Pellet not friendly fire

Marisa O’Neil

He had just finished work at the Boy Scout Sea Base and was heading

home, riding his bicycle up the steep hill of Riverside Drive.

As he rode past the bottom edge of Cliff Drive Park last Friday,

the Newport Harbor High School senior heard what sounded like three

or four shots from a pellet gun.

“I had no idea what they were at first,” said the 17-year-old,

whose identity the Daily Pilot is withholding at the request of him

and his family. “Then something hit me in the face. I thought: ‘Oh

gosh!’ I didn’t stop. I just kept going.”

Then he felt something trickle down his neck. It was blood,

dripping from his cheek, where a metal pellet had lodged,

three-quarters of an inch into his flesh, barely missing his left

ear.

Nearly a week after the shooting, a small scab and the

emergency-room hospital bracelet, which he still wears, are the only

visible evidence he has of the shooting. The small, hourglass-shaped

pellet, removed by a surgeon, is in police custody -- evidence of an

assault.

Police have no one in custody in connection with the incident.

“When we get it back, we’ll save it for you,” his stepfather, Mark

Willie, joked about the pellet. “It’ll be your souvenir.”

The boy and his family are maintaining a sense of humor about the

incident, now that his wound is healing. But seeing the pellet on an

X-ray of the boy’s skull conveyed the seriousness of the situation,

Willie said.

Less than an inch to the left, it could have entered his ear, he

said.

“And, of course, what moms always warn -- ‘You’ll get shot in the

eye,’” Willie said.

His stepson had a reaction more typical of a teenager.

“I thought it was awesome,” he said of the X-ray. “There’s just

this white outline of a pellet in my face.”

The incident will give him plenty to talk about on the first day

of school next week, his mother teased. His family is relieved his

injury wasn’t worse -- that he’s well and philosophical about the

incident.

But they’re hoping that anybody who saw anything suspicious at

about 5 p.m. Aug. 27 will call police. At the time, the park was

fairly busy, with basketball players and others, Willie said.

Willie suspects, but doesn’t know for sure, that it was a child or

children who fired the shots as their idea of fun.

“We’re really pleased, and we feel blessed that nothing worse

happened,” Willie said. “I do hope the kids are identified, so they

can’t keep doing foolish things like this.

“Do I wish it hadn’t happened? Yes. Am I mad and vengeful? No.”

A shooter would have to be within 25 yards or less to fire a

pellet from an easily-concealable handgun into someone’s skin, said

Randy Garell of the Grant Boys gun shop. The gun would likely need to

be of fairly good quality to project the pellet with such velocity,

and it would be hard to hit a moving target, he said.

The part of Riverside Drive where the shooting took place is

bordered on both sides by steep bluffs. Willie guesses that someone

hid in the brush at the bottom of Cliff Drive Park and hit his

stepson, whether intentionally or accidentally.

Few people wandered through the park on Thursday afternoon. One

woman, who asked not to be identified, said she hadn’t heard of the

shooting but has seen plastic pellets from airsoft guns in the area.

* MARISA O’NEIL covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (949) 574-4268 or by e-mail at marisa.oneil@latimes.com.