Group meant no harm, says father of injured girl

The girl was hit in the head by a bullet as she sat in a moving car.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- The father of a 17-year-old girl who was shot in the head and critically wounded while ghost hunting with friends said Friday that the girls had been out for harmless fun.
Rachel Barezinsky was injured Tuesday night when a man who lives in a house considered spooky by local teenagers shot at the carload of five girls, police said. Three of the girls had gotten out of the car and took a few steps onto the man's property -- across the street from a cemetery -- but then jumped back in and circled the block. Barezinsky was struck while sitting in the car as it passed the house again.
Barezinsky, a senior whose classmates at Thomas Worthington High School started school Friday, remained in critical condition at Ohio State University Medical Center using a breathing machine, but she is progressing, the family said.
The girls and other high school students have gone out to cemeteries to hunt for ghosts before, Barezinsky's father said.
"It doesn't make any sense. These were five good kids and this was something they've done in the past," Greg Barezinsky said.
What happened
The family, speaking to reporters at the hospital, did not want to discuss the felonious-assault charges against Allen S. Davis, 40, who lives in the house with his mother. Davis has told reporters he fired from his bedroom window to scare away trespassers and didn't mean to hurt the girls. He called them juvenile delinquents and said they shouldn't have been on his property.
Davis prepared the rifle after numerous instances of trespassing, he said. He told officers he was aiming for the car's tires.
Barezinsky has been able to move the fingers and toes on her right side and nod her head, which is still stabilized by a neck brace. Doctors decided not to remove the bullet in her head because it was lodged deep inside her brain, Rachel's father, Greg Barezinsky, said. A piece of her skull was removed to relieve pressure on her brain.
Barezinsky's family said she has been able to give the "thumbs up" sign and tried to write a note to her parents but was too heavily medicated. Despite her small improvements, they said they're aware that she still has a lengthy recovery ahead of her.
"It's going to be a long haul," Greg Barezinsky said. "It's going to take time."