Ratkovic shot while riding

Former professional cyclist and current professional triathlete/duathlete, Andrea Ratkovic, was shot on Monday October 10 while riding her bike. Ratkovic, who rode for The Bicycle Store team in this year's Redlands Classic was on a bike path when a car in the road lane closest to her opened fire with a small calibre (lead pellet) gun, firing several shots but only hitting her once in the lower back. "All I heard was TAT, TAT, TAT, TAT, and I knew what was coming. I was hoping I wouldn't get hit, but then I felt the fire and sting, and I knew that I'd been hit," said Ratkovic.

From that point on she tried to monitor her bodily functions. "Afterwards I felt like I was going to be okay and not pass out or something; I prayed for a red light up ahead, and I got it." Ratkovic then jumped off the bike path and rode up to the passenger side of the car which was stopped at the red light. "I was afraid I might get shot in the face, but at the same time I felt that I had to be able to identify the shooter." She said she yelled at the boys inside who were around 16 or 17 years of age. "I asked them why they shot me, and they said they didn't know. They apologised. I told them I was going to report them to the police."

Ratkovic got the car's registration number and filed a police report before being transported to the Norman Regional ER where she was treated and released. "Everyone there was so wonderful because my roommate told everyone what had happened. She works in radiology there, and so do I. We're like a big family up there, so when something like this happens it's pretty traumatic."

Ratkovic was told that her clothing helped to keep the bullet from entering her body. "I have a hole in my back over my left kidney, but the bullet itself I think glanced off of my jersey, plus I also had another shirt under that. If the bullet had hit an inch lower then it would have been a straight on shot - and there could have been problems as it may have penetrated me pretty good," said Ratkovic. "I'm just glad they didn't hit my neck or my eye!"

Ratkovic is expected to make a full recovery, and although she rides hard, she says, "It's funny because everyone was so surprised that I didn't yank those kids out of the car. I might race aggressively, but I'm not that way in my every day life."

Story can be found at http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2005/oct05/oct12news2

Dusk

Let's just make this clear... this was not a firearm, it was a pellet gun.

Still dangerous of course, and I hope they put the fear of god in the lil' mongrels that thought it was a "cool" thing to do.

Modern airguns can develop very high velocities, they do kill people all the time.

Modern airguns can develop very high velocities,.

Well... about 1000fps for a airrifle but very little foot/pounds (the pellets are usually .177 - very small)

they do kill people all the time

Now you sound like Ralphie's mother. ;-)

http://www.afi.com/silver/new/nowplaying/2004/v1i14/images/XmasStory.jpg

It doesn't matter what you get shot with. I recall a rollerblader got shot from someone up on a hill. The fact that they fell and died from that makes it murder.

Well... about 1000fps for a airrifle but very little foot/pounds (the pellets are usually .177 - very small)



Now you sound like Ralphie's mother. ;-)



You'll shoot yer eye out??

What's the deal with cyclist getting shot at all of a sudden?!?

The fact that they could be so calous, level a gun at someone and shoot,
not worried about blinding her or any thing else, they should get the same
jailtime as if it were a 'real' gun.

It doesn't matter what you get shot with. I recall a rollerblader got shot from someone up on a hill. The fact that they fell and died from that makes it murder.

do you know what happened? was there a trial or anything? it rasies a good question: for example, what if instead of a BB gun, they threw water ballons at her. and what if those caused her to fall and smash her head? then all of a sudden it becomes a very serious issue.

How many foot/pounds when you get stabbed by a thin stilleto switchblade in a soft part of your abdomen? Very few, yet very lethal nonetheless.

If you don't think airguns are dangerous, why don't you post before and after pics of you taking a pellet to your temple ?

Case closed.

BTW, I'm a NRA Life Member and hold a Texas Concealed Handgun License... I take shooting sports safety very seriously, whether gunpowder or air powered.


Well... about 1000fps for a airrifle but very little foot/pounds (the pellets are usually .177 - very small

I'm surprised she was so calm. Had I been the target the f**** would have been eating the lead pellets straight from the barrell.

do you know what happened? was there a trial or anything? it rasies a good question: for example, what if instead of a BB gun, they threw water ballons at her. and what if those caused her to fall and smash her head? then all of a sudden it becomes a very serious issue.

I've been there. I was nailed in the side of the head with a water balloon this summer. Lucky for me there wasn't much going on in the vicinity (odd for that stretch, very lucky!) so I was able to stay upright, turn around and let the stupid kid who tossed it have it. In hindsight it wasn't a good idea, given the neighborhood... but the point is I could have been tossed and run over!

