A two-year-old boy shot and killed his 11-year-old sister while they and their siblings played with a gun inside their Philadelphia home.
Jamara Stevens was fatally wounded with a gun police believe was brought into the house by the mother’s boyfriend a few hours earlier.
Their mum, Tiffany Goldwire, had popped to the bathroom when the shooting happened.
According to police the family’s four children were playing together in a bedroom when the toddler pointed the cocked handgun at Jamara and fired, hitting her in the arm around 10am Saturday.
The bullet travelled through the schoolgirl’s chest and struck her heart, police said.
Jamara was rushed to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, but died about a half-hour later.
The girl’s mother was at the hospital, Lieutenant John Walker said, when she was pronounced dead.
“She was distraught,” he said.
Investigators believe Miss Goldwire’s boyfriend has left .357 calibre handgun with an eight inch barrel on top of the fridge.
The children found the firearm and, believing it to be a toy, began playing with it.
Following the tragedy police interviewed the mum-of-four for five hours.
After searching the surviving family members, officials discovered the toddler was holding the gun at the time when it was fired.
They found gun powder residue on his fingers and a burn from the shot.
Police discovered the weapon on Miss Goldwire’s bed when officers first arrived on the scene.
Investigators are still trying to determine who owned the gun Homicide detectives are preparing a file for district attorney’s office but no charges have yet been filed.
Police have confirmed they’d paid visits to the family home in the past.
In October last year, a babysitter in Vidor, Texas, was charged after a five year old boy she was looking after fatally shot himself with her gun, police said.
Two weeks earlier, a two-year-old girl fatally shot herself in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and the toddler’s father faced involuntary manslaughter charges.
Source-Irish Mirror
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