| Associated press
Police aim to stop New Year’s Eve shootings
Police aim to stop New Year’s Eve shootings
Kaitlyn Kong thought she had been punched hard in the abdomen while standing among thousands in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, when the new year came a year ago. Her best friend, standing next to her, thought Kong had been stabbed while blood was spilling from a wound.
It wasn’t until Kong underwent an x-ray that she and the hospital’s medical staff realized she had been shot after someone fired a gun into the air to celebrate the new year.
Although rare, people who receive celebratory shots on New Year’s Eve and other holidays such as July 4 do happen, prompting police authorities to warn that bullets fired into the air can put on fire. danger to people’s lives.
Raleigh Police Lieutenant Mario Campos said the city receives a small number of calls about gunfire during New Year’s Eve celebrations in the city, but will not discuss what happened to Kong, saying that is still being investigated. Raleigh police said at the time that the shooting could have been fired from several blocks away.
“Our message has always been not to do it because it is dangerous and illegal in our city,” Campos said. “Bullets can travel a long distance. Any shots fired into the air have to go down and land on something. “
A 9-year-old boy in Cleveland was injured by a stray bullet on New Year’s Eve while watching television at his family’s home. The boy’s mother refused to be interviewed. Another 9-year-old boy in Atlanta was shot in the abdomen for celebratory shots in early January 1 while he and his family fired fireworks.
A 4-year-old boy died in 2010 in Decatur, Georgia, when an AK-47 penetrated the roof of the church and hit him on the head while sitting next to his parents during the night service of Cape Town. ‘Year.
Kong, who was then a senior at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, headed to downtown Raleigh with his friend for the city’s first family-friendly night party. Kong, 23, said he was pointing the phone up to capture videos of fireworks as the confetti floated over the crowd when he suddenly felt as if he had been punched “super hard,” which he did. cause him to grab his friend’s shoulder, unable to speak.
Passers-by helped make her out of the crowd and a police officer called for an ambulance while pressure was put on the wound.
“I didn’t think it was that serious, but it hurt a lot,” Kong said.
It turned out to be serious. The bullet entered his chest and penetrated a lung, diaphragm and stomach before lodging near the hip. Kong was operated on for four hours. He recovered enough to return to classes days later with help. He graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies.
“If it had been higher, it could have caused some permanent damage, at the very least,” Kong said.
A study conducted in 2004 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said people affected by air shots are likely to be hit in the head.
This is what happened to the representative of the state of Texas, Armando Martinez, when he was celebrating the New Year at a friend’s house in Weslaco, Texas, on January 1, 2017. He and his family they had waited in the friend’s garage until the shots had slowed down to release the fireworks, He said.
Martinez told NBC News that his wife had just wished him a happy new year with a kiss when a .223-caliber round fell from the sky and penetrated his skull. He felt, he said, as if he had been “hit by a hammer.”
“I was very lucky,” Martinez said. “My surgeons said that if I went a couple of millimeters deeper, I might not have been able to hold that conversation now.”
Carl Leisinger III, a retired New Jersey state police major and supervisor of the agency’s forensic lab, said a 9mm round like the one Kong would normally drop to a barrel at about 1,100 feet per second and then fall 200 to 300 feet per second. According to him, the extent to which a bullet thrown into the air travels to the sides will depend on the wind and other factors.
“She’s very lucky not to die,” Leisinger said.
Kong said he plans to celebrate somewhere this year-end, but not in downtown Raleigh.
“You can’t let it stop you from living life,” he said. “Maybe I’m that kind of person.”