Reply #64: It was some OTHER guy on a nearby balcony with a rifle.

[Deep13]

I don't know enough about this to be able to credit this story, but I will note a couple of points about the ballistics.

Any serious shock can knock a rifle scope out of alignment. Shooting it is the only way to tell if it is not aligned. Anyone can make a mistake on the trigger and cause it to miss. It may be that the scope was aligned to take a habital error by the owner into account. (Realigning a sight is easier than correcting bad shooting posture.) There is nothing about a pump-action rifle that precludes resting it on a window sill. A good shooter can hit a distant target without a rest.