This thread needs to up the quotient of praise for a righteous woman. She had the presence of mind not just to chase the car and get the number, but to get a good look at the kids so she could I.D. them. And she had the restraint not to kick the **** out of them ("It's funny because everyone was so surprised that I didn't yank those kids out of the car. I might race aggressively, but I'm not that way in my every day life.").
Let's see...brains, strength, courage, grace--and she reserves the aggro for competition. My hero. Ratkovic for President.

Hopefully those kids spend the rest of their lives making license plates.

Yes a pellet gun can kill. Pellet guns are interesting, the original Daisy BB gun was considered fairly harmless and one of the original salesmen used to bend over and prospective distributors shoot him in the ass to show it wasn't *too* harmful. However, at the same time, Benjaman and Beemen pellet guns were sold, and used, as hunting guns since they were cheaper and ammo was cheaper, than even a .22 and they'd work about as well on rabbits, etc. Modern pellet guns range from as harmless as the old Daisy to almost as lethal as a .22 but parents are often treating them as the same thing as the Daisy they had when they were a kid.

**** like this is why a lot of gun advocates say we don't need more gun laws, we need to ENFORCE the laws we have. Those kids need to go down for attempted murder.

And yeah, Ratkovic for President!

My Dad's old pellet gun (korean war era target rifle) could shoot through quarter inch plywood without too much trouble if you pumped it up good.

Let's just make this clear... this was not a firearm, it was a pellet gun.

Still dangerous of course, and I hope they put the fear of god in the lil' mongrels that thought it was a "cool" thing to do.

One of my friends was shot in the eye, when he was 18, with a Crosman 760 and nearly died as a result. Pellet guns are not toys. These two little f***s should end up in a jail cell with some guy named Mustafa.

I had a Crosman 760 as a kid and loved it, but I was taught to NEVER shoot at anything living, although I bent the rules a bit to except minnows, horse flies, and the neighbors' dogs when ours were in heat, with weak shots in the butt calibrated to sting not harm (the 760 could be varied by power, depending on the number of pumps you gave it - I swear it was a disguised exercise program for kids, you had to pay for each shot with several pumps and you learned to make each one count). I pumped that sucker up quite a bit and sank an inner tube that was floating in a local pond once, and innner tubes (car type) are tough. NOT a toy.

Let's just make this clear... this was not a firearm, it was a pellet gun.

Still dangerous of course, and I hope they put the fear of god in the lil' mongrels that thought it was a "cool" thing to do.


My brother got into a silly BB gun fight when he was a kid. He made the mistake of taking on a kid with a CO2 powered bb gun. He got shot just below the eye and it bled a little but he was too scared to tell our mom and Dad. A few years later he fell out of a tree on his head and had to have Xrays. You could clearly see the BB imbeded in his skull.

I've been there. I was nailed in the side of the head with a water balloon this summer. Lucky for me there wasn't much going on in the vicinity (odd for that stretch, very lucky!) so I was able to stay upright, turn around and let the stupid kid who tossed it have it. In hindsight it wasn't a good idea, given the neighborhood... but the point is I could have been tossed and run over!

This wasn't at the park near Jay and Tillary in Brooklyn, was it? I've had no end of stuff thrown at me there...

Four guys in my club were coming through Niles Canyon when some idiot did the same thing to them. The Fremont police responded the same as if they'd been shot at with a high powered rifle. The charges here would be exactly the same. In riding position, that pellet can easily penetrate to a kidney and destroy it.

The story is about shooting someone with a firearm. The caliber, intent, age of the boys, or if my dad liked BB guns is smelling around the issue.

To ask a tough question, when is OK to be violent to women?

and here is another:

If we can judge bicyclists clothes, urban riding, equipment and even punctuation and give them advice (we're men, they make us look bad, you should do this...) then how outrageous is young men (we're men, you make us look bad, you should do this....) to shoot somebody.

The real story, men, is it's sometimes acceptable to teach and tolerate violence because we do it. This is a masculine problem, not anything else, the longer we tolerate buddies, co-workers and public figures who beat up women, the longer we are part of the problem.

http://www.mugshots.com/Sport/Jason+Kidd.htm
http://www.mugshots.com/Sport/Mike+Tyson.htm
http://www.mugshots.com/Sport/Joe+Frazier.htm
http://www.mugshots.com/Sport/O.J.+Simpson.htm
http://endabuse.org/celebritywatch/index.php?Fame=N

To summarize, men commit violence, and some of us are ashamed.

[snip] Those kids need to go down for attempted murder.

