Police said a 2-year-old was shot dead at a home in Cocoa, Florida.
The fatal shooting was reported at approximately 7:30 AM on Osu Street in the mobile home community in Sunrise Village.
Cocoa police said messengers received a call from a neighbor that someone was screaming and carrying a small child was hit by a bullet.
Officers arrived at the house and tried to take measures to save lives before taking the boy to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
According to eyewitnesses, several of the teenage boys were in the house visiting a friend, and one of them was “displaying a firearm upon discharge,” the police said. The child was hit by a bullet.
An officer at the scene reported that the shooter was a 15-year-old boy who was playing with a firearm and fled the area after being fired.
Neighbor Mark Barclay said he went out to see what was going on.
“The first thing I heard was all the screaming, and I saw the child lying on the ground and the mother screaming and screaming blood everywhere,” said Barclay.
The police do not believe the shooting was deliberate.
“He was actively handling the firearm when he got out and hit the boy. Cocoa Police Department spokeswoman Yvonne Martinez said all the male minors fled the house.”
Police said they tracked some of the youths, but did not track down the shooter.
While the police believed the shooting was an accident, the boy with the gun still had major problems.
This will depend on the outcome of the investigation, which continues as the mother mourns the loss of her child.
“We would definitely like the person who had the firearm to come forward,” Martinez said. “If this is an accident, there are ways to deal with that that we can mitigate.”
Police said the shooter and the two-year-old victim were not related.
