Celebratory gunfire almost hit 3-year-old after flying through window, lodging into wall

HOUSTON - Despite all the warnings from authorities' celebratory gunfire still went off all over the Houston area, and a 3-year-old girl almost lost her life because of it.

"My aunt yelled a bullet went in the house, and everyone's like what, and she's like look," Yesenia Martinez recalled.

Martinez and her relatives were celebrating the new year at the family home on Nicar Street near Airline Drive, but around 12:30 a.m. their celebration took a scary turn. A bullet came flying through the backyard fence, it whisked past people dancing on the patio, and then crashed into a bedroom window.

"We had a young lady sitting in this bedroom with her, and she said my daughter was yawning, and she told her you can lay down, and she laid her down," Martinez said.

And it's a good thing her 3-year-old daughter decided to lie down because just minutes later that bullet flew over her head.

"If she had been sitting up that would've been right to the head, I don't want to think about it," Martinez said.

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She says deputies told her that shot may have been fired from a rifle. The bullet lodged into the wall above the bed, and on the other side of that wall, was a living room filled with people sitting directly in that bullet's path. All of that and miraculously, no one was hurt. However, Martinez says luck has nothing to do with it.

"Thank God," she said.

Just before the new year, her family said a prayer for protection in 2023 and she believes that prayer is what kept her baby girl and her family out of harm's way.

"We had just prayed and 30 minutes into the new year this happened. We have a lot of faith, and we feel like God started shifting everybody out of the way and ducked my baby down right on time," said Martinez.

The Harris County Sheriff's Department is investigating this incident.

Just before the new year, city officials and first responders warned people about the dangers of firing guns into the air.

There was another incident caused by celebratory gunfire where a 12-year-old girl was injured. Houston Police Chief Troy Finner says the young girl suffered a graze wound to her neck from a stray bullet around 12:30 a.m. in the 6400 block of West Bellfort.

The young girl was taken to the hospital and will be okay.

While we were recording, we heard numerous gunshots fired in the area despite law enforcement being close by.