15 year old Chicago area teen shot in apparent gang incident

A 15 year old was shot outside of his school in what appears to be a gang related incident:

Witnesses said the victim was being chased before he was shot around 2:30 p.m. at Leland and Kimball, which is just across the street from Roosevelt High School, 3436 West Wilson. The suspect yelled a gang slogan before pulling the trigger, witnesses said.

"And then after that, the guy got shot in his leg and fell to the ground, and all I saw was a whole bunch of police start flooding the school," Darius Ortiz, witness, said.

15 year old Utah girl shot by 16 year old friend

A 15 year year old girl was shot in the stomach by a 16 year old friend:

Police said a 16-year-old shot a 15-year-old in the abdomen.  Cops said the 16-year-old boy was showing off a gun and this appears to be an accident.

It was a startling discovery for neighbor Brad Blair. Just after 4 p.m., the victim showed up on  Blair’s doorstep.

“He was still awake and everything, but he was bleeding pretty good,” Blair said.

The victim was with a female friend.  They were trying to call 911.  Moments before, the teens were hanging out with a 16-year-old acquaintance outside the apartment building.

“It sounds like he tried to fire the gun a couple times, it wasn’t working but at some point it did discharge,” said Lt. Matt Elson of the West Valley City Police Department.

Every gun in the hands of a child must first pass through the hands of an adult.

13 year old Ohio girl shot in the arm

A .22 caliber rifle found in a home is allegedly responsible for the accidental shooting of a 13 year old Ohio girl. From an article:

A 13-year-old Laird Avenue girl was accidentally shot in the arm Wednesday afternoon at her house and taken to a local hospital for treatment.

3 small children killed in Waco, Texas in murder/suicide

Three small children, all members of the same family, were shot and killed in a murder/suicide in Waco, Texas. From an article:

Navarro County officials said Monday they are investigating the shooting deaths of a man, his wife and their three children as a murder-suicide.

The bodies of the five family members were discovered Sunday night by a grandfather, who had been trying to reach the family by phone at their home near Rice, just north of Corsicana.

Navarro County Sheriff Elmer Tanner identified the adults as Israel Alvarez, 33, and Guadalupe Ronquillo-Ovalle, 33.

The children were ages 10, 8 and 4, he said.

A .22-caliber rifle was recovered at the home. All five victims have “gunshot wounds to the upper torso,” Tanner said.

3 year old Texas boy accidentally shoots himself

A 3 year old found a loaded gun on the kitchen table in his home and shot himself in the chest. From an article:

A Horseshoe Bay boy is in critical condition after he accidentally shot himself in the chest Thursday, Horseshoe Bay Police said.

He was transported by ambulance to Dell Children's Hospital where he had his right lung removed. HSBPD say the 3-year-old boy's parents and a neighbor drove him to meet the ambulance on Thanksgiving Mountain.

Police went back to the victim's home with his parents where they found a loaded handgun on the kitchen table. The parents told police their son picked up the gun and it went off. They declined investigators' initial attempt to search the home.

After obtaining a search warrant, investigators learned the handgun they found was not the weapon involved in the shooting. They also uncovered more conflicting information.

One account said the victim's father hid the weapon in brush away from his house, but a search of the area didn't yield any results.

The suspected weapon was later found in a neighbor's home. Police say they found three handguns and a rifle that were taken there after the shooting.

Every gun in the hands of a child must first pass through the hands of an adult.

6 year old Wisconsin boy shoots 3 year old sister in face; father tells boy to lie about shooting

A 6 year old Wisconsin boy who had access to a loaded gun, shot his 3 year old sister in the face on August 30 of this year. His father told him to change his story about how the little girl was shot. From an article:

A Wisconsin dad is under fire for allegedly telling his 6-year-old son to lie about shooting his 4-year-old sister in the face.

The incident happened Aug. 30 in Alma, Wis., when the boy allegedly found a loaded shotgun and pointed it at the girl. The gun discharged, striking the girl in the right side of her head, WKBT reported.

The girl's injuries were deemed non-life-threatening, but on Monday investigators charged the father, Fred Maphis, with leaving a loaded firearm near a child and obstructing an officer by telling the son to lie about the shooting, the LaCrosse Tribune reported.

