OMAHA: Girl's Leg Shattered By Round From AK-47

[Chipperman]

http://www.ketv.com/news/15115508/detail.html

Girl's Leg Shattered By Round From AK-47
X-ray Shows Injury

POSTED: 8:32 pm CST January 22, 2008
UPDATED: 11:09 pm CST January 22, 2008


OMAHA, Neb. -- A 15-year-old Bellevue girl remained hospitalized Monday after gunfire at a weekend party left her with a serious leg injury.

Nicole Lienen said she went to a Bellevue home to play video games Saturday night. She told her mother an 18-year-old at the party was showing off a semi-automatic rifle.

"She saw the fire of the gun and she heard a pop, a lot of pops. She said it kind of startled her. Then she heard a zing, and felt a pop in her leg. Looked down, saw the bullet hole in her jeans and the gun powder on her jeans, her foot went sideways, and she fell on the ground," said Nancy Lienen, the girl's mother.

Surgeons at Creighton University Medical Center put a rod in the girl's leg after she was hit by a round from an AK-47 assault rifle. The girl broke two bones just below the knee.

Bellevue police said the gun went off and a bullet struck another teenager and traveled through a couch before hitting the girl in the leg.

Investigators are calling the shooting accidental. The 18-year-old has not been charged in the case. The Sarpy County attorney is trying to determine whether charges should be filed.

The teen has not been identified.

The victim's mother said X-rays clearly show the girl's bone is shattered, leaving several bone fragments.

"He could have killed her and he could have killed the young man that was with her. He could have killed anybody in that room," Lienen said.

Lienen wants the teen charged with felony assault and she wants him to serve jail time. She also wants tougher gun-control laws.

"We need to have better laws to prevent this from happening to my daughter, anybody else's daughter or to any victim," said Lienen.

She also referred to other recent shootings involving assault rifles, including a weekend shooting at a Florence Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant and the Dec. 5 mall massacre at Westroad's mall that left eight people dead.

In Saturday's incident in Bellevue, another teen was grazed in the torso by a round. He was not seriously injured.

Lienen is a sophomore at Bryan High. She's a member of the junior varsity cheerleading squad.

Copyright 2008 by KETV.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

""We need to have better laws to prevent this from happening to my daughter, anybody else's daughter or to any victim," said Lienen."

Maybe we should make assault with a deadly weapon illegal.

Glad it sounds like she's going to be o.k. Every incident like this is a bad thing for us, especially before the election.

 

[El Tejon]

Better laws? O.K., how about mandatory firearms education in public schools at each and every year of school! Mandatory firearms testing before voting as well.

 

[ApexinM3]

Not good at all for the girl. I hope she heals, and quickly, too.

As for the teen involved? I say hang 'em high. Prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. It will eventually get through to folks to practice proper handling of firearms. Sadly, others already have & will continue to pay for this idiots stupidity.

Oh, and the media is going to have a field day with this during an election year. Great...

 

[grimjaw]

Sorry to hear about the girl and hope she recovers, but this could have been done just as easily with a shotgun + slugs. Has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the fact that it's an AK.

jm

 

[TexasRifleman]

gunfire at a weekend party

Maybe her parents shouldn't let her to go parties like that?

Oh, nevermind, it's never the parents fault... silly me.

Bellevue police said the gun went off and a bullet struck another teenager and traveled through a couch before hitting the girl in the leg.

Save this for the next .223 vs 7.62x39 overpenetration argument......

 

[silverlance]

Um. You don't need more laws, you need a gad**** chaperone when you have 18 year old boys and girls partying at home. Unless you really like grandkids.

 

[junyo]

Sorry to hear about the girl and hope she recovers, but this could have been done just as easily with a shotgun + slugs.

It could've been done with a car + gas, or a lawn mower + loose rocks. The argument that a fool hurting someone by doing something stupid as an excuse for all people being prohibited to always an emotionally compelling, but logically flawed one.

 

[Neo-Luddite]

Prosecute the fool. There is no excuse.

 

[bluestarlizzard]

hold on? the paper is presenting this like an intentional act when it sounds like a UD to me.
or did the evil assult rifle get up and shoot the girl?

sounds like a dumb kid got a hold of someones gun and was stupid.

+1 for madatory gun saftey classes.

 

[eliphalet]

Better education would be helpfull especially in public schools, it should be mandatory.
All you "burn em at the stake" guys it must be nice to be perfect and have never made a mistake or had an accident, or ever did anything foolish as a teen.

