Evan Goodenow and Allie Shultz
The Chronicle-Telegram
ELYRIA — Five-year-old Alyna Santo Domingo was sitting on the floor in her bedroom playing a game on her iPad when a bullet sailed about two feet over her head about 8:15 p.m. Tuesday.
Evan Goodenow / Chronicle
Alyna Santo Domingo, 5, sits in her bedroom Wednesday near where a bullet went through a wall Tuesday.
“I heard a boom,” Alyna said as she sat on her bed in her home at 538 Bell Ave., Wednesday. A police report was unavailable Wednesday night, but police spokesman Capt. Chris Costantino said the bullet is believed to have been fired randomly into the home after a fight involving several people at the Shell station, 905 Lorain Blvd., about a block north of Alyna’s home off Keys Drive.
Costantino said officers responded about 8:05 p.m. Tuesday after a Shell clerk called police about a disturbance at the station and possible gunfire. Officers saw nothing suspicious and left.
The clerk called back shortly afterward and said a group of people fought at the station and then drove south on Bell Avenue. He said three men and one woman were involved in the first incident and the woman may have had a head injury.
The clerk said when the group returned, there were six men. He said the people fled in a black SUV and a red car that may have been Chevrolet Cavalier. Costantino said a bullet was found by officers in the driveway of Pepsi Beverages Co., 925 Lorain Blvd.
Alex Santo Domingo, Alyna’s father, said Janis Santo Domingo, his wife, was sitting on Alyna’s bed when the shooting occurred. He said she noticed a plastic bag of cotton balls against the wall where the bullet struck fall to the ground by Alyna.
Then Xavier Santo Domingo, Santo Domingo’s 12-year-old son, came into the bedroom and said he heard two shots. On Wednesday, Alex Santo Domingo showed The Chronicle-Telegram the path of the bullet.
It passed through an outside wall of the home and a living room closet before striking the bedroom wall. It then ricocheted through a pocketbook against the bedroom wall and through the bag of cotton balls before lodging in a bedroom closet door. Alex Santo Domingo said police took the closet door with the slug to process it for evidence.
Santo Domingo, who has lived in the home since 2005 — his parents moved into it in 1991 — said they haven’t had crime problems before. Santo Domingo said his daughter is too young to fully comprehend how close she and her mother came to being shot, but he does.
“It’s was scary just thinking about what could have happened to my 5-year-old and my wife,” he said.
Contact Evan Goodenow at 329-7129 or egoodenow@chroniclet.com. Contact Allie Shultz at 329-7245 or ashultz@chroniclet.com.
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