A 4-year-old Indiana girl was fatally shot by her 5-year-old sibling while playing with a gun, authorities said Wednesday, the latest unintentional shooting by a child in the United States.
Police in Cumberland, Indiana, responding to reports of a shooting found the girl, Deor Nita, suffering from gunshot wounds upstairs in an apartment around 4:45 p.m., The Indianapolis Star, part of the USA TODAY Network, reported. Preliminary information suggests that her sibling may have fired the weapon when they were playing, according to Police Chief Suzanne Cooke-Woodland.
They were with two other siblings playing and were being supervised by their great-great-grandmother while their mother was at work, Woodland told The Star.
“It’s just awful,” Woodland said. “It makes no sense.”
It was unclear how or where the toddler got hold of the gun and who owns it, police said.
Guns are ‘not toys,’ Indiana police chief warns
Woodland, the police chief in Cumberland, Indiana, said Wednesday’s fatal shooting in her town is a tragic reminder of the importance of gun safety. She told reporters that guns are “not toys” and urged owners to “quit carrying them around” without safety devices or without some kind of way of storing them.
“People carry guns without safety devices and this is what happens. They have no respect for firearms and just the massive power they have and what they can do to people,” Woodland said, urging owners to get gun locks which are usually given away at police and fire stations.
“We have tons of them at our station. We will be happy to give them to you,” Woodland continued. “People should put their firearms away and not carelessly lay them around their houses.”
“This is a tragic situation and my heart goes out to them,” Woodland said.
Indiana shooting involving kids latest in disturbing nationwide trend
The shooting in Indiana is the latest in a recent string of incidents where kids are pulling the trigger nationwide.
So far this year, there have been at least 186 unintentional shootings by children in the U.S. this year, resulting in 66 deaths and 128 injuries, according to Everytown Research & Policy. The organization tracks media reports involving kids under 18 unintentionally shooting themselves or someone else. Everytown’s current stats are on par with last year’s tallies.
Last month, a 6-year-old boy shot his baby brother in the face and shoulder in Detroit. A loaded, semi-automatic weapon had been left in the house, police said. Their mother was down the street and their dad was in the backyard with some other children and an uncle, police added.
In May, a child accidentally shot and killed 4-year-old Camila Ariana Duarte in the head in suburban Chicago. Her father who owns the gun was apparently outside when the shooting happened.
And in January, Abby Zwerner, a first-grade teacher was shot in the hand and chest by her 6-year-old student as she sat at a reading table in her classroom in January at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, a city near the Chesapeake Bay in southeast Virginia.
Police say the boy, who hasn’t been publicly identified, used his mother’s 9mm handgun, which was purchased legally, in the “intentional” shooting. Zwerner was hospitalized for nearly two weeks.
In April, Zwerner filed a lawsuit seeking $40 million in damages from school officials. The suit accuses the district of gross negligence for reportedly ignoring multiple warnings on the day of the shooting that the boy had a gun and was in a “violent mood.”
Shootings committed by kids nationwide are infrequent but scary
An estimated 4.6 million children in the U.S. were living in a home with at least one unlocked and loaded gun in 2021, according to a study using data from the National Firearm Survey.
Between 2015 and 2022, there were at least 2,802 unintentional shootings by children aged 17 and younger, according to statistics compiled by Dr. Judy Schaechter, a public health professor at the University of Miami and past president of the National Injury Free Coalition for Kids.
The shootings resulted in 1,083 deaths and 1,815 nonfatal gun injuries, nearly all among other kids, Schaechter said. And at least 895 preschoolers and toddlers managed to find a gun and unintentionally shoot themselves or someone else during this time, she said.
And new research by the scientific journal Injury Epidemiology suggests that more than 90% of guns used in such shooting deaths were left unlocked and loaded. Most of the shootings happened at the victim’s home about in 8 out of 10 cases, the gun belonged to an older relative, the study reports.
Contributing: Grace Hauck and Natalie Alesa Alund, USA TODAY; Indianapolis Star
