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An Omaha man thought a picture tube in his old TV had blown Tuesday night when the screen went dark.

It turns out that a stray bullet had ended his channel surfing.

“I just heard my TV make a noise and saw the picture go out, so I thought the picture tube had blown again,” James Milton said Wednesday. “I got to looking around, and I found a bullet behind the TV, laying on the stand.”

Milton, 50, lives in a home near 37th and Fort Streets, where he cares for his wheelchair-bound mother. Milton’s sister also was at home when the bullet came through the wall of Milton’s bedroom around 10:30 p.m.

“I’m just glad my mom and sister were OK,” he said. “Nobody was injured. Just the TV.”

What he thought were five distant gunshots should have tipped off Milton that there was trouble somewhere nearby.

“I heard, like, ‘pop, pop, pop, pop, pop’ in rapid succession, but it didn’t really register,” he said. “We hear some stuff around here, but we don’t live in a bad neighborhood.”

Police arrived and took a report — and the bullet. Milton estimated the value of his TV at no more than $10, but he thinks the bullet hole in the wall could cost around $100 to patch.