S. County Girl, 12, Shot in the Neck by Friend

A 12-year-old girl was in guarded condition Friday after she was shot in the neck by her 13-year-old friend.

Shanelle Johannessen was taken by paramedics to the trauma center at Children’s Hospital at Mission in Mission Viejo, where officials said her condition was listed as guarded but stable.

An angry John Johannessen, father of the victim, blamed the incident on the parents of the unidentified girl who fired the shot. He said that he does not know the girl’s parents, who declined to comment Friday.

“Parents and adults are not taking responsibility for handguns,” Johannessen said. “I’m doing the best I can by not allowing even toy guns in my house. Guns are made to kill.”

According to Johannessen, his daughter had aspirations of becoming a model and was photographed recently for a portfolio.

“Here was a perfect, beautiful, charming A-plus student who got shot in the face because of an irresponsible adult,” said Johannessen, whose family lives about two miles from where the incident occurred.

According to Orange County sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Ron Wilkerson, the girl was shot about 1 p.m. inside a house in the 100 block of Calle Gazapo. The injured girl and the friend who fired the shot were alone in an upstairs bedroom at the time, authorities said.

The older girl was apparently handling a 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol, which discharged, sending a bullet through the victim’s neck before lodging in a wall, Wilkerson said.

“She was lucky in the sense that [the bullet] didn’t strike her in the spine or some other vital area,” he said.

Dr. Eric Wallbergh, who treated the girl, said the bullet caused facial injuries but did not damage any major organs. The young girl “will require several operations but is expected to make a full and excellent recovery,” he said.

Investigators said the 13-year-old called 911 and was devastated by the incident. She was “understandably very upset,” and a counselor was later brought to the house to comfort her, Wilkerson said.

The shooting appeared to be “totally accidental, as far as we can tell,” he added. However, the case is under investigation and authorities are trying to determine whether the firearm had been illegally stored, Wilkerson said.

Sheriff’s investigators spent several hours at the home and left with several large brown evidence bags.

Neighbors in the development of new tract homes said the two girls were close friends who spent a lot of time together. The neighborhood consists mostly of two-story homes, which offer a picturesque view of the nearby Saddleback Mountains.

“I saw them together all the time,” said Jessie Gore, 13, who moved into the neighborhood last month. “I would see them just hanging out on the front patio. They would walk these two little bulldogs, wash the car together. They seemed like really good friends.”

None of the neighbors interviewed could recall hearing a shot Friday afternoon.

A real estate agent for the housing development said the family had only recently moved into the tract, where construction work on more new homes was still underway on Friday.

Advocates of stricter gun laws pointed to the shooting as another example of the need for tougher gun control. Mary Leigh Blek, chairwoman of Orange County Citizens for the Prevention of Gun Violence, said that unintentional gun injuries can be prevented if gun owners store firearms and ammunition in separate, locked cabinets.

“We hear this every day across the United States,” said Blek, whose 21-year-old son, Matthew, was shot to death in June 1994. “A child’s death or injury is always very painful. As a community, this should be a wake-up call that we must do better to protect our children. Nobody is immune from gun violence.”