Woman hit by random gunfire in southeast Houston said angels watched over her

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — The bullet holes on Vernestine Thomas’ home certainly tell a tale, but not as well as Thomas herself.

“A bullet came across my head like that,” Thomas told while motioning her finger across her face. “Something told me to get on the floor, and that’s when I realized, I was shot.”

Thomas has lived on the 3600 block of Crandon Street for over 30 years. But up until Saturday morning, her home had been bullet-hole-free. Then, sometime after 3 a.m., police said two cars plowed down her street, firing at each other.

One man ended up dead at the end of the block. Some weapons were also recovered a few feet away.

Thomas said she had nothing to do with any of it, and was asleep, until she was shot.

“I thought somebody was trying to target me,” she told Houston police detectives. “He said, ‘No, no. It was a drive-through, and your house just got the rest of it.'”

Ceci Oliveira, a nearby neighbor, said she also heard the shots.

“I didn’t know who was shooting at who,” she said. “All I heard was a lot of gunshots. That was it.”

Doctors determined the bullet went clean through Thomas’s leg, with no bone damage. She was home just a few hours later. While investigators are just beginning to look into the shooting, Thomas said she knows she’s blessed.

“That morning, God had all those angels on me. The only day I heard that bullet come across my head, something told me to duck on the floor. That’s when I duck on the floor.”