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.