Gunfire upstairs pierces water line, floods apartment below

Image 1 of 2

It’s been a busy morning for Charles Kinmonth as he tries to get his daughter’s Carrollwood apartment back in order. 

When he arrived Monday morning, there was an inch of water in the unit, but the damage wasn't from rain. The leaky ceiling is the result of gunfire on the floor above, where a wayward bullet pierced a water pipe between the floors. 

“It was just pouring through,” Kinmonth said of the water. “Unfortunately her mattress is soaked. It’s still dripping.”

A bullet just happened to hit a water line.

“What a lucky shot," Kinmonth said. "I’m just glad my daughter wasn’t here.”

His daughter is honeymooning in Italy and got a call from the fire department just after 4 a.m. That’s when she called her dad.

“And when we got there, we heard there was a shooting upstairs,” he said.

The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office says it unfolded at the Arbors of Carrollwood apartment complex when someone tried to rob a man in the unit above. That man then fired multiple shots at the suspect.

“The person who broke in shot multiple gunshots, and the man living there fired back with his own gun,” said Crystal Clark with HCSO. “Unfortunately in that shootout, some of the bullets went through the roof, some went through the walls. And from there caused quite a bit of damage in that apartment and surrounding apartments.”

No one was injured, but the suspect got away. The sheriff’s office says it’s unclear if the two men knew each other.

“At this point, we believe it may have been drug-related, it’s just unclear how they knew each other or if they knew each other at all,” Clark said.

Water and power were cut off to several units Monday. Kinmonth is just happy his daughter was honeymooning, and not at home.

“God forbid, it could have been my daughter or her husband,” he said.

The apartment complex told FOX 13 News Kinmonth’s daughter will be moved to a new unit at the complex in the coming days.