NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — You may have been startled or have come to expect the barrage of fireworks that accompanies the first moments of a new year.
10 On Your Side spoke with two Norfolk residents at the receiving end of something much more dangerous.
It’s a story we report on every year on New Year’s Day and the day after the Fourth of July–the dangers of celebratory gunfire.
Brian Alfano counted the first pops of 2024. The noise echoed into the early morning outside his Tait Terrace home long after the fireworks fizzled out. He says one of those bullets landed right outside his door.
“At first I was like what is this crack in my windshield and then I looked and was like oh my goodness it’s a bullet,” Alfano said.
The bullet was lodged in the glass and Alfano was in disbelief. He taped up the hole in the meantime.
“The windshield can be replaced but if it was somebody walking, they could have been seriously hurt or killed,” Alfano said.
Three miles down the road in Norfolk’s Bromley neighborhood, one woman recalled finding herself on the receiving end of celebratory gunfire.
“I was literally sitting in my backyard enjoying some fireworks and they were starting to die down. I went to get up out of my chair and felt something hit me in my chest,” Miranda Pellotalers told 10 On Your Side of an incident that took place more than two years ago.
What she thought was shrapnel from a firework was a bullet to the chest. Pellotalers said it has been two years since that night on the Fourth of July. She took to social media on New Year’s Eve, sharing her story and cautioning those who shoot.
“If I had leaned forward a little bit more, it would have been right into my lung space. If I leaned back a little bit more, it would have been right into my thigh,” Pellotalers recalled, “it had the possibility of taking my life depending on how I got out of that chair.”
Pellotalers now suffers from PTSD, and holidays look a little different.
“New Year’s, I’m in my couch. I’m in my home,” she said. “I’m not going out because you never know what’s going to happen and I don’t need another one in my chest again. I know they want to enjoy their freedom, but really be aware of where its landing and leave the shooting at the gun range.”
Celebratory gunfire is a felony in Virginia. Those caught doing it can face up to five years in prison and a $2,500 fine.
