Victim's friend speaks out about celebratory shooting

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - The sight of her friend getting struck with a bullet is etched in Jean Kropid's mind forever.

"I said a shot, she said she was shot and she went like this, I saw the pain on her face and she slithered down," says Kropid.

A trip to watch fireworks on the Magestic Princess II went from fun to frightening. Kropid tells us a bullet hit her friend Ulla White in the chest just  minutes after the fireworks stopped. She says they were a mile offshore, and that White stayed awake as they waited for paramedics. No one knew the extent of her injury until they arrived at the hospital.

"I learned it was a 40-caliber and it went into her heart. The doctor says it traveled a mile up and down and it came down into the top of her heart," says Kropid.

Police say it's likely the person responsible was firing a celebratory gunshot into the air. But with only the injury to use in an investigation, it's a crime that's hard to prosecute.

"Sometimes people get injured or killed. The lead comes down at such a velocity and if it hits a vital organ, it can kill an individual," says Deputy Eric Davis with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.

As her friend lays in the hospital, Kripod can't stop thinking about the person responsible, who doesn't even know what they did.

"We think about the shooters, they'll never know what he or she did all for the sake of fun. What she's going through is unnecessary because of shooter's glee," says Kropid.