A 16-year-old Seattle teen escaped serious injury when her eyeglasses deflected a bullet that struck her in the face during a drive-by shooting.
Alonza Bryant was asleep on her living room sofa on Dec. 21 when several bullets flew through the window and walls of her home at 54th Avenue South and South Roxbury Street in Seattle, where she lives with her mother.
“I fell asleep with my glasses on,” Bryant told Seattle NBC affiliate KING-TV. “If I didn’t have my glasses on, I wouldn’t be here.”
According to Seattle police, several people were inside the home at around 9:40 p.m. that night when an unknown group of individuals drove by the house in a dark sedan and began shooting.
Bryant said she woke up to the sound of a “big bang,” and was struck in the face with one of the bullets. She was wounded and her glasses broke.
Officials said the stray bullet hit the bridge of her glasses. Amazingly, Bryant suffered only minor injuries.
“If it wasn’t for God, she wouldn’t be here,” Lavette Bryant, Alonza’s mother, told the television station. She told officers that no one living in their home has a gang affiliation.
“We are honest, upright citizens. We don’t do anything—harm—to anyone in this neighborhood,” she said.
Bryant’s mother told police that she thinks the shooters were looking for someone who either used to visit or live there.
“We have to move. We have to find a place to stay tonight because we’re not staying here,” Lavette Bryant said.