Assault yes, murder no. I've been shot in the inner thigh :eek: while cycling, and I guarantee, it hurts like hell. And I've had some punk ass wannabe gang member take a shot at my (now ex) wife while we were riding. She was 50 feet or so in front, and I was behind her pulling the trailer with our 2 month old son. I actually saw the hand out the window, the shiny .22, and the report when it fired. Of course, I might have mixed feelings if someone were to take a shot at her today, but that's beside the point. In California, the law makes no distinction between pellet/BB guns and powder/cartridge weapons. They are all firearms.

Yeah, kids are dumb. Time will tell whether these kids were just really stupid, or genuinely malicious.

The story is about shooting someone with a firearm. The caliber, intent, age of the boys, or if my dad liked BB guns is smelling around the issue.

To ask a tough question, when is OK to be violent to women?

and here is another:

If we can judge bicyclists clothes, urban riding, equipment and even punctuation and give them advice (we're men, they make us look bad, you should do this...) then how outrageous is young men (we're men, you make us look bad, you should do this....) to shoot somebody.

The real story, men, is it's sometimes acceptable to teach and tolerate violence because we do it. This is a masculine problem, not anything else, the longer we tolerate buddies, co-workers and public figures who beat up women, the longer we are part of the problem.

http://www.mugshots.com/Sport/Jason+Kidd.htm
http://www.mugshots.com/Sport/Mike+Tyson.htm
http://www.mugshots.com/Sport/Joe+Frazier.htm
http://www.mugshots.com/Sport/O.J.+Simpson.htm
http://endabuse.org/celebritywatch/index.php?Fame=N

To summarize, men commit violence, and some of us are ashamed.

The story was about someone shooting at a "cyclist", not just a woman. If we really believe in equality, then being violent toward anyone else is unacceptable.

The story was about someone shooting at a "cyclist", not just a woman. If we really believe in equality, then being violent toward anyone else is unacceptable.
http://www.harbour.sfu.ca/freda/articles/statsw.htm
I agree but 80% -90% of violent acts are committed by men. My point is you are correct and it is unknown if they knew the cyclist was a woman. It is very predictable it was a male doing it.

now we have the story, I want to hear what happened to the kids who did it.

I'd like to know who those kids are -- too bad they're underage -- since my mom doesn't live far from Redlands.

Out in that area, I also call the Boonies, there's plenty of space to set up targets to practice shooting. Instead, these stupid-ass kids try to do drive-bys on people just for kicks.

You can get hit with assault charges for shooting somebody with a paintball gun. Cyclists seem to make attractive targets for some reason. Is it because we pass more people than we would walking, thus pass more malicious throwing/shooting/spitting people, or do we just have "hit me" writting all over us?

Well... about 1000fps for a airrifle but very little foot/pounds (the pellets are usually .177 - very small)



Now you sound like Ralphie's mother. ;-)

http://www.afi.com/silver/new/nowplaying/2004/v1i14/images/XmasStory.jpg


Modern pellet guns arent like what Ralphie was tooling around with.

Many are very high velocity and in some cases equivalent to being shot with a .22

THOSE guns arent toys.

Nothing personal, you guys with the numbers, imagine this ladies parents getting this valuable info about the nuances of semi lethal weaponry. Are you not outraged at that somebody shot another person on a bike? Those weren't kids, they were young men. The focus seems to be on a death-penalty-sentence/ childhood-anecdotes. Get back on this and ask yourself why would young men shoot somebody? Is violence so common that it's acceptable or even expected.

Nothing personal, you guys with the numbers, imagine this ladies parents getting this valuable info about the nuances of semi lethal weaponry. Are you not outraged at that somebody shot another person on a bike? Those weren't kids, they were young men. The focus seems to be on a death-penalty-sentence/ childhood-anecdotes. Get back on this and ask yourself why would young men shoot somebody? Is violence so common that it's acceptable or even expected.

According to a New England Journal of Medicine article in the last two years, medical negligence causes the deaths of between 40,000 and 90,000 Americans each year. Imagine that woman's parents getting hold of THAT information before she goes in for some type of operation.
Yes, violence is common among people in groups, especially younger folks that believe that society is responsible for finding something constructive for them to do.

According to a New England Journal of Medicine article in the last two years, medical negligence causes the deaths of between 40,000 and 90,000 Americans each year. Imagine that woman's parents getting hold of THAT information before she goes in for some type of operation.
Yes, violence is common among people in groups, especially younger folks that believe that society is responsible for finding something constructive for them to do.
As a medical person, I find the entire system at fault, health care is about profit, not people. Equally disturbing is land mines in former war zones, auto casualties, war casualties and Pol Pot. I'm not disparaging you, just balancing your widening of the view.
I'm asking for the highly philosophical moral ground without personal digs at people. Society includes young people and it wasn't a problem before cars and suburbs. If they feel an entitlement based on societies current deal, ask yourself why. In broad strokes what causes columbine, and specifically why do young white men need to kill?

