A stray bullet killed a 6-month-old infant as two people were shooting at each other in western Atlanta on Monday — the third time a child has been shot in the city this year — 官员说.
It was also at least the second fatal shooting involving a stray bullet in the Atlanta area in nine days.
Police are trying to determine the identities of the two shooters involved in Monday’s shooting, Atlanta Police Chief Rodney Bryant said in a news conference on Monday. No arrests have been reported.
“We will continue to work throughout the night to find resolution for (the baby’s) 家庭,” Bryant said.
The shooting happened shortly before 3 下午. outside a convenience store in Atlanta’s Dixie Hills neighborhood, a roughly 4.5-mile drive west of downtown Atlanta, CNN affiliate WXIA reported.
Details about what led to the shooting weren’t immediately available.
A woman who lives nearby said that she and her husband heard gunshots.
“Other neighbors started walking down the street and we were told a baby had gotten shot,” Keona Jones told WXIA.
“Immediately my heart, it just began to break,” 她说. “We actually both kind of teared up. Here we go again. Another life lost. Another senseless death.”
This was the third shooting of a child under six — two of whom died — in Atlanta this year, Mayor Andre Dickens said at Monday’s news conference.
The first victim, 在一月 12, was a 1-year-old who was shot by another child who found an unsecured gun in a home in western Atlanta’s Collier Heights neighborhood, 警察说. The 1-year-old’s mother was arrested on a charge of second-degree murder, 警察说.
In the second shooting, a 5-year-old vehicle passenger was struck by gunfire as drivers of two other vehicles were shooting at each other on January 19 in southern Atlanta, 警察说. That child survived, Dickens said. Two suspects were arrested at the scene.
Dickens also mentioned the shootings of three other children in the last two years in Atlanta, 包含 8-year-old Secoriea Turner, 谁是 killed in July 2020.
“These children are bearing the brunt and losing their lives because adults are unable to settle their disputes without going to guns,” Dickens said. “I’m demanding that it stop. We’re going to put an end to it. We’re about to work day and night on this, as we have been, but this, this hurts — it’s a 6-month-old child that we’ve lost.”
British scientist killed by stray bullet while visiting metro Atlanta
The 6-month-old was at least the second person to be killed by a stray bullet in the Atlanta area since last week, according to reports from authorities.
Early on January 16, British scientist Matthew Wilson, 31, was shot while he was in an apartment in the northeastern Atlanta suburb of Brookhaven, 警察说.
Brookhaven police said they responded to 911 calls about shots being fired from an apartment complex there. While officers were checking the area, 警察说 they received another call about a man being shot in an apartment.
When officers arrived at the apartment, they found Wilson in bed with a gunshot wound to his head. He was taken to a hospital, where he died, 警察说.
威尔逊, an astrophysicist from Chertsey in Surrey, 英国, was visiting loved ones when the shooting happened, 据警察.
“This incident appears to be a random act involving individuals participating in the reckless discharge of firearm(s) which led to the tragic death” of Wilson, Brookhaven police said in a news release.
No arrests have been made in the case.
