Vandals shoot vehicle at City Bridge, a Red Creek (MS) access

UPDATE 10-28-2013
      After reading the story below about the vandalism of a vehicle while parked overnight at City Bridge on Red Creek in Stone Co. MS, Jon Bono emailed me this:
      "This is unfortunate...City Bridge has cleaned up a lot but still subject to such as this.  Someone shot my grill on the my sandbar about 7 times with a pistol.  Why I don't know but I sure hate this happened to you guys."

-30-

             

    The weekend of October 19-20, a vehicle parked overnight Saturday night at the small public park at City Bridge, in Stone Co. MS, an access to Red Creek in a rural part of the county, was damaged by a rifle bullet while the owner was leading group of Boy Scouts on a canoe/camping trip on the creek between U.S 49 and City Bridge, the man who owned the vehicle said.
          The damage was discovered when the man finished the canoe trip and drove out of the park.  He quickly noticed a front tire was flat.  While changing the tire he saw a small round hole on the inside sidewall of the tire and wondered what he had run over to cause such damage to the tire. 
          Shortly after that, after arriving at the informal U.S. 49 put-in on Red Creek, six miles north, the vehicle engine quit just as he made the sharp turn off the highway to the creek.  He noticed the engine was overheated but as he was pouring water into the radiator, it was draining out of a bullet-sized hole in the bottom of the radiator.
          He suspects someone used his vehicle for target practice Saturday night, shooting from a vehicle traveling on City Bridge Rd., judging from the trajectory of the bullet that flattened his tire and holed his radiator.  His vehicle had to be towed from the creek to be repaired.
         He said he did not file a police report.
          Several years ago cars parked at City Bridge overnight while a group of paddlers were canoe/camping on the creek were broken into and some items were stolen.  At least one of the thieves was caught later by local police and the stolen items were recovered.
         Red Creek is a popular creek for overnight canoe trips because it is a shallow, easy paddle and there are numerous sandbars on which to camp.  The water in the creek is open to the public but the creek flows through private property except for a few miles upriver and down river from the MS 15 bridge at Ramsey Springs.
          There is no canoe livery servicing the creek so overnighters must park their vehicles at remote and unguarded road right-of-ways or public parks, unless they know a landowner who will permit them to park on private property.

-30-