Further in the article:

The boy's mother told investigators that her son had been trained to use firearms since he was 3 and even had his own .22 caliber rifle that he was allowed to shoot with adult supervision, RawStory.com reported.

Maphis insisted that he had just forgotten to unload and secure the shotgun.

Every gun in the hands of a child must first pass through the hands of an adult.

 

3-Year Old Indiana Boy Shot to Death by Mother's Boyfriend

Lance Wilson 3, from Michigan City, Indiana was playing a game with his mother’s boyfriend on Sunday around 3:30pm. Lance pointed his finger at Zachariah Grisham 24, as if he was shooting him with a gun. Zachariah pointed a real gun at Lance and shot him. Lance was pronounced dead at the scene.

From an article:

Monday, Zachariah Grisham, 24, was held on a $100,000 bond and charged with neglect and reckless homicide in the shooting death of 3-year-old Lance Wilson, ABC Chicago reports.

“A child and the defendant were playing a game. A child pointed his finger at the defendant like he was shooting gun playing a game and he pointed a gun out and shot the boy,” LaPorte County Prosecutor Bob Szilagyi told CBS Chicago.

The incident happened around 3:30 p.m. Sunday in the mobile home park in Michigan City, Ind., roughly 60 miles east of Chicago along the lakeshore.

Neighbors said Lance was sitting on Grisham’s lap when the gun went off and the boy was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police tell the Post-Tribune Grisham was living in trailer with the boy’s mother. It was unclear if the mother was present at the time of the shooting.

Michigan City police are investigating.

Young child in California gets hold of cop's gun and injures him with it

A small child, "age 6 to 8," was attending a reading event in Lodi, California.  A police officer, who was on the SWAT team, was attending the event when the child came up to him, reached for the gun, and fired it.  The round hit the officer in the leg, injuring him.  There was no safety on the weapon.

From an article and news video:

The officer was showing off the department’s SWAT truck, vest and other gear at a children’s event called Reading Roundup on Aug. 24. 

“A small child, witnesses tell us was 6 to 8 years old, was able to walk up to the officer and was able to pull the trigger.”

The bullet hit the officer’s leg. He was taken to the hospital for a minor injury and released. 

The department is investigating the shooting to see if protocols or procedures need to be changed to prevent the same thing from happening again. 

Officers want to find the child and his parents to piece together what went wrong.

It's pretty obvious what went wrong.  Children and guns don't mix.

Every gun in the hands of a child must first pass through the hands of an adult.

13-month old New Orleans girl shot to death

Londyn Samuels, age 13 months (source)

13-month old Londyn Samuels was returning from a trip to the park with her nanny, Keelan Armstrong, 18, in New Orleans, Louisiana.

That's when a gunman opened fire on them, shooting twice.  One of the rounds went through Armstrong's back and hit Londyn, in her arms, in the chest.  

Armstrong is recovering.  Londyn died soon after the incident.  She was just learning to walk.

The gunman escaped.

From an article:

Londyn Samuels, who was just learning to walk, was struck by a bullet fired into her 18-year-old nanny's back as she carried the toddler home from the park. 

"What kind of a man would shoot at a woman holding a child?" Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas said Friday as he pleaded for witnesses to the Thursday night slaying to come forward. "That's not the kind of person you want to protect." 

Two shots were fired and one of them tore through the sitter's torso, hitting Londyn in the chest. The young woman, who was expected to survive, called the child's father in anguish. 

Londyn's mother was working at a non-profit cafe dedicated to anti-violence when the shooting happened. She said at a news conference that she breaks down in tears every time she looks at a picture of her daughter. 

"I'm hurt," Andrea Samuels, 22, said as she choked back sobs. "Because that was my baby." 

Police said two men were seen running from the scene after the shooting and they released grainy surveillance photos. They did not provide a motive for the shooting, but said there was no gunfight and the two victims were not caught in any crossfire. 

...

[Londyn's father] Reed said the death of the little girl who loved Minnie Mouse and was always smiling had left a hole in his heart. 

"She just loved being around me and her mama. She was our world, you know? She was the highlight of every day," he said. 

