Mobile police seize New Year's Eve weapons

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

By GARY McELROY and SUSAN DAKER

Staff Reporters

Of the hundreds of bullets fired into the air in a spirited but unthinking celebration of New Year's Eve in Mobile, one round crashed through a Midtown window, narrowly missing a pet parrot, according to its owner.

"It's comical right now, but it could have really been bad," Ken Palmertree said of the .38-caliber bullet that landed in his pet's water bowl.

Mobile police took the issue of holiday gunfire seriously as well, assigning a task force of 16 officers to respond to complaints over the holiday weekend. The task force arrested one man Saturday and nine men Sunday in connection with weapons violations, police spokesman Officer John Young said.

On Tuesday, Mobile police displayed 10 firearms confiscated when officers responded to some of the 200 complaints of gunfire during the New Year's holiday weekend.

Palmertree's close call with reckless gunshots was not among the Police Department's statistics. Palmertree said he did not call the police because he figured that nothing could be done, with so many shots fired in the area.

The 58-year-old engineer owns homes here and in Oxford, Miss., and works in Ocean Springs, Miss. At 10 minutes to midnight on New Year's Eve, he said, he was home alone at his house on Old Shell Road near Broad Street, sitting at his desk.

All evening, Palmertree said, shots could be heard outside.

"It was Dodge City, gunfire all over the place," he said, "then I heard a 'phisst' sound. I knew what it was -- breaking glass."

He found a bullet hole in the middle of a side window on the second story.

The slug "hit the parrot's cage, just missed the bird and went into his water bowl," Palmertree said.

Citing his engineering background, Palmertree said he estimated that the shooter was two or three blocks away and fired the pistol into the air at about a 30- to 40-degree angle, not straight up.

The only other place in the world where he has heard comparative celebratory gunfire, Palmertree said, was Cairo, Egypt.

"I've never seen it here in the United States, but in Mobile it's always been done, from what I understand," Palmertree said.

Being in the wrong spot when the bullet fell from the sky, Palmertree said, "could have caused some real damage. It flattened one side of the cage."

His pet parrot was sitting only inches from the window when the gun blast blew in on him, Palmertree said.

And while windows and bird cages can be repaired, Palmertree said, he's not so sure about the bird.

Long before that night and most of the evening in question, the feathered pet he calls "Gray Bird" appeared to enjoy life as he occupied a perch in the middle of the cage, Palmertree said.

Since then, though, he said, the parrot has taken to cringing along the sides of the cage, his tiny feet locked onto the bars as he stares out of the window.

"He's not real stable," Palmertree said. "The bird will never recover."

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