DETROIT (WWJ) A five year-old boy was shot in the hand at a home on Detroit’s west side, police said.
Detroit Police Chief James White said the boy’s mother called 911 around 7:20 a.m. Saturday after “adults inside the home” told her the child had been shot.
“He’s a baby. He’s a kid,” White said addressing the media.
Officers arrived to the home on Burlingame at Lawton, in the area of the Lodge and Davison. They found the child with “severe injuries to the hand.” He was rushed to the hospital for surgery.
“It’s horrific,”White said. “It’s something he’ll think about forever. You can only imagine, something this traumatic happening for a five-year-old.”
White said investigators are working a couple of theories on what lead to the shooting that they’re calling “accidental.” It’s unclear if the child got a hold of the gun and shot himself, or someone else fired the weapon.
The person believed to be “responsible for the weapon” is in custody and a search warrant will be conducted on the house, according to White.
“This obsession, this absolute obsession with hand guns is just over the top. And we’re going to hold (the suspect) accountable,” White added.
Adults were in the home at the time of the shooting, he said.
He urged gun owners to lock up their guns and be safe.
“If you’re going to have a gun, that comes with a tremendous amount of responsibility. You have to secure the weapon…Every time you handle a gun, there’s a chance that weapon could go off, you have to think about that…” he said. “Unfortunately, when there are children around, they see us, they watch us. They look and see what we’re doing. They see us putting guns in drawers. Kids are very smart.”
18 kids under the age of 18 have been shot in Detroit so far this year “either by their own hands or someone else’s,” White said.
In this case, the little boy is expected to survive, but with likely lifelong injuries to his hand and “trauma that will last forever.”
“You ask yourself, at a time when a kid should be getting up, eating cereal and watching cartoons, he’s being rushed to the hospital because he’s been shot— we have to do better,” White said. “We have to do better with these guns.”