"She was always happy. When I was down, she would crawl in the bed with me and say, 'Dada,' and hit me in the face to make me smile." 

As he mourned, he vented his anger toward the gunman. 

"My daughter didn't do anything to him," he said. "Why did she have to die?" 

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15-year old North Carolina boy injured in school shooting by fellow student

A 15-year old boy was shot and injured by an 18-year old fellow student at Carver High School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

From an article:

Police say Christopher Lamont Richardson Jr. was arrested Friday and charged with carrying a concealed weapon, possession of firearm on school property, assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury, and discharging a firearm within city limits. 

Officers responded to a report of a shooting around 2:30 p.m. Friday at Carver High School in Winston-Salem. Police say the school had been conducted a fire drill when a school resource officer heard shots fired. 

A 15-year-old student was hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries.

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Stray bullet strikes New Jersey school bus

A bus carrying 3-5 year old children was struck by a stray bullet in Camden, New Jersey. From the article:

A stray bullet, apparently fired during a gang confrontation, struck a school bus in Camden on Thursday afternoon, frightening a busload of 27 preschool children.

One mother reported that her young son suffered a burn mark on his back from a shard that came from the bus window that was shattered. The bullet lodged in the ceiling of the bus, according to authorities.

The child, who was not identified, was treated at a hospital, Camden County Police Chief Scott Thomson said during a 6 p.m. news conference outside police headquarters.

Thomson said the shooting was gang-related and called the at-large shooter a "public enemy." He said a $20,000 reward was being offered for tips leading to his arrest.

"This guy is Public Enemy No. 1," Thomson said. "He clearly displayed sociopathic behavior by firing a rifle in broad daylight in a densely populated area, with an oncoming bus full of children. . . . We need to get him off the streets."

Thomson said the bus was carrying pupils between the ages of 3 and 5, and was leaving the Centerville Abbott Head Start school at 1475 S. Eighth St. to make a series of drop-offs.

Little children should be able to ride in a school bus without fear of being hit by stray bullets.

2-year old Alaskan boy shot to death by vengeful father

A 2-year old boy, Kyle Moses, was staying the night with his mother and other family members at

a home in Tununak, Alaska.  That's when Kyle's father, Edward Moses, entered the home with a shotgun and ordered everyone out at gunpoint except for his son.  After allowing the boy to talk to his aunt via phone, he then shot Kyle in the head, killing him.  

The father was later arrested after a standoff.  Kyle's body was found soon afterward nearby.

The father apparently killed the boy because he was unhappy about the mother being with another man.

From an article:

In an affidavit filed with the charges in state court in Bethel Saturday, a state trooper said Moses entered a home in the village where the child was staying with his mother on Thursday night. Moses later shot the child in the head, and told troopers afterward he was upset with his child's mother for being with another man, troopers said.  ... 

According to the affidavit, when Moses entered the home in Tununak, he "was carrying a shotgun and a bucket which (a witness) believed to have homebrew in it."
He told everyone to exit the house except for his son, and ordered them to leave their cell phones behind, the affidavit said. 

When one of the women in the home didn't immediately comply, "Edward racked his shotgun, chambered a round, and then pointed the shotgun" at her. She dropped her phone and left for a neighbor's house, she told troopers. 

An aunt of the child told troopers Moses called her later Thursday night demanding to speak with the child's mother, according to the affidavit. Moses gave the aunt 15 minutes to find the child's mother, the trooper wrote, or he would kill the child, then himself. 

As the 15 minutes neared, Moses called back, and Moses could be heard tellng the child to say goodbye to his aunt, the trooper affidavit said. The aunt then heard a gunshot over the phone, the trooper said in the court filing. 

When troopers arrived in the village on Friday, Moses was barricaded inside his father's house, and surrendered after several hours of negotiations, troopers said. 

He told the officers he had shot the child, and said he was "upset at (the child's mother) for being with another man and didn't think she should be burdened with their son," the trooper's affidavit said. 

Troopers said the child's body was found down the beach from the Moses house, with an apparent gunshot wound to the head.

Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2013/09/14/3075044/man-arrested-on-murder-charges.html#storylink=cp

Troopers said the child's body was found down the beach from the Moses house, with an apparent gunshot wound to the head.

Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2013/09/14/3075044/man-arrested-on-murder-charges.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2013/09/14/3075044/man-arrested-on-murder-charges.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2013/09/14/3075044/man-arrested-on-murder-charges.html#storylink=cpy

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Florida mother shoots 17 month old child and then herself

Another toddler has been shot- this time in Florida where a mother shot her 17 month old child before turning the gun on herself. From an article:

Police in coastal Florida are investigating after they say a mother shot her 17-month-old daughter and then turned the gun on herself.

A Sarasota police officer reported going to the family's home Sunday morning and hearing the father repeat, "She shot our baby."

A police report released Tuesday says authorities found 35-year-old Sarah Harnish lying face down in the doorway in a pool of blood, still holding a gun.

The 17-month-old baby, Josephine Boice, was lying in bed shot in the temple, but was still breathing. She later died at the hospital.

A police statement says the child's father returned home from a scooter ride before 10 a.m. and heard shots fired and called 911.

No one else was inside the home when it happened. No other details were released and it's unclear what prompted the shooting.

11-year-old unintentionally shoots and kills her 19-year-old stepfather

19-year-old Bryan Reno, of Cleveland County, North Carolina had just bought a handgun through a private sale. According to a news report:

On Friday evening, while his 35-year-old wife Pamela slept, Reno showed the gun to his 11-year-old stepdaughter. At one point, Reno removed the magazine slide from the firearm and handed the .380-caliber gun to her to examine.
"During the course of her looking at the firearm, it's apparent that she pulled the trigger of the firearm and it discharged," said the sheriff. "It just appears he failed to check the chamber to make sure there was not a bullet in the chamber, and it turned fatal."

Reno died at the scene from a gunshot would to the chest.

Child dies of gunshot injury in Yellowstone National Park

A young child has died after shooting a loaded gun off at Yellowstone National Park. From an article:

A child died of a gunshot wound on Saturday at a popular campground in Yellowstone National Park, according to park officials, who said the girl's mother reported that her young daughter had shot herself with a handgun.

Emergency responders were unable to resuscitate the girl after her mother called emergency dispatchers from a campsite near Yellowstone Lake, park spokesman Al Nash said in a statement.

The names of the mother and girl in the incident, which is under investigation, were not released pending notification of extended family members, Nash said. The child's age was also not released.

A U.S. law that took effect in 2010 allowed people to carry guns into national parks as long as federal, state and local firearms laws were met, according to the National Park Service.

Although hunting is permitted at a handful of national parks, including Grand Teton in Wyoming, hunting or even firing a gun is unlawful in Yellowstone, according to park literature.

The forested campsite where the shooting occurred sits near a developed area in the Wyoming section of the park known as Grant Village, which features a ranger station, lodge, stores and other amenities.

Every gun in the hands of a child must first pass through the hands of an adult.

12 year old New Mexico boy shot and killed by 15 year old cousin

A New Mexico teen has shot and killed his 12 year old cousin after his cousin shot him with a BB gun: 

A Carlsbad, N.M., teenager has been arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter after allegedly shooting and killing his 12-year-old cousin with a handgun that he thought was unloaded. According to KASA.com, these tragic events began when 12-year-old Jeremy Hatfield pointed a BB gun at 15-year-old Michael Schultz, who reciprocated by producing an actual handgun and pulling the trigger. Schultz initially told police that Hatfield had died in a drive-by shooting, before allegedly admitting that he was the one who shot him. Now, he could face up to two years in juvenile detention.

Underage shooters in unintentional shootings like these are not usually charged with crimes, and I suspect Schultz’s initial lies to police—along with his relatively advanced age, as these sorts of shootings go—had a lot to do with why he was charged. While Schultz isn’t entirely blameless here, and while he definitely shouldn’t have told the police such a stupid lie, I don’t think that the charge should stand.

New Mexico state courts have maintained that “the culpable state of mind for involuntary manslaughter ‘comprehends evidence of an utter irresponsibility on the part of the defendant or of a conscious abandonment of any consideration for … safety.’ ” In other words, to get a conviction, a prosecutor must demonstrate that the defendant really ought to have known better. And yet, children can’t generally be expected to know better, or to realize that they are being dangerously reckless. Teenage brains are still developing, and, because of this, teenagers are prone to impulsive behavior and terrible decisions—like pointing a gun at a cousin. Schultz certainly should have known that that sort of behavior is inappropriate. But did he consciously abandon all safety considerations? I think that’d be hard to prove.

