By Rhonda Cook
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
DeKALB COUNTY, Ga. — The bullet that killed a 4-year-old boy inside a DeKalb County church --- apparently fired by someone celebrating the new year --- most likely came from a rifle, a firearms expert said Saturday.
Marquel Peters died early Friday while waiting for a 12:30 a.m. concert to start at the Church of God of Prophecy near Decatur.
Church members believe the bullet, which passed through the roof of the church before striking the child in the head, was fired by somebody celebrating New Year’s Eve.
Kelly Fite, who was the top ballistics expert with the GBI’s state crime lab for almost four decades, said a handgun could not have produced the velocity of the bullet that killed the boy.
Fite, who has not examined the bullet that killed Peters, suspects the gun was an AK-47 because “that’s the most prolific [weapon found] downtown.”
The circumstances that led to the child’s death are not uncommon on New Year’s Eve.
“It’s not impossible at all” for a bullet to travel some distance then pass through a roof and kill someone inside a building, Fite said.
Although the practice is illegal, “This is New Year’s Eve, and people are out shooting their guns,” Fite said.
Peters was playing with a video game as he sat beside his mother in the church when he was struck by the bullet. He fell to the floor bleeding. He was crying when paramedics arrived to take him to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston, where he died.
The child’s family has called for the person who fired the shot to come forward, but Fite said it’s unlikely that person even knows what happened.
And police are unlikely to find the shooter unless the bullet is traced to a gun recovered in another investigation, he said.
The shooter could have been as much as two to three miles away, Fite told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. But most likely, the shooter was about a half mile away and the gun was tilted at about 30 or 40 degrees, not straight up, he said.
“This bullet that hit this kid was not shot straight up because it would have come down near the shooter,” Fite said. “If you shoot the thing at 30 or 40 degrees and the shot is level with this church, this bullet can come through with a lot of velocity.”
It’s not uncommon for stray bullets to injure people around the new year. .
In 2005, stray bullets hit two people at different locations in downtown Atlanta on New Year’s Eve. Aimee Buff from Hampton and her fiance were celebrating her 27th birthday at Underground Atlanta’s Peach Drop when she was wounded. A bullet hit Buff in the ear and became lodged about 2 inches from her spine. A few blocks away, Merritt Tidwell, a University of Georgia freshman from Douglasville, was struck below her right knee by a bullet that pierced the roof of the Georgia Dome, where she was watching the 2005 Peach Bowl.
In 2004, 86-year-old Dorothy Young of Atlanta was wounded in the arm as she was leaving a New Year’s Eve church service in Bankhead.
A fan at the 2001 Peach Bowl was grazed by a stray bullet that came through the roof of the Georgia Dome.
In 2000, Crystal Garrett, a college student from Easley, S.C., was hit by a stray bullet moments after she watched the Peach Drop.
Copyright 2010 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution