Man shot in head at NLV park already out of hospital

      Party balloons and a happy birthday banner strung between trees remained a stark contrast to the chaos that struck a North Las Vegas park Sunday, when two men randomly fired semiautomatic handguns into a crowd.
      Most people scattered after the shooting, leaving behind blankets, food, balloons and other picnic gear at City View Park, 500 W. Cheyenne Ave.
      Juan Lopez couldn't leave. After being shot in the head, he could barely move.
      Yet one day after the shooting, the 36-year-old foreman was released from the hospital and will suffer no long-term physical effects from the bullet.
      The wound will fade, Lopez said. But he'll never forget those 40 or so shots zipping through the crowd.
      "I was crying in the hospital," he said Tuesday, fresh out of the medical facility and relaxing with family at home. "How can people do this, these shootings, when there are little kids everywhere?"
      He took a moment to pause, the wound where the bullet ricocheted off his forehead a black and red reminder to his anger. "I don't understand that. I don't understand why I'm still here."
      North Las Vegas police Sgt. Ed Finizie, who arrived at the scene moments after the shooting, tried hard not to sound like this was just another sign of the city's violent times. But he couldn't deny that random "acts of stupidity" have grown common in one of the nation's fastest-growing cities.
      "Unfortunately, it's a commonplace event," said Finizie, 42, a 10-year veteran. "It's a general disregard for human life, both for the victims and for the people performing these acts. They don't value their own lives, either."
      Located next to the North Las Vegas Community Par Three golf course, City View may be one of the most picturesque parks in the metropolitan area -- even with scattered trash and plastic cup covers. A deep concrete ravine runs through the park's middle, surrounded by fences and warning signs but filled with garbage, tires and debris.
      Yet there is enough green grass, full trees and a sense of calm that even one day after the shooting, Edward Tsunis, 35, and his friends were celebrating yet another birthday with a picnic.
      "We come here all the time," said Tsunis, adding that the shooting wouldn't put a damper on his good time.
      One of his friends half-dismissed the shooting as "probably directed at a certain crowd."
      But Finizie said police have no idea what the motivation was in the shooting.
      "Those bullets don't have names on them and they don't have guidance systems," he said. "Once they leave the barrel, there's no way of telling who's going to get hit. You're not safe just because you're one of a certain race."
      Lopez, who has lived in Las Vegas seven years, said he won't speculate on what caused the shooting. Fear of retaliation from potential gang members, he vowed, will prevent him from testifying against anyone, even if he recognizes the shooter.
      "They got away with it as far as I'm concerned," said Lopez, who apologized for his stance, but said, "I'm afraid for my family."
      Lopez remembers in vivid detail the shot that felled him. He figures he wouldn't have been hit, except for the fact he was still standing to make sure his family and friends were lying on the ground as the bullets zinged around them. He can still picture the round that blew a puff of dirt six inches from his niece's head.
      "That's what makes me angry, these guys don't think of the kids," he said.
      After being struck, Lopez said, he put his hand to his wound, not saying a word because he didn't want to scare his family. When he took his hand away, the blood spurted, drenching towel after towel as people tried to stop the bleeding.
      Lopez considers it a "miracle" that just one day after being shot he was released from the hospital.
      He shakes his head when asked if he'll ever go back to City View Park. "I've liked it there," he answers. "But never. I'll never go back there again."