March 21, 2010

Stray NYE bullet goes through couple's roof

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Sam Lopez found this bullet on his kitchen floor. He says New Year's Eve revelers had fired weapons at the stroke of midnight. One of the bullets ended up in his West Cental Fresno home.

By Catherine Mylinh

Story Published: Jan 1, 2008 at 11:13 PM EDT

Story Updated: Jan 2, 2008 at 2:20 PM EDT

It seems when the clock strikes midnight, a lot of people forget about the laws of gravity: what goes up must come down. They celebrate the New Year with gunfire, careless of what happens to those bullets.

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One of those bullets ended up in Jerry Lopez's kitchen in West Central Fresno.

"That's the hole where the bullet came through. You can see how big that hole is, all the insulation is on the floor and in the hallway," Lopez said, pointing to the shellcasing.

Jerry and her husband, Sam, were awoken around midnight.

"It was like 100 champagne bottles popping. Pop! Pop! Pop!”

The couple was not hurt. In fact, there are no reported injuries from last night.

In years past though, others weren't so lucky. Two Fresno residents were reported struck by stray bullets in 2003; in 2001, a Goshen man was hit in the face.

"It's amazing to me we haven't had a fatality from all those bullets raining down," said Lt. Herman Silva.

Fresno police received at least five hundred calls last night - people complaining their neighbors were trigger happy. No arrests were made.

"When you have thousands of bullets in the air that are coming down, it's hard to tell where they came from," Silva said.

As for Lopez, she'll spend the first day of 2008 cleaning up the mess left by the stray bullet, thankful its trajectory wasn't different.

"You don't do things like that when you know you can harm people," Lopez said of the near miss. "It's frightening to know. You think about it long enough, it will scare you."

Click on the video link to watch Catherine Mylinh's report.

Next article Fire Destroys Fresno County Home

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