A gunshot rang through the parking lot of a Lowe’s hardware store in Elizabethtown, Ky., during the early morning hours Sunday – a shot that claimed the life of a 15-year-old girl. According to police, the alleged shooter was her friend, another 15-year old.
Events leading up to the victim – identified by Hardin County Schools in a statement to media as Katen Atwell, per WKYT – taking a bullet to the chest began when 21-year-old Byran Harbison of McDaniels, Ky., picked them up and purchased alcohol for them, the Elizabethtown Police Department said in a Facebook post. It added that Harbison told officers he met the girls through the social media app Snapchat and that he believed Atwell was 18 years old.
Harbison drove the minors to the Lowe’s parking lot to “hang out and drink.” Police said Atwell and Harbison were in the back of his truck when the shooting occurred, while the other 15-year-old was in the driver’s seat of the vehicle.
“During an interview, the juvenile suspect admitted that she picked up a handgun from inside the vehicle, pointed it at the victim, and pulled the trigger,” said the Elizabethtown Police Department. “As a result of her actions, one round was fired striking the victim in the chest.”
Her account of the shooting differs from Harbison’s, authorities noted. She said that Harbison placed the firearm on the center console of the vehicle and told her it was unloaded. He said that the firearm had been secured in the glove compartment and that she removed it without his knowledge.
When officers responded to the scene at 2:30 a.m. Sunday, they found Harbison providing CPR to Atwell, who was transported to Baptist Health Hardin by Hardin County EMS. At the hospital, she was pronounced deceased.
Harbison was “charged with 3rd degree Unlawful Transaction with a Minor as well as 1st degree Wanton Endangerment,” and held at Hardin County Detention Center, said police. The juvenile suspect is in also in custody and has been charged with murder, but police said her name is not being released due to her age.
Audacy has also reported on a recent case where a young teen allegedly shot and killed someone. In that case, 15-year-old Christian Simmons was charged as an adult with the murder of 58-year-old Cesar Tejeda, an Uber driver he allegedly shot. President Donald Trump has said that he believes teens as young as 14 should be tried as adults in some cases.
Data released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2023 said that unintentional injury was a leading cause of death among U.S. children and adolescents aged 0–17 years, and firearms were a leading injury method for the period from 2003 to 2021. In September 2024, a report from the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University found that firearms killed more children and teens, ages 1 to 17, than any other cause (including car crashes and cancer) for the third year in a row in 2022.
“Firearm death rates among children and adolescents increased 46% from 2019 to 2021, primarily driven by gun assaults,” said the Kaiser Family Foundation last May. “From 2021 to 2023, the firearm death rate has held steady at 3.5 per 100,000 children and adolescents.”
Brady: United Against Gun Violence said in a report that eight children are unintentionally shot every day in the U.S. It also said there are 350 unintentional shootings in which a child pulls the trigger every year.