NORTH MIAMI BEACH, FLA. (WSVN) - A North Miami Beach teen is on the road to recovery after, he said, he almost lost vision on his right eye when he was struck by a bullet while inside his home.
Pascal Toussaint said he was looking forward to being on the field for his first year at Alonzo and Tracy Mourning High School as a member of the football team, but because of Wednesday night’s shooting, his dreams of gridiron glory will have to wait.
“Once my eye heals, I won’t be able to have 20/20 vision, so I’ll have to wear glasses or contacts,” he said.
Toussaint, 14, said he was looking out of his bedroom window in the area of Northeast 157th Street and 15th Avenue when he was shot.
“My right eye, I had got shot while I was looking outside the window,” he said. “Somebody came, I don’t know who it was. He came, and he was standing by the fence, and while I was looking toward this way, before I could even notice him, he shot directly at me, and the bullet split, like, my eye, and the fragment of the bullet went behind my eye and almost cut my retina.”
Toussaint said a witness ran away from the scene.
“The police, they can’t build the case on anything, because he’s the only person who saw everything, and I can’t identify him,” he said.
The teen said he went to two hospitals before ending up at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami.
His mother, Rachel Lewis, said she got the call about the shooting and rushed home to find North Miami Beach Police looking for evidence.
“There were about six of them here, so I spoke to them, I asked them what happened, and they were like, ‘OK, your son has been shot in the eye,'” said Lewis, who asked not to show her face on camera, “and we searched around the room, we looked around. We didn’t see anything.”
Toussaint said he’s thankful to doctors for saving his sight.
His mother said she’s hopeful someone will come forward with information about what happened.
“As a single mom, I’m trying to do what I can to raise him, and for somebody to almost take his life like that, you can’t imagine,” she said. “If you’re a parent, you’ll know how that feels.”
If you have any information on this shooting, call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS. Remember, you can always remain anonymous, and you may be eligible for a $1,000 reward.
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