MOORE, Okla. — A mother’s worst nightmare almost came true after a stray bullet hit her 18-month-old son’s crib inside their Oklahoma home.
“Never would I have thought that it was what it actually was. It was centimeters from going between the two railing in his crib and actually hitting him or even worse,” Andrea Johnson told KFOR.
It happened at the Johnson’s home in Moore Saturday afternoon.
“About 1:30 p.m., I heard a loud noise. So, I went and looked around the living room, all downstairs, looked out the front door to try to find out what it was, but I couldn’t find anything,” said Johnson, whose husband, Paul, was away at the time with the Army Reserves.
Johnson said the dogs were barking and she continued to look around outside of the house, but saw nothing unusual.
She then went upstairs and found a small piece of wood on the ground next to Axel’s crib.
“I just assumed we had drug it in with our shoes,” she told News 4.
The next morning, Johnson went into her son’s room early as they both woke up.
“I saw this piece of wood that was kinda messed up in the bar of his crib. I thought it was kinda funny, well, he is teething, maybe he had chewed on it, maybe he ninja kicked it in his sleep. He kicks a lot,” said Johnson.
She tried to find the rest of the wood chips to make sure Axel didn’t eat them.
“When I pulled his crib back is when I saw something on the ground, bent down, picked it up and realized it was a bullet and that’s when I just absolutely lost it,” said Johnson.
Police say the bullet traveled through an outside wall, the high ceiling area in the living room, a second interior wall, and was finally stopped by the crib bar.
“Words cant explain the feelings that went through me and are still going through me,” Johnson said.
Police told Johnson a man, who lived approximately a half mile away and was allegedly drunk in his backyard, reportedly fired almost 30 rounds from his newly purchased rifle.
“We do have a person of interest. We have a related incident the previous evening that we are looking into that might be related. There is probably some reckless conduct with a firearm related to this incident,” said Lt. Kyle Dudley with the Moore Police Department.
Johnson says she is talking to KFOR to make people aware.
“I understand we are very lucky and it could be a lot worse, but it doesn’t make it right. I don’t know that I can ever put him back in his room because I have these memories now,” Johnson said. “My husband has been to war three different times. He’s been shot at, but nothing as close as to my son. A one-year-old almost got shot by a bullet.”
