Clumsy Cupid Turns Out to Be Pasty Plumber

A man accidentally shot a woman in the stomach with a 30-inch arrow when he fired it at a fence and it went through to the property next door, police said Thursday.

Eric Collins, 27, was arrested Thursday on charges of assault, reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon in the baffling incident last week in the tranquil Bronx neighborhood of Riverdale, said Paul Browne, the New York Police Department's deputy commissioner for public information.

Collins wasn't aiming at anyone, and Sunday's shooting was believed to be accidental, Browne said.

The arrow hit Denise Delgado-Brown, a traffic court officer in suburban Yonkers, as she dropped off fellow parishioners after church. She later said she thought a baseball slammed into her.

She was hospitalized but has since been released.

Collins was moving boxes from his old home in Yonkers to his grandparents' former apartment in Riverdale, where he planned to live, Browne said.

Police believe Collins had about a half-dozen arrows and shot one into the white fence, a relatively short distance. It went through the fence and ricocheted up, hitting Delgado-Brown as she escorted people to the nursing home next door, police said.

Emergency crews initially believed the arrow had come down from above.

Collins, a plumber, was being held at the 50th Precinct stationhouse in the Bronx. No one immediately returned messages left at possible phone numbers for him in Riverdale and Yonkers, and police didn't know his lawyer's name.

Collins was questioned by investigators shortly after the incident, and denied having anything to do with it, police said.

Investigators canvassing the area around 4 p.m. Thursday came across Collins on the street while he was walking two or three dachshunds. He appeared nervous when they inquired about the incident, and he agreed to accompany officers to the station, Browne said.

Collins apparently realized his involvement after reading media reports about the curious shooting, police said.