If the heat doesn't get to ya at Tent City, a bullet just might...
A female Tent City inmate was rushed to the hospital early this morning after she was hit with shrapnel after a bullet was fired at the jail from outside its walls, Maricopa County Sheriff's Office officials tell New Times.
About 12:30 a.m., an unknown suspect fired a bullet at Joe Arpaio's infamous outdoor jail from about 120 yards away.
The bullet, MCSO Deputy Chief Jack MacIntyre says, hit a fan -- or something -- inside one of the tents. Shrapnel then hit the upper-left-thigh of a female inmate.
The inmate was treated by the jail's medical staff and taken to a
hospital. She was released and is now back in the tents "happy," and
hot.
It's unclear what sort of material hit the inmate. MacIntyre says it
wasn't shrapnel from the bullet itself, rather, it's from something the
bullet hit -- like a fan or a metal pole used to hold up the tents.
MacIntyre says jail staff found 9-millimeter shell casings about 120 yards from the jail's southwest fence.
Despite it being fairly obvious that the jail was the intended target of the shooter, MacIntyre says it's unclear if the bullet was intentionally fired at the jail, or if it
was just random gunfire that happened to find its way to Tent City.
Either way, whoever fired the bullet, MacIntyre says, "exercised zero
judgment."
He says jail staff plans to look at surveillance footage from around the area with the hopes of finding the suspect.
