Rockford, Freeport New Year’s Day Xfinity Outage Caused By Bullets

As Sean Connery once said in The Hunt For Red October, "Hey Ryan, be careful what you shoot at. Most things in here don't react too well to bullets."

He was referring to nuclear missiles on a cold war Soviet submarine, but the same principle has been proven to be true with cable network lines in Rockford.

Saturday's Outage Affected Areas Near Downtown Rockford And In Freeport

According to Comcast spokesperson Jack Segal, network lines were damaged by bullets in two locations in Rockford at around 2pm on New Year's Day in the 900 block of North Winnebago Street:

“The outage was caused by bullets that pierced our network lines in two Rockford locations on Saturday. We can’t thank our crews enough for working tirelessly over the holiday weekend to identify and locate the cause and repair and restore service as quickly as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience but want our customers and the affected communities to be aware of the cause of the outage.”

Weirdly Enough, This Sort Of Thing Happens More Than You Might Think

Not necessarily here in Rockford, but throughout the country. Back in January of 2020, the Chicago Tribune reported on a Gary, Indiana man who thought it would be a good idea to record himself and some pals shooting at a utility pole:

A Gary man who posted a video of himself shooting at a utility pole with friends on New Year’s Day got lit up with charges Tuesday afternoon. After multiple shots were fired toward the pole, its transformer and power line appeared to spark before the power in the surrounding area went out, records said.