JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – As Jacksonville celebrates the new year, some are now questioning why instead of fireworks, gunfire rang out in one Westside neighborhood.
A woman said a bullet came through her window and almost hit her and a friend.
They were inside watching the fireworks on TV when a bullet all of a sudden came through a window and lodged into a wall. They’re shocked that this happened and surprised and thankful nobody was hurt.
Theresa Ryals said she was watching the fireworks on News4JAX and could also hear celebrations going on in her neighborhood off of Old Middleburg Road.
“You could hear automatic gunfire. Just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And all of a sudden out of nowhere, I’m sitting there watching the fireworks on the TV and a bullet came through just above my air conditioner,” she said.
Glass shattered and hit her head and she was left to figure out what just happened.
“I know it was from down the road because those people were shooting off like hundreds of guns and I can go down there and show you the casings,” Ryals said. “[My friend] had just gotten up to go to the restroom when the bullet came through, it went through the chair she was sitting in and lodged in the wall. But we’ll see a bullet inside.”
Ryals then called the police, but she said they wouldn’t do anything.
“They came out here and then wrote a case number. The first officer told me they would be sending technicians out here and then they came back and said no, they had no reason to send a technician,” she said. “If the JSO would start taking this stuff seriously, and start hunting these people down we wouldn’t have incidents like this in Jacksonville. You know, they’re saying they were afraid to go to jail. If they were afraid to get caught, they wouldn’t be doing this.”
Damage from celebratory gunfire is a regular thing in Jacksonville.
As for this case, Ryals said she found bullet casings down the road and wondered why police didn’t bother looking.
News4JAX reached out to JSO for the report but because of the holiday, we have not heard a response about an update on the investigation.