Omaha residents fell victim to a paintball spree over the weekend, reporting what they say sounded like “real gunfire.”
Police are investigating 10 paintball shooting incidents, though they’re not sure whether the incidents are connected with one another, KETV reports.
"It seemed like real gunfire they way they were shooting at us, pop pop pop pop pop," Keith King told the Omaha ABC affiliate. “It hit me. It hit Luther. It missed Mr. Fred. There was four of us sitting out here," he recalled of the paintball shots first on North 24th Street around 11:30 p.m. Sunday (June 6).
The string of paintball shooting incidents started Saturday night (June 5), however, in South Omaha. That’s when a 14-year-old was struck with three paintballs, according to KETV.
Omaha isn’t alone.
In October, paintball attacks surged in Chicago, severe enough to even send some victims to the hospital with potentially-permanent loss of vision.
"It is very rare to see seven to eight severe eye injuries of any sort within a weekend, much less of the same kind," Ophthalmologist Dr. Hassan Shah told Chicago’s WGN9 at the time. "High velocity paintball injuries can be severely damaging to eyes and it will often result in permanent vision loss.”
Chicago law enforcement officials charged two suspects in connection with the incidents weeks after they took place.
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