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Sports

Fan at Cardinals Game Grazed by Stray Bullet

Police think a bullet was fired into the air less than a mile away and somehow made its way into the Busch Stadium.
© Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports

Well, this is a crazy thing. According to St. Louis police, a woman at Tuesday night's Cardinals-Brewers game at Busch Stadium was grazed in the arm by a stray bullet.

St. Louis police said the 34-year-old woman was sitting in her seat when she felt pain to her arm, removed her jacket and noticed a small abrasion to her elbow. She went to the first aid station, and workers there contacted an off-duty police officer working a secondary security job there, police said.

When police went back to the woman's seat, they found a slug "in the immediate area" where she was sitting. The working theory as of now is that someone may have fired a gun into the air, and the bullet somehow made its way into the stadium. Moments before she was hit, there were reports of shots fired less than a mile away from the stadium.

It is a remarkable stroke of luck that this random bullet managed to miss virtually every single one of the reported 38,616 people in attendance last night, and only nicked one person in the arm. A slight shift in angle or trajectory or even wind and this could have hit someone in the head or chest. As with all gun-related incidents, this one could have been avoided, and the St. Louis police department took the opportunity to use it as a teachable moment:

"This further amplifies our yearly message of encouraging 'Fun Without Guns,'" according to a statement from the police department. "We know 'what goes up must come down,' and in this case, an innocent victim was struck. The department constantly stresses the importance of safety and responsible gun ownership."

It is worth pointing out that "Fun Without Guns" is an easily achievable ideal if you simply don't have guns. No one sitting in a baseball stadium a mile away would get hit by a stray bullet, anyway. I had never really considered it before today, but not getting shot at a baseball game does sound pretty fun.