Bullet smashes into Mpls. school bus, driver's jacket

A school bus carrying three children was hit by stray gunfire Monday afternoon when two males fired at each other near a busy south Minneapolis intersection, police said.

A bullet shattered the front-door glass and went through the driver's jacket, which she'd draped over the side of her seat, police spokesman Sgt. William Palmer said.

"When she stood up, the bullet fell to the floor," he said.

A 9-year-old boy suffered a scratched arm from the flying glass, but did not need medical attention, Palmer said.

Esther Kielty, who owns a duplex at 28th Street and Stevens Avenue S., said she was told by a tenant that the shooting started after someone in a black hoodie cussed out people on a side porch facing 28th Street.

"Apparently, he was brandishing a pistol," she said. "They had to tell the people in the house to get down."

The suspect squeezed the trigger three times, Kielty said she was told, but only one bullet fired. It entered a window at the side of the duplex, and lodged in a living room wall. Inside were three adults, a baby and a toddler, she said. Palmer said the location of the other shooter isn't known.

Palmer said that the driver, who'd been traveling south on Stevens, had stopped at 28th Street and was preparing to make a left turn about 2:30 p.m. when the bus was hit.

The driver did a "smart thing," he added: "She got out of there" by driving off. Once out of the line of fire, Palmer said, the driver called police, thinking at first that she had been shot. But the bullet had come to rest between her back and the seat, Palmer said.

Her name was not released.

Palmer said that police were especially concerned about the midafternoon shooting because the intersection is often crowded at that time. As of early Monday night, there had been no arrests, he said.