#NYC dad recalls horror of stray bullet nearly hitting his daughter’s bed

“Right away I knew it was a bullet,” said Rodney Miller, of the slug that punched into his home on Amsterdam Avenue near West 134th Street around 3:30 p.m. Saturday. “I didn’t want to believe it.”

Miller, a 53-year-old web designer, was laying down for a midday nap when he was jolted awake by a sudden “pop.”

“I walked out of the bedroom and saw holes in three of my doors: The bedroom door, the bathroom


door and the front door,” he said Tuesday. “I looked around and I saw holes in my couch.”

Miller continued to trace the bullet’s arc of destruction through his home, all the way to its unnerving end.

“I followed the path back into the bedroom and I saw the bullet stuck in the wall above my daughter’s bed,” he said.

The little girl, whose name is being withheld by The Post, was away for the holiday weekend with her older sister, but the stomach-churning possibilities still ran through Miller’s mind.

“She could have been playing in her room, she could have been going to the bathroom, she could have been sitting on the couch,” he said. “My oldest daughter could have been here. My granddaughter could have been here.

“I was here. It could have hit me.”

Miller’s initial reaction was rage at what could have been.

“I wasn’t scared. I was pissed,” he said. “My emotions didn’t kick in until later that afternoon.”

Miller wasn’t alone in his ire.

“I walked out the door. I saw the whole area taped off,” he said. “I called the officers and showed them what happened. All the officers were pissed.”

The NYPD’s 30th Precinct tweeted photos of the recovered slug and the hole where it embedded in the wall — mere inches above a row of stuffed animals and the girl’s floral-print bedding set.

Dawon Brown, 31, has been charged with reckless endangerment for opening fire in a running shoot-out, part of a week gripped by gunplay, including more shooting victims — 101 — logged in a week since June 1995.

“I wish they would think about what they are doing. They could have caused me great pain,” said Miller. “Jail would not have been enough for them, bottom line.”

“They need to know the real repercussions for actions like that,” he continued. “What if something had happened to my daughter? They could have destroyed my family.

“They should have the death penalty.”

A stray bullet penetrated the front door of Rodney Miller’s apartment, traveling through a couch, two interior doors and ended up in the wall of his daughter’s bedroom.

Gregory P. Mango

Two stray bullet hole marks can be seen in the couch.

Gregory P. Mango

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Miller said that he’s kept from his daughter the source of the series of holes in their home, and has since rearranged the apartment so she doesn’t even have to look at the one above her bed.

“I took her bed down. I moved the furniture around. I don’t want her to keep on seeing the bullet hole in her room,” he said. “I want her to have sweet dreams. … I don’t want her to see that type of violence.”

Miller is now sleeping on the couch, while his daughter is sleeping in his bed.

“God put my daughter where she needed to be — out of harm’s way — and the same thing for me,” said Miller. “He has a plan for her and a plan for me to finish raising my child.”

He’s contemplating doing so, however, outside of the city.

“It’s time for me to move to a safer environment for my child,” said Miller. “I want to keep her away from all of this.”

Until that day, Miller is uncertain of his and his family’s safety — even in their own home.

“I’m in my house where I should be safe,” he said. “If I’m not safe in my house with my kid, how can I be safe outside?”