If the involuntary-manslaughter charge against Schultz stands, the case will probably be tried in juvenile court, which is some small consolation, at least. But the case shouldn’t end there. Police do not yet know how Schultz got the gun, though Hatfield’s grandfather apparently said that Schultz may have obtained it from a friend. Whatever the gun’s provenance, its owner ought to face charges, too.

Every gun in the hands of a child must first pass through the hands of an adult.

8 year old Texas boy shot for no reason

An 8 year old Texas boy, playing in his apartment was shot by a man in a truck for no apparent reason:

The parents of an 8-year-old Dallas boy shot in the face Tuesday night say he is improving, even though he still needs a breathing tube and remains listed in critical but stable condition. Donald Maiden, Jr., called DJ by family and friends, was shot while playing at this Lake Highlands apartment complex. On Thursday, his parents spoke exclusively to CBS 11 News.

“When he ran in I just screamed,” said Latamarin Locklin, DJ’s mother, recalling how the boy looked as he ran home after the shooting. “His mouth was just hanging off and it was just a big hole,” she said. Locklin remembers a neighbor urging her to put pressure on her son’s mouth. “ I just threw him on the couch and laid him in my arms and put pressure on his mouth with the towel.”

“When I first saw him in ICU I started crying,” Donald Maiden, Sr. said of his son. DJ’s father was working in Louisiana. The boy was in a medically-induced coma when Dad first saw him. “I just put my head down in his bed and was holding his hand at the same time. And he opened his eyes. And when I raised back up I looked and there were tears rolling down his eyes and it gave me a little bit of spirit in my heart. It was joy, I guess he was kind of happy to know I was there. “

DJ was shot “out of the blue,” according to his mom, by a man driving a pickup truck who’d been hanging around her apartment complex.

Police arrested Brian Cloninger and are holding him on a $2.2 million dollar bond. Locklin says investigators are very helpful, but there’s still one huge unanswered question. “I just want to know why. Why?”

Children should be able to play in their homes without fear of being shot.

2 month old Minneapolis baby shot by stray bullet

A 2 month old baby was shot by a stray bullet in Minneapolis while his father held him:

A 2-month-old boy, struck by a stray bullet and critically injured Thursday night, is the latest in a string of incidents involving north Minneapolis children caught in crossfire.

Cyndi Barrington, Minneapolis police spokeswoman, said preliminary information indicates the baby was struck about 9 p.m. while being held by his father outside a home in the 2400 block of Emerson Av. N. The father told police he heard a loud bang, looked down and saw his baby had been hit, Barrington said.

The baby was listed in critical condition at Hennepin County Medical Center late Thursday night.

Police were canvassing the neighborhood in search of witnesses, information and the shooter. “A motive is unknown,” Barrington said.

Children being shot “should not be happening,” she said. “From the police perspective, we have cops out here working 24/7 and they won’t stop. But this absolutely unacceptable and the community should be outraged.”

Thursday’s shooting comes on the heels of two separate shootings this summer that wounded two other children. Two weeks ago, a 14-month-old girl, a pregnant 19-year-old woman and a 17-year-old boy were shot when a man approached a group of people as they stood outside a parked car, fired repeatedly and then ran. And in June, a 4-year-old boy was shot along with two adults as they sat in a car.

Babies should be free from gun violence in their neighborhoods.

There is new information about this shooting. It turns out that the baby was shot by a relative inside of the home. From an article:

The circumstances leading to the critical wounding of a 2-month-old boy Thursday night in north Minneapolis are not as initially believed, police said late Friday morning, and they are now calling the shooting accidental.

After reinterviewing the father of the victim, police now say that the shooting occurred inside the duplex in the 2400 block of Emerson Avenue N. and that the baby’s uncle, a juvenile in his late teens, accidentally fired the shot that wounded the baby.

