Associated Press: Birmingham police arrested 13 people during an effort to curb celebratory gunfire as people rang in the new year.Things are pretty out of control when almost 500 reports of random gunfire counts as “success.”
Al.com reports (http://bit.ly/Kjyc6s) that officers responded to 488 gunfire calls Tuesday night and Wednesday morning during Operation Crackdown. The effort resulted in 13 arrests on 24 charges and the seizure 10 guns, three of which had been stolen.
Officers responded to 803 calls — more than half reporting gunfire — between 10 p.m. Tuesday and 1 a.m. Wednesday.
According to AL.com, “A bullet fired into the air can climb up to two miles. When it falls back to earth, it can reach a speed of 300 to 700 feet per second. A velocity of only 200 feet per second is enough to penetrate the human skull. ‘The bottom line is the risk posed by celebratory gunfire is 100 percent preventable,’ the [Birmingham police] chief said.”
"In 2011, a falling bullet struck a Birmingham police cruiser that was working Operation Crackdown."
[photo via Wikimedia Commons]
