Shot in Forehead With Airsoft Gun

Champion Credit Union on Patton Ave and the surveillance camera, upper right, which caught video of a woman being shot with an airsoft gun from a passing car in the night.

The showtime thing Helen Glick idea well-nigh when she was awakened by the sound of gunshots and excruciating pain in her face was her 3 children.

"I thought about how much worse it would exist on them, than on me, going through that," she told the Citizen Times.

Effectually 1:30 a.chiliad. Oct. 18, Glick, 35, of Hendersonville, was asleep in front of Champion Credit Matrimony on Patton Avenue when a dark-colored two-door sedan drove by and someone inside fired an Airsoft gun at her.

Glick said she was struck in one case in the face and twice in the chest.

"My whole face up went numb," she said. "The (law) said it was an air pellet gun, but I thought 'if it was an air pellet gun, it would feel similar bee stings, not like I was dying.'"

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Every bit the car collection abroad, Glick caught a glimpse of the people inside, which she said were boys with ski masks on.

"One guy actually pulled off his mask and laughed at me," she said.

Helen Glick and her daughter, Ziya Ariel Glick, in 2019.

Glick called the law, who arrived on the scene at 1:41 a.m. She was taken to Mission Hospital, where her wounds were treated and she was checked for encephalon damage.

Asheville Police recovered l pellet rounds from the scene, section spokesperson Samantha Berth said.

Afterwards beingness bandaged and cleared of whatsoever brain trauma, Glick was released four hours subsequently. She walked across the street from Mission, curled upward on the basis and went back to sleep for a few hours earlier taking a bus to her job at a fast-food restaurant.

"I slept right across from the hospital in case I wasn't feeling adept, in case I didn't wake support, and then someone would observe me," she said.

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Glick has suffered from homelessness since 2018 when she left her erstwhile home to escape an abusive relationship, she said. Her children live with other family unit members.

She often sleeps at places on Patton Artery that are typically considered prophylactic, she said.

"Usually people sleep on Patton Artery, and no one bothers them," she said.

Co-ordinate to the city of Asheville, 527 people were experiencing homelessness in Asheville as of Jan. 27.

But Oct. eighteen was different. Police take non said whether Glick'due south set on was random, as they're express in the information they can share due to the suspects' ages, according to Asheville Police Capt. Joe Silberman, who oversees the department's criminal investigation unit.

On Nov. 2, Asheville Police force identified ii juvenile suspects involved in the assail with the help of local nonprofit Help Asheville Bears.

Though Help Asheville Bears' principal goal is stopping the illegal poaching of black bears, the nonprofits' leaders decided to have activity in Glick's case and offered a $v,000 reward for anyone who provided data most the suspects, the group's founder Jody Williams said.

"Nosotros got data, and it was good information," Williams said. "I was able to pass that along to detectives within an hour of our postal service going up."

Police submitted a petition to charge two juveniles with assault inflicting serious injury Nov. 2. Police force would not say if the juveniles have been arrested.

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Glick said she supports the charges and hopes the people who shot her go to jail "for years."

Since the set on, Glick has secured housing. She'southward continuing to piece of work and procedure trauma from the assault, which has caused her to have panic attacks, she said.

"I kind of talk through information technology myself, just working things out in my head," she said. "It's been kind of difficult, you know, getting a friend to talk to."

Williams organized a GoFundMe to raise money for Glick to recover and stay prophylactic. Every bit of November. 5, more than than $2,000 had been donated.

Shelby Harris is a reporter roofing breaking news, educational activity and other topics. She can be reached at sharris@citizentimes.com or on Twitter @_shelbyharris.