5-year-old girl among 2 struck by stray bullets in Bridgeport

BRIDGEPORT, Connecticut (WABC) -- Police in Connecticut are investigating after two people were hit by stray bullets, including a 5-year-old girl.

The child, Arianna Sulaiman, was with family and cousins celebrating a birthday at a home on Colorado Avenue and Maplewood Avenue in Bridgeport when gunfire rang out around 11 p.m. Sunday.

Authorities say a bullet pierced through the exterior siding of a front window and hit the girl in the hand.

She was taken to Yale-New Haven Hospital, where her father spent the night by her bedside.

"She was in my hand basically at the time when the round came through," Masud Sulaiman said. "I took her in my arms. It could have been much worse. Thank God, I'm happy to have her alive."

Blood stains cover his jeans.

"She threw herself on me, and that's when I saw all the blood coming," he said. "She screamed really loud. Excruciating pain she was in."

He said his daughter suffered fractures in her hand and faces possible surgery.

"Thank God it was one bullet," he said. "If it was more than one bullet, it could've killed two more kids."

Arianna was one of two people hit by stray bullets in what police believe was the same shooting in the neighborhood. The other was a man who was grazed in the head.

"When I came outside, I saw the guy was laying down on the floor, blood coming out all over the place," said a neighbor, who didn't want to be identified. "(He was saying) 'Oh my God. He just shot me.'"

His injuries are not life threatening. Still, neighbors were horrified.

"It's just horrible," Bridgeport resident John Wideman said. "The violence needs to stop over here...the last three days, that's all we've been hearing."