PINEVILLE, N.C. — A mother in Pineville is lucky her child wasn't hit by a bullet that pierced through three walls in her infant's room with the bullet flying over a crib.
Megin Turcotte said she put her 11-week-old daughter, Cieanna Grace, asleep in her crib Thursday night.
"For whatever reason, I moved her to my room that night, at about 1:30 in the morning," she said.
Turcotte and her mother were back asleep when about an hour and a half later, Turcotte heard something.
"I was pretty sound asleep at that point," she remembered. "But I knew something wasn't right."
Later that morning when Turcotte walked into her baby's room she thought she saw a bug on the wall.
"And I realized it was a hole," she said. "I started looking around and there was some drywall on the bed. And then, I looked towards her crib and I noticed another hole through a canvas painting."
Pineville police said the hole was from a bullet that flew through the wall, flying over the child's crib before entering and exiting two other walls in the room.
A police report noted the bullet came from a domestic dispute next door.
"[It's] the last thing I would ever think of, this is my safe space," Turcotte said. "I expect my neighborhood to be safe, it is safe. So, this is shocking."
She said regardless, all violence has to stop.
"What happens in your home is what happens in your home," she said. "But when it comes into my home, which is an innocent, safe space -- these things can't happen."
The Charlotte area is no stranger to gun violence harming or taking the lives of innocent children.
Police said a 1-year-old was injured in a shooting off East Independence Boulevard.
Two weeks before that, three-year-old Asiah Figueroa was killed in a drive-by shooting, while he was sleeping in his home.
Turcotte is thankful the bullet that entered her house missed her innocent child and she hopes area leaders will take action.
"It's got to stop. We have to create safe spaces for our families and our children," she said. "Let's love each other, let's care for each other. Let's care about our neighbors."
Pineville police are investigating the case.
Contact Hunter Sáenz at hsaenz@wcnc.com and follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.