WARNING: NO CELEBRATORY GUNFIRE TO USHER IN THE NEW YEAR!!!
Celebrating the arrival of 2010 by discharging firearms is not only illegal and foolhardy… it is extremely dangerous, and will win you a quick trip to jail if you are caught doing it warns the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.
A 75 year old man earned the dubious distinction of being the county’s first homicide in 2005 when he was struck by an errant celebratory round fired from an assault rifle nearly two miles away. A lead provided by the Orlando Police Department and some outstanding work by a Sheriff’s Office forensic firearms expert led to an arrest in that incident several months later.
During 2006 New Year’s Eve celebrations a 26 year old woman who stepped outside her home to watch fireworks was shot in the head as she held her seven month old baby in her arms. The woman survived the shooting but lost an eye from the injuries she sustained.
The Sheriff’s Office urges county residents to use common sense during their New Year’s Eve celebrations and to refrain from using firearms to usher in 2010. The indiscriminate shooting of live ammunition into the air poses an obvious and extreme danger to people and property. The danger increases exponentially when alcohol is involved in this increasingly popular practice.
