Family Injured as Bullet Shatters Bus Window; 2 Teens Arrested

No one was hit by the bullet that punched through the window of a county bus on Thursday, but for Isiah Barrett, who saw his children bloodied by flying shards, the toll was still too much.

The former U.S. Marine and veteran of a stint in Lebanon stood outside an Anaheim hospital awaiting treatment, a small shard from the window still jutting from his cheek, and said he hopes to move his family out of California.

“This is really indicative of the day and time we live in,” the Fullerton resident said as he cradled his 2-year-old daughter, Mariah, her face speckled with cuts. “I think we live in a dangerous time. It’s not safe to be riding a bus.”

Orange County Transportation Authority bus No. 4224 was cruising east on La Palma Avenue past Anaheim Boulevard just a few miles from Disneyland when a single shot sounded about 9:40 a.m., apparently from a passing car or a pedestrian.

Two boys, ages 14 and 15, later were arrested on suspicion of aggravated assault and reckless discharge of a firearm, Anaheim Police Sgt. Joe Vargas said. Officers responding to an unrelated call in the area of the shooting arrested the pair after coming across information that made them suspect the teens. The suspected weapon was recovered, he said.

It was not clear, Vargas said, whether the bus was an intended target or was hit by a stray bullet. “That’s what we’re still trying to determine,” he said.

The bus was bound for the Mall of Orange, with passengers carrying children, backpacks and shopping carts. Some, such as Alma Yurixi, 22, of Laguna Hills, were headed to work; others, such as Katherine Samaduroff, were on their way home.

Milling behind police tape about 30 minutes after the shooting, Samaduroff said the screams and the sight of the injured Barretts were etched in her memory.

“I keep seeing the face of that girl that got hit. I can’t get her face out of my mind,” she said, wiping her eyes.

Some of the passengers said they heard a distant popping sound; others said the terror began with the window shattering. Some riders dove into the aisles for cover.

Isiah Barrett said he flashed back to his military days. “There’s a ‘bang!’ and then you hit the deck. It was like a war zone.”

The Barretts, the only ones injured, were sitting in the second and third rows of the bus. Barrett, 36, was sharing a seat with Mariah while his wife, Vesna Barrett, 29, sat behind them with their other daughter, 8-year-old Naomi.

The only family member who escaped injury was 4-year-old Isiah Jr., sitting across the aisle from his father. Naomi, sitting next to the window, suffered the worst cuts and narrowly escaped a serious eye injury.

Vesna Barrett, a native of Croatia, was too upset to speak after the shooting, but her husband said the couple had already talked about leaving the country, perhaps returning to Perth, Australia, where they lived for a time.

The couple wondered at first whether they might have been the intended targets of the shooting because they are of different races, and “hate crimes happen,” Isiah Barrett said. But the tinted bus windows were too dark to see through, police said, so the bullet was probably fired randomly.

That didn’t soothe the father’s mind. “I’m not sure which is worse.”