Tulsa Police Arrest 16-Year-Old Accused Of Randomly Shooting Driver

Police say the driver heard a loud pop and kept going. It wasn't until he got close to Pine and Peoria that he realized he had been shot in the arm.

Thursday, October 24th 2013, 2:52 pm

By: News On 6


A 16-year-old Tulsa boy was arrested Thursday, accused of shooting a rifle at a random driver.

Mathew Barnhill was arrested on one count of assault with a deadly weapon.

Police believe it was truly a random shooting and the victim and Barnhill don't know each other. They say the driver was just minding his own business.

"You can't really know why somebody would do something like that," said Tulsa Police Sgt. Dedlorn Sanders.

Police say the driver heard a pop while he was at the Pine and Utica intersection.

He thought his truck had blown a fuse and kept going a half-mile to Peoria before he realized his arm was bleeding and he had been hit by a bullet.

Police believe 16-year-old Mathew Barnhill fired the shot from the roof of his mother's apartment building. They recovered spent rounds and a .22 rifle.

"I ain't never heard nothing like that," said Leonard Yargee.

Yargee has been selling items from his store just down the street from the intersection for more than a year. He said it's a safe area, but the shooting has him worried.

"Because anybody could have been standing out here and got shot. I mean, didn't even know where it come from," Yargee said.

Another nearby business owner, who declined to go on camera, said he's heard what sounded like firecrackers over the last couple of nights in the area, but never anything that sounded like gunfire. He said he was shocked to hear what happened Thursday afternoon.

Yargee and the other business owners say they'll be a little more careful from now on.

"I'm going to be looking, I'll tell you that, because that could have been me," Yargee said.

The victim was taken to the hospital for treatment, but we're told he's expected to be fine

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