A Sunday afternoon in Miami turned deadly when a 13-year-old shot his 6-year-old sister in the chest with a handgun he found in the house.
Justin Latourrette heard the loud boom from his neighbor’s house after noticing just an hour before that the kids were home alone and unsupervised.
Latourrette noticed that the two young children of his new neighbors were out in the driveway washing a family car.
“I thought it was strange,” said Latourrette, 29. “They didn’t seem to have any supervision.”
According to the Broward Sheriff’s Office, the 13-year-old boy shot the girl inside their residence just before 7:00 p.m.
“The siblings had been home alone when the teen found the handgun,” Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Dani Moschella said in a news release.
The little girl was taken to Broward Health Medical Center, where she was listed Saturday in critical but stable condition.
Latourrette, a heavy equipment operator, recalled watching as paramedics carried the girl out of the house.
“Her shirt was bloody, and you could see through a piece of gauze that she had a hole in her chest above the heart,” said Latourrette, who has two young daughters. “Her eyes were wide open in a blank stare, like she was in shock. I’ll never forget that look.”
Moschella said the shooting appeared to be accidental and remained under investigation. Just last week, a 5-year-old shot his 2-year-old sister to death with a gun he found in the house.
Shouldn’t this be a wake-up call to parents who own guns? SMH. We wish a speedy recovery to the little girl.
SOURCE: Huffington Post
