Teacher Hit by Bullet ‘Happy to Be Alive’ : One Year After Shooting, He Shows Marked Improvement in Speech, Walking and Poise

Alfredo Perez is a quick learner.

In his second news conference since he was shot in the head one year ago today while teaching his elementary school students, Perez on Friday showed dramatic improvements in his speech, his walking and his poise.

Dozens of reporters broke into loud applause when Perez--who became a national symbol of random violence after he nearly died from a stray bullet allegedly fired by a gang member--walked gingerly through the doors of a teachers union auditorium.

“I still have problems mentally and physically,” said the soft-spoken, handsome Perez, 31, who only recently went home after being in hospitals and rehabilitation facilities. “But I feel good. I’m happy to be alive.”

It remains unclear if Perez--who suffered damage to his brain from a bullet that remains lodged there--will be able to accomplish his goal of returning to the classroom.

“It is not unfeasible that one day he will go back to school in some capacity, if not a teacher, then perhaps a counselor,” said Dr. Richard Adams, Perez’s chief rehabilitation physician. Adams said it was impossible to formulate a timetable.

Perez was shot in the library of Figueroa Street Elementary School in South-Central Los Angeles, where he had taken his class. Authorities said the shooting came from across the street, where a gang dispute had broken out. While he was given little chance for survival when he was wheeled into the emergency room at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, he surprised the doctors and the public as he slowly recovered.

“His rehabilitation will never stop,” Adams said. “He will continue to improve, but the acceleration [of improvements] will decrease.”

One of Perez’s major problems is what Adams called a “lack of initiation. . . . He may get an idea to do something, but lacks the ability to get up and do it, even something simple like grooming or reading.”

Perez told reporters he reads a newspaper every day and recently attended a movie, “Ghosts of Mississippi.”

Prosecutors have been unable to convict two gang members accused in the shooting; two trials have resulted in hung juries, and no retrial is planned.

“We were sad about that, but not surprised,” said Perez’s wife, Virginia, 26, an elementary school teacher who married her husband less than a year before the shooting.

In his last press conference, held at King/Drew Medical Center in September, a nervous Alfredo Perez said very little and took no questions from the sometimes unruly press corps. On Friday, the family’s attorney, Sherry Grant, set ground rules. “I’m going to ask you to pretend this is a classroom, so Alfredo will feel comfortable,” she said, asking reporters to raise their hands and wait to be called on.

She then introduced “the new and improved Alfredo Perez” to loud applause. Walking slowly with a four-pronged cane, his wife holding his still badly weakened left side, Perez smiled broadly as he cautiously made his way to his seat.

After reading a prepared statement, he calmly handled a wide array of questions under the glare of a dozen television cameras. His answers were short, with his wife filling in details.

A typical day, he said, includes two hours of physical therapy followed by lunch, then two hours of speech therapy. Adams said the rehabilitation is grueling, and drew laughter from Alfredo Perez when he said “it is amazing that he even speaks” to the therapists.

Virginia Perez said “we have been through hell” in the last year. “We were a happily newly married couple, and then this happened. But I’m happy because Alfredo keeps getting better.”

Attorney Grant described Virginia Perez as “the tiger lady,” a woman who had prodded doctors about whether they had tried the latest techniques she had read about, and who told prosecutors she was willing to talk to a key witness who had changed his testimony.

Her husband answered every question reporters asked except one: What would he say to the person who shot him?

He shook his head.

“I’d rather not answer that,” he said with a smile.