A 4-year-old boy died yesterday afternoon after he was accidentally fatally shot by his 6-year-old brother. The Post reports the older boy had been playing with the gun at home in East Orange, New Jersey when he accidentally shot his brother in the head.
The injured boy was rushed to a nearby hospital and underwent emergency surgery, but could not be saved. His mother, 22-year-old Itiyanah Spruill, was arrested and charged with endangering the welfare of a child and weapons possession, according to ABC.
"This is crazy, they should have a safe place because that's been going on in the news over and over where you hear about those incidents going on," neighbor Vania Limiage told the network.
In April, 2013, 6-year-old Brandon Holt was accidentally shot and killed by his 4-year-old brother after the young boy found a .22-caliber rifle under their parents' bed. A bullet became lodged in Holt's head, and died two days later. Police later removed eleven guns from the Holt home, but not charges were filed against the boys' parents.
According to Federal data collected by the Centers for Disease Control, an average of 62 children age 14-and-under were killed by unintentional gunfire between 2007 and 2011. Children in America are sixteen times more likely to be killed in accidental shootings than children in other comparably-developed nations.
