A ten-year-old boy was shot dead by another boy of the same age over losing a bike race, the victim’s heatbroken mother claims.
The boy suspect has been arrested in connection with the death of Keith Frierson.
Frierson, 10, was shot on Saturday, December 31. He was found with wounds to the head and neck in a California suburb around 16 miles north of Sacramento.
The victim’s mother, Brittani Frierson, who referred to her son as KJ, said the incident took place over a row about the winner of a bike race.
“He went outside to ride his bike – not even 15 minutes later, my baby was gone,” she said.
“I screamed for hours after I saw my child on that ground, because I could just see that he had no chance.”
READ MORE: Casey Anthony’s parents take lie detector test to clear names
She added that she was told what happened by a neighbour’s child, who was also in the race.
Sacramento County sheriff’s deputies responded to a call on Saturday afternoon that a person had been shot.
The caller said that a 10-year-old had gone to the car to get cigarettes for his father, and inside the vehicle, found a gun.
Police have said that after the child retrieved the weapon from the vehicle, they “proceeded to shoot the victim once and ran into a nearby apartment”.
The boy’s father then allegedly attempted to hide the firearm by throwing it into a nearby trash can.
The suspect cannot be named at this time for legal reasons, but the child’s father has been identified as Arkete Davis.
Davis has been arrested on suspicion of carrying a stolen, loaded firearm in a vehicle, child endangerment and being an accessory to a crime after the fact, while his son has been arrested on suspicion of murder.
“Instead of aiding my baby, he tried to hide it, he tried to cover it up,” Ms Frierson said.
“He will pay for this. He will. We’ll get justice for my son. I will get justice for my son.”
Ms Frierson has also alleged that a neighbour’s child told her the boy angrily walked off after he lost the race and returned with a gun.
She paid tribute to her son, who lost his father less than a year ago, saying that he was a generous and smart young man who enjoyed helping people.
“There’s nobody that met that boy that did not come back and tell me, to the side, like ‘your son – you raised that boy good, he’s such a good kid’,” she said at a vigil arranged in her son’s honor.