The juvenile fled and has yet to be located, police added. No description of the teen is being released at this time, and officers “are out looking for him now,” police spokeswoman Cyndi Barrington said shortly before noon Friday.

“Investigators believe that this was an accidental shooting, no other suspects are being sought and the public is not a risk,” police said in a statement.

When police arrived shortly after the shooting about 9 p.m., they found a man holding his wounded son. The baby had been shot in the neck.

Every gun in the hands of a child must first pass through the hands of an adult.

17 shooting incidents involving kids just over the Labor Day week-end alone

The New York Times' Joe Nocera has been writing his Gun Report now since the Sandy Hook shooting last December. He took a breather but came back today with a list of the shootings just over the last Labor Day week-end. By our count there were 17 incidents involving the death or injury of children as young as 1 and as old as 17 years old. You can read about them in the report. Some of these were homicides and some accidental shootings.

Here is the beginning of the report just from last Friday:

A 1-year-old girl was fatally shot in the Central City neighborhood of New Orleans, La., Thursday night, and her 18-year-old babysitter was shot and wounded. A 3-year-old boy was grazed in the arm and a 36-year-old man was shot in the leg on a playground in the West Farms section of the Bronx., N.Y., Friday evening. A 6-year-old girl and a man were shot after an argument on a basketball court on the East End of Richmond, Va., Thursday afternoon.

A 13-year-old boy was shot and killed as he rode his bicycle home from a party in the Montbello neighborhood of Denver, Colo., Friday night. A 15-year-old was shot at Carver High School in Winston-Salem, N.C., Friday afternoon, and an 18-year-old student was arrested. A 16-year-old boy was shot during a confrontation in Covina, Calif., Friday night. A 16-year-old boy was fatally shot when a hunting rifle discharged at a friend’s house inDrain, Ore., Thursday night.

A 17-year-old boy was shot and killed in a residential neighborhood in northStockton, Calif., Friday night. A 17-year-old boy was killed in a possibly gang-related shooting in the Avalon Park neighborhood of Chicago, Ill., Thursday afternoon. 

The shooting incidents happened in 8 different states from California to Louisiana to New York to Virginia to Oregon to Illinois to North Carolina to Colorado. Some were due to access to guns by children and teens who should not be able to get their hands on guns.

As we always say on this blog- Every gun in the hands of a child must first pass through the hands of an adult.

Thank you to Joe Nocera and his fellow writer Jennifer Mascia for monitoring shootings and providing this information.

1 year old New York City toddler shot in stroller

A 1 year old sitting in his stroller as his parents walked him was shot and killed by a stray bullet:

A 1-year-old boy in a stroller was fatally shot in the face as his parents pushed him across a city street, and police continued looking for the gunman Monday.

Antiq Hennis and his parents were walking across a street in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn at about 7:20 p.m. Sunday when shots were fired and the boy was hit, police said. Investigators have yet to determine who was the intended target, and no arrests have been made, police said Monday.

"I heard three to four shots. ... I saw a man with a stroller screaming: 'My baby got shot! My baby got shot,' " witness Gina Gamboa, 23, told the New York Post (bit.ly/1fsZnns).

"He was going crazy."

The boy was rushed to Brookdale University Hospital with a gunshot wound to the left side of his face, but he was declared dead when he arrived, authorities said.

Bishop Willie Billips of the Church of Faith, Hope and Charity, who knows the boy's father, told newspapers that he drove the parents to the hospital to identify the body of their only child.

"I'm furious about what I've just seen. I'm outraged," Billips told the Daily News (http://nydn.us/14c05G3 ). "A 1-year-old baby lying on the bed? It's horrible."

The boy's family could not immediately be reached.

"The family is shocked and devastated," City Councilman Charles Barron told the Daily News after talking with Antiq's parents. "The child didn't even get a chance to start his life, and now it's over."

It was at least the second case of a toddler being shot to death in a stroller this year.

In March, a woman walking home from a post office in Brunswick, Ga., with her 13-month-old son was accosted by a gunman who demanded her purse, then shot her in the leg and fired a shot at the child in his stroller after she told him she had no money, authorities said.

An 18-year-old man was convicted Friday of murder in the death of Antonio Santiago despite his attorney's attempts to cast guilt upon several others, including the child's parents.