A young ball player grazed by a bullet while sitting on Little League bleachers of all places left the hospital wearing a bandage on his head, eyeglasses and a smile.
City Councilman Charles Barron joined the family of 11-year-old Davonte Kelly when the boy left Brookdale Hospital Wednesday morning.
Kelly carried balloons and told reporters he felt fine.
Sunday, as Kelly's team, the Mets, waited to have its photo taken at Brooklyn's Spring Creek Field, he suddenly burst out crying in pain. Those around him assumed he'd been struck by a ball. Doctors later removed a bullet, which lodged between his skin and his skull, in an operation that took nearly three hours.
"All the while he's in the emergency room for two, three hours and we're thinking it's just a baseball that hit him," his mother, Angela Walters, told reporters. "When the doctor went to put (in) staples, she saw something. ... And we took a CAT scan, and there was a bullet in his head."
There were no reports of shots fired, and investigators had no motive or suspects. Police were looking into whether the bullet was fired from afar and possibly ricocheted off the bleachers.
"For our community, this is a wake-up call," a relative said outside the hospital Monday. "This is madness. As soon as the sun comes out, more guns come out. Little kids can't even play baseball."
