PALMETTO BAY, Fla. (WSVN)– A 62-year-old father is demanding punishment for the children who shot a SplatRBall bead gun into his Palmetto Bay driveway, hitting him in the left eye.
Speaking with 7News on Tuesday, Dave Singer said the high school prank went terribly wrong.
“I couldn’t see out of my eye for two days. I mean, it was like staring at a white wall,” he said.
Since the shooting, Singer said, he’s had to visit the hospital every day to get his eye checked out.
“Three of the ophthalmologists who saw me said I’ll get my vision back, but eventually I’ll get glaucoma, and there’s a potential for me going blind in my left eye,” he said.
The incident occurred Friday night at Singer’s home located on the 8300 block of Southwest 154th Terrace.
Ring video provided to 7News by Singer shows his son and some friends arriving home when a car passes by and sprays the home with the water pellets.
At first, the shooter misses, and the car drives off. Singer reached into his car to get his wallet and begins talking to his son.
“My son said ‘Hey, they are coming back again. That’s the car,'” said Singer.
Moments later, the car drives by again and fires the water pellet gun in all directions, with one of them hitting Singer in the eye.
“Someone call the cops,” Singer is heard saying on the Ring video.
After being hit, Singer falls to the ground.
“It could have taken my eye out, because the doctor said, ‘You have no idea how serious this injury is. You could have lost your eye,'” said Singer.
The water-based gel bullets don’t usually cause much bodily harm, unless they hit someone directly in a sensitive area, like the eye.
Now Singer wants the water pellet shooters to be held accountable. He believes investigators know who is behind the drive by.
“Kids make mistakes, right? So I don’t want to ruin the kids’ lives, but it’s more upsetting to me, literally right now, that the police are not, the Palmetto Bay Police are not being more thorough with in their investigation and the kids haven’t been arrested,” said Singer.
Miami-Dade Police, who are contracted to police the Village of Palmetto Bay, said they have not arrested anyone in this incident because they cannot prove probable cause.
Police told 7News they cannot prove that the kids who shot the SplatRBall gun intended to seriously hurt Singer or anyone on the property.
“They shouldn’t have these kids five days later walking the street after they did a drive by, that’s basically what they did. They did a drive by with a pellet gun,” said Singer.
Singer, a former council member in Palmetto Bay, is the father of Jeremy Singer, the 16-year-old teen who was arrested in January after beating up a 15-year-old following baseball practice.
According to the police report, Jeremy said he tested his arm strength by throwing an air horn at the victim in an attempt to scare him, which accidentally struck his ear.
Singer said that while he is trying to keep a positive attitude about what happened on Friday night, he believes the kids who accidentally shot him should be arrested, just like his son was.
“These kids, basically, shot my eye out, OK? And the police department wants to charge them with a misdemeanor, which is absolutely crazy in my book,” he said. “So, it seems like they have different set of laws for my kids compared to other kids in the neighborhood.”
Singer said he disagrees with the MDPD because he believes that probable cause was established when the kids inside the car attacked his home twice.
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