[snip]why do young white men need to kill?

As opposed to black young men? Brown? Yellow? Or do you explain them away as a cultural/race issue? What about old men? And the boys in question were armed with a pellet gun, they certainly weren't out to kill.

Just some stupid kids goofing off with a low powered bb gun. Not really a big story. Didn't even break the skin - sheesh.

specifically why do young white men need to kill?

Ohh! This is RICH!



Society includes young people and it wasn't a problem before cars and suburbs.

Perhaps it is the "hangover" from the nihilism embraced by the "Me" generation.


Equally disturbing is land mines in former war zones, auto casualties, war casualties and Pol Pot.


He obviously must have been born a middle class whiteboy.

I'm not going to spend any time trying to guess why these punks acted the way they did.

Instead I'm just going to throw my personal feelings as a responsible firearms owner out there.

These criminals need to spend some time as wards of the state in general lock-up. The law also needs to come down hard on Mommy and Daddy who obviously don't know what those titles mean and aren't living up to them.

Ohh! This is RICH!




Perhaps it is the "hangover" from the nihilism embraced by the "Me" generation.





He obviously must have been born a middle class whiteboy.

Thanks for the easy stereotype and handy capital letters. I've never heard of the nihlism of the me generation.

As opposed to black young men? Brown? Yellow? Or do you explain them away as a cultural/race issue? What about old men? And the boys in question were armed with a pellet gun, they certainly weren't out to kill.

I was suggesting comfortable middle class young white men were responsible for a series of columbine type attacks at schools. These men in particular lived in comfortable cul-de-sacs with both parents. I lived near Eugene/Springfield and can't understand the violence of school kids.
I believe the type of weapon is irrelevant, the intent was harm.
Are you upset at my caracterization of these young men or me for my opinion.

I don't understand at all. Your question appears to be "They're white and have money, how could this happen?". And yet, 8 hours south of you, there's plenty of kids that aren't white, come from single parent homes with no money, and do this all the time. Do you think white kids do this for a different reason? And this is not Columbine.

What's the deal with cyclist getting shot at all of a sudden?!?

I watched a show titled, 'Thrill Killing' a few months back (mainly about teenaged thrill killers) and one of the easy targets for them - cyclists. They showed where a carload of teens shot and killed an 18yr old cyclist one evening just for the Hell of it... was very sad! I sometimes wonder if the majority of teens 'like that' have any real concept of death (likely a whole other can of worms could be opened?)...

Cfm, I don't mean to pick on you, but again, I don't understand what's so surprising. It wasn't very long ago that some Texans thought it might be fun to drag a black man behind their truck. It seems that when a group of boys (or men) gets together, there's a good chance things will end in violence. So what's the catalyst? Is there one common denominator? It's not always alcohol or drugs. Alienation? Repression? Or is it just that being in a group somehow lowers the collective IQ to a point where judgement goes out the window? Football players and soldiers come to mind as men that behave badly in groups, yet would seem to know better as individuals.

More worms...

I was suggesting comfortable middle class young white men were responsible for a series of columbine type attacks at schools. These men in particular lived in comfortable cul-de-sacs with both parents. I lived near Eugene/Springfield and can't understand the violence of school kids.
I believe the type of weapon is irrelevant, the intent was harm.
Are you upset at my caracterization of these young men or me for my opinion.

In some of those incidents, the media and authorities downplayed the fact that the kids had been picked on mercilessly and decided to strike back. If a "male" picks on a "female" in this manner, it's outrageous, but if it's a kid in school, we tell them to "suck it up".

A problem with middle class kids is lack of parenting. With our onerous tax burden and enlightened society both parents are likely to work full time. This leaves the kids to be brought up by a series of low paid strangers and exhausted, over extended parents. The effectiveness of parenting is further limited because parents are scared that if they discipline a child the state will take the child away and the parent will be arrested.

Many people no longer see having a family and raising children as the most desirable and important thing they will do in their lives. Pretty sad really.

Phinney, how many kids do you have?

Many people no longer see having a family and raising children as the most desirable and important thing they will do in their lives. Pretty sad really.

I agree, money is king for these people.

Which is why I have made it a point in this house that my wife should never have to work. She can, if she wants, but what she currently does is much more important than my job. All I have to do is bring home a paycheck. I retired at 42 from the U.S. Marines and am now self-employed. I don't make a lot of money, but consider myself to be a very wealthy man in the ways that really matter. :D