A Juneau school bus carrying students was struck by a bullet Wednesday afternoon after a handgun was accidentally fired from a nearby home, according to police.
Juneau Police Department Lt. Kris Sell said no injuries were reported in the incident, which occurred on Riverside Drive in Mendenhall Valley shortly before 4 p.m. Wednesday. The First Student bus had a driver and an aide on board, as well as two students.
"The bus driver said a window of the bus shattered and two men in their twenties came running toward the bus" from a nearby home, Sell wrote. "One of the men, a 21-year-old man from Juneau, was identified as the man who shot a round from a Glock 9mm handgun through the front door of the home."
Sell said Thursday morning that the man was apparently "dry-firing" the Glock, pulling the trigger on an empty chamber, and pointing it out of the home at the time of the discharge. He immediately approached the bus and admitted what happened.
"He did not believe that there were rounds in the magazine," Sell said. "It's not an uncommon thing for gun owners to do but you have to be extremely careful that it's not loaded — obviously, the care to be sure it wasn't loaded did not happen."
The pistol round was found lodged in a window frame on the bus, Sell said.
"The bus driver did say that the kids were not scared and were not aware that something had happened," Sell said.
Police forwarded to local prosecutors a misdemeanor charge of shooting a firearm within a quarter-mile of a roadway against the 21-year-old, who hasn't been identified pending formal charges. Sell said First Student didn't immediately press charges.
Juneau School District Superintendent Mark Miller said Thursday that the children on the bus were Mendenhall River Community School special-education students headed home for the day. He had harsh words for the man who fired the gun.
"By all accounts it was unintentional but it's still irresponsible," Miller said. "You have to always treat a gun like it's loaded — that's the first thing they teach you in gun safety."
Sell expressed relief that nobody was struck — as well as amazement that the randomly discharged round hit a school bus.
"I don't know if this guy is the luckiest guy in the world or the unluckiest guy in the world," Sell said of the gun's owner.