Couple warns against celebratory gunshots after close encounter on New Year’s Day :: WRAL.com

Geneva Riddick-Faulkner and her husband Shawn Faulkner normally watch the ball drop from their living room in Roanoke Rapids, but they decided to celebrate 2025 a little differently. They believe their last-minute change of plans saved a life.

“It’s the first time in our 10 years together that we haven’t celebrated in the living room,” Geneva Riddick-Faulkner said.

A bullet from outside landed on the couch, in the same spot where she would have been sitting in the living room.

“We decided to go to bed instead of staying up to celebrate. We might have had to make plans for a funeral,” Shawn Faulkner said.

The bullet went through the ceiling just minutes after New Year’s Eve, but they didn’t notice until the next morning.

“All of a sudden, I heard what sounded like a pop,” Geneva Riddick-Faulkner said. “We just chalked it up to maybe it being just another louder than normal outside noise.”

The couple also said the bullet could have landed in the bedroom next door, which is where Shawn Faulkner’s mother sleeps.

“The head of her bed is right on the other side of (the) wall. If it had been inches from the other side, it could have hit her,” said Geneva Riddick-Faulkner.

The Halifax County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the incident.

“Hopefully the seriousness of this question of what could happen will open some eyes to this issue and people can find a more productive way to deal with the years ahead,” Sheriff Tyree Davis wrote to WRAL in an emailed statement. .

“Every Labor Day, every Fourth of July, every New Year’s, every Christmas… there are shots fired,” Geneva Riddick-Faulkner said. “I just want people to be responsible.”

In recent years, people and homes have been hit by stray bullets during New Year’s Eve and Fourth of July celebrations in the Triangle.. In Durham, two women have died from celebratory shootings since 2020.

“What goes up, must come down. When you aim a firearm and shoot it in the air, that projectile has to land somewhere. You should know that shooting in the air is not a safe place to shoot. Also, understand that you are responsible” . for the damage or injury caused by that projectile if we can prove where it came from,” Sheriff Davis wrote.