Four-year-old Isaiah Nicholas told his mother, “Mamma, I don’t want to die,” after he was shot in the head by a man who opened fire on a group of children playing.
Holding his mother’s hand in an ambulance after the shooting in Houston, Texas, on Saturday, Nicholas repeatedly told her: “Mamma, I don’t want to die.”
Today, Nicholas remain unconscious in critical condition at the city’s Hermann Memorial Children’s Hospital, with his parents at his side.
Houston Police say the suspect is known, but still at large.
According to the Houston Chronicle, witnesses say an argument broke out shortly before the shooting began. Lisa Ceasar, Isaiah’s grandmother, said she heard arguing outside at about 5pm and walked out to her porch at the moment a man began firing.
Ms. Ceasar said the man was aiming at the porch where she stood and a game room where six children, including Isaiah, were playing:
“It all happened so fast, but I went into shock. I saw that man shooting up my house and the bullets flying.”
Ms. Ceasar ran inside and found Isaiah, her oldest grandson, with a gunshot wound to the head and his two-year-old brother, Adrian Nicholas, next to him covered in blood.
Along with three of her grandchildren, Ms. Ceasar and her husband Robert were in the house, as well as their daughter Rosharone Nicholas, whose friend brought her own three children.
The daughter’s friend reportedly left the home for about an hour and went shopping and the suspect is said to have followed her back to the house, where an argument began.
When he was first found, Isaiah’s family said he was alert and able to speak, but he later slipped into a coma and was connected to a life support machine.
Ms. Ceasar said:
“It was so hard to see my grandbaby like that. I just pray he can pull through.”
We are hopeful that little Isaiah pulls through and our thoughts and prayers are with the family.
