Charlotte woman lucky to be alive after she says celebratory gunfire struck her home

CHARLOTTE — A southeast Charlotte woman is counting her blessings after she said celebratory gunfire sprayed bullets into her home, with one bullet flying over her bed.

Tammy Cuthbertson said she and her family were ringing in the new year on Saturday night, watching Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. She said about 10 minutes before midnight she was up in her bedroom and went downstairs knowing the new year was looming.

“We waited and did the countdown,” she said. “And then, we heard fireworks.”

But then, she heard loud “bops” that she knew weren’t fireworks.

“It was just like gunshots – boom, boom, boom, boom. And something said, ‘ting’ – and I said, something hit my house,” she said.

She went up to her bedroom and was stunned by what she saw. A bullet hole mark was just above her bed, with another one marking the wall directly across the way.

“It went straight through my bathroom, the above cabinet in my bathroom,” she said. “Yeah, it’s two holes in the bathroom.”

She called Charlotte-Mecklenburg police, who she said arrived to find six bullet holes on the side of her house. She pointed them out to Channel 9′s crime reporter Hunter Sáenz.

Cuthbertson also showed the four bullet holes left in the walls inside her home.

An officer who answered her call for service told her she was lucky she left her bedroom moments before the clock struck midnight.

“He told me, if I would have been standing at the end of my bed, that bullet would have gone straight through my head,” she said.

It was a terrifying moment she hopes nobody else has to live through. She also hopes others will think twice before celebrating with a gun.

“This is a community,” she said. “It’s alright to celebrate, but celebrate without gunfire because bullets don’t have eyes. You can hurt people.”

Despite not getting any rest Saturday night, Cuthbertson said she still made it to church on Sunday to give thanks and pray after such a close call.

“That could have been my life,” she said. “It could have been my daughter’s life, it could have been my sister’s life.”

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