence. It won’t sooth the terrible grief of the parents and other relatives to know that. But if there is any chance that this wasn’t the result of a stupid reckless act all of the church members would want to know about it. It is not unheard of for churches to be attacked.
Yes it can theoretically. But the penny will start tumbling and this will slow it down a lot, and then when it did hit, it would have to close to perpendicular to the angle of the skull cap to penetrate.
An object will not accelerate infinitely even if it hypothetically had the distance to do so. The phrase "terminal velocity" actually refers to the speed at which a falling object stops accelerating. The terminal velocity of a given object actually decreases as the air it falls through becomes more dense.
If your 'equation' is true, then there is no terminal velocity! It's simple physics.
You are mistaken. I allowed for practice with the weapon.
Now the whole city is a “bad neighborhood.” Almost a half century of demonrat rule has reduced the once-great city to a third-world city.
I bet they won’t. They can’t get anywhere near a precise measurement of angles and points of entry to locate the source. Can’t be done for something like this.
I should clarify when I said terminal I meant the point at which the object, in this case the bullet reaches it’s height before dropping. However, given enough velocity we would be speaking of escape velocity greater than the gravitational pull on the object.
That’s why if Galileo was at the top of the empire state building, he would have used cannonballs :-).
True, and in the case of a bullet fired in the air, there are two terminal velocities. One going up and one coming down. Needless to say, a bullet coming down after being fired in the air, can kill you very easily, in particular from a rifle which due to the higher muzzle velocity can reach higher altitudes. drag and other factors being equal.
The point I was trying to make is that some people on this thread appeared to not believe that a falling bullet can kill you. Do a search it happens all the time. Especially in countries where the practice is rampant like the middle east.
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