Bullet Strikes 8-Year-Old Girl at Disneyland

An 8-year-old girl was hit in the back by an apparently errant bullet about 6 p.m. Sunday as she rode an open-car train through the Fantasyland section of Disneyland.

Anaheim Police Lt. John Cross said the that shot apparently was fired from outside the park, but that there were no reports of shooting in the area.

Nayeli Diane Placentia of Downey was in guarded condition Sunday night in the pediatrics intensive care unit at UCI Medical Center in Orange after surgery to remove the bullet from her back.

Cross said the girl did not realize she had been shot.

“She complained to her parents that something struck her back,” he said.

The girl’s parents, whose names were not released, took her to Western Medical Center-Anaheim, where doctors discovered the bullet wound. Cross said police were called at 6:43 p.m. by hospital officials.

The girl was transferred to UCI Medical Center for surgery.

“Apparently the operation was successful,” Cross said. He added that the bullet removed by doctors was of small caliber, most likely from a handgun.

He said investigators were on the scene Sunday night attempting to discover where the shot came from. The girl and her family had been sitting together in one of the train’s open-sided cars with a canvas roof.

I don’t think this was intentional at all,” Cross said. “It probably was someone firing a shot into the air.” He added that it almost certainly occurred off park property.

A Disneyland night manager said that park representatives had ordered him not to say anything about the shooting except that park public information officers would answer news media questions today.

Operations at the park, which remained open until midnight Sunday, were not affected.

Cross said there were no reports that anyone near the girl heard any shots or knew what had happened.