 

[murph50]

I don't know if it was legal for this 18 yr old to be in possession of a firearm or not in Nebraska. I think a problem with some of these young kids nowadays is that nobody has ever trained them about firearms or firearm safety.They probably didn't grow up shooting with family or friends. They then come of age --buy a gun--and just don't know about many of the basics. As a result --the 18 yr old has really messed up his life from a moment of stupidity and probably being a show off.
The girl will go through the rest of her life with a limp and a nasty gun story to tell.
What a bummer

 

[romma]

Omaha is off the hook lately it seems!

 

[DoubleTapDrew]

"She saw the fire of the gun and she heard a pop, a lot of pops.

I'm confused, did the idiot "showing off the gun" open up inside the house with it? If it was accidental why was there "a lot of pops"? Illegally converted FA? That sounds more like an attempted murder charge (on top of NFA charges if it was an illegally converted gun).

 

[BRASSM]

What about mandatory 'Firearms Safety' classes in school, We had to have mandatory 'Drivers Education' back when I was in school.
I think this guy needs some time in the slammer, and some serious civil liability.

 

[The Wiry Irishman]

etter laws? O.K., how about mandatory firearms education in public schools at each and every year of school!

Ya know, I've never thought about that before, and I bet that would do a lot of good. Especially if you caught them while they were still young and impressionable and repeated the four rules to them endlessly. Everyone remembers the stupid alphabet song, how many stupid accidents like this could be prevented if gun safety was that ingrained?

Take it even farther, integrating firearms instruction into schools would open up a lot of possibilities for more widely accessible competitive sports. There aren't many activities where the fat kids, the asthmatic kids, girls and every kind of person could compete on the same level as the typical male public school athlete. And not many sports that teach you a skill you can use in real life.

 

[ArmedBear]

Prosecute the fool. There is no excuse.

Hear, hear.

 

[MudPuppy]

"We need to have better laws to prevent this from happening to my daughter, anybody else's daughter or to any victim," said Lienen.

Whoa--its currently legal to shoot someone in the leg, all reckless like at a party? I did not know that.

 

[highorder]

I think a problem with some of these young kids nowadays is that nobody has ever trained them about firearms or firearm safety.They probably didn't grow up shooting with family or friends. They then come of age --buy a gun--and just don't know about many of the basics.

I agree. I was raised around guns, and low and behold, I am a responsible gun owner/handler. its the people that buy a gun and say "now what?" that are in danger of doing harm, if only through careless handling.

 

[3/325]

All you "burn em at the stake" guys it must be nice to be perfect and have never made a mistake or had an accident, or ever did anything foolish as a teen.

I made plenty of mistakes. And I paid for them, which is also a part of growing up. Letting him off the hook is only going to teach him that carelessness with firearms is no biggie, even if someone gets shot. People don't learn from their mistakes unless they pay for them, and even then it's a 50/50 chance that they'll remember the lesson.

It's a sad situation, but it's one that must be dealt with appropriately. The kid's parents can keep him company in the adjoining cell.

 

[h0ss]

Mandatory firearms testing before voting as well.

Yeah, if you dont qualify, then you dont get to vote Or better yet, if you dont qualify, the next person to qualify gets two votes

 

[lee n. field]

gun powder on her jeans

Ehh? How close was she to this guy? Or was the paper/TeeVee reporter just making that part up?

 

[kludge]

I wondered the same thing.

 

[Shadowangel]

I was also curious about the description of the shooting. It also said she heard a pop, then a "zing", and felt something hit her leg. At that distance, the bullet would have hit her about the same time she was hearing the bullet break the sound barrier.

 

[ColinthePilot]

The kid's parents can keep him company in the adjoining cell.

I'm pretty sure the shooter was 18, so they probably can't.
+5 on the mandatory gun safety in schools. My high school used to have a rifle team (late 80's/ early 90's; back when students were allowed to smoke in certain areas and people were talking about the other gulf war) but of course they don't now, even though its a private school. My kids (when I have them) will be taught as soon as they are old enough to watch me clean my guns. It'll be right there with "don't touch the stove" and "don't run with scissors."

 

[Neo-Luddite]

Failure to properly clear a firearm before 'showing it off', regardless of all other circumstances, is a horrible and criminally negligent act that should not go un-aknowledged in the form of criminal charges. Honestly, I can think of no mitigating circumstances which should preclude charging the individual with a crime.

I'm sure many people would like to know the 'whole story' on this but we can guess at much of it; 18 year-old man/boy acting the fool and showing of his AK in a milleu in which it was likely very innapropriate to do so for many reasons.

The only fitting punishment, better than jail, would be five minutes alone with the young lady's father for the man/boy.