Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
OGDEN — A simple walk to a friend's house and Nathan Litz says his daughter and friend were taken by surprise.
"She felt something strike her in the back," Litz said. "And she turned around to see what it was and next thing she had some sort of projectile strike her in the eye."
He said his 17-year-old is still recovering a week later, and doctors tell them it will be a while before they know how bad it really is.
"The eye immediately filled with blood as did the cornea, so she was unable to see," Litz said. "There's a lot of follow-up we still have with her eye, as far as the integrity of her eye, as well as her vision has not fully returned yet."
It was an apparent random drive-by shooting with what sounds like a BB gun.
It's believed to be part of what police are saying is a larger trend: teens who go around, shooting random people for a reaction, with an Orbeez gel pellet, or BB guns.
"The reality is it crosses a significant line in terms of actually physically impacting a person and possibly risking significant bodily injury," Litz said.
Litz said his daughter doesn't want the attention from this, and really neither does he, but he does want parents to talk with her kids and let them know that it's not a joke.
"At an absolute minimum, it's very aggressive harassment of children that shouldn't be tolerated at all," Litz said.
It's scary, someone could get hurt, and there are consequences.
The Ogden School District also warned parents to make sure their kids do not bring any kind of real or toy guns to school and that any who break that rule will be punished accordingly.
They said they have not had any problems since that warning went out.
Police are still investigating the incident, but it's just one of many that we've heard of from all over the Wasatch Front.
