check out the Wash posts version:
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Girl, 5, Killed By Child With Gun
Four Children Hit In Two Shootings
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11152-2003Sep27.html
By Clarence Williams and Ovetta Wiggins
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, September 28, 2003; Page C01
A young child fired a semiautomatic handgun inside a home in Palmer Park last night, killing a 5-year-old girl and critically wounding a 7-year-old boy, Prince George's County police said.
In a separate incident hours earlier, a 10-year-old boy and 8-year-old girl were shot and seriously wounded outside an Oxon Hill house, police said. Their injuries were not considered life-threatening, and police said they did not know who fired the shots.
Police said two of the Palmer Park children were standing inside the front door of their rambler in the 2300 block of Tuemmler Avenue when a boy police believe to be 4 or 5 years old fired at them. The wounded children were able to run across the street, where a neighbor called police about 8:30 p.m.
Police did not know how many shots the boy fired, said Cpl. Diane Richardson, a police spokeswoman. "It was a fully loaded semiautomatic handgun," she said. It was unclear whether the children were home alone or how they were related, she said.
"We're still trying to determine how the child found the gun," Richardson said. "He pulled the trigger, and as a result of that, two kids were shot."
The girl was taken to Prince George's Hospital Center, where she was pronounced dead, authorities said. The wounded boy was flown to Children's Hospital, where he was undergoing surgery late last night and was listed in critical condition.
Richardson said the boy who fired the shots was with police while the children's parents were at the hospitals. Investigators were trying to determine whether one parent was a security guard who may have carried a gun.
Ted Hatcher, a 34-year resident of the neighborhood, said he was standing outside his home smoking a cigar when police drove up. Hatcher said he saw the older boy lying on his stomach on an ambulance stretcher, apparently conscious. "The girl wasn't moving," he said.
Hatcher said the wounded children were siblings who attended Matthew Henson Elementary School with his twin 7-year-old granddaughters. He said the neighborhood can be troublesome and "it is never a dull moment over here."
"Everybody up here knows each other," Hatcher said. "Basically, everybody watches out for everybody's kids."
Near the home where the shooting took place, a man whom law enforcement officials identified as a relative of the victims broke across a police line and demanded information from the officers. "Tell me something," the man screamed at police as people tried to pull him away. "I am not going nowhere until they tell me something."
Neighbors said the area is one where children play in the streets day and night in the midst of rowdy behavior and the sound of occasional gunfire.
Larry Lawson moved to the street from Texas in January and said he doesn't allow his three children to play outside his yard unsupervised. "This doesn't make me nervous, but this is like the second major incident in six months," Lawson said. "I had no idea what kind of neighborhood this was until I got here."
In addressing the two sets of shootings, a spokesman for Prince George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson said that police investigations have not yielded all the details in either case.
"But this is the time when we are encouraging adults with firearms in their homes to store them properly so juveniles do not have access to them," spokesman Jim Keary said. "It is always a tragedy . . . when a child is injured or killed by gunfire."
In the earlier shooting, police said, officers were called to the 1900 block of Jarvis Avenue about 1:30 p.m. after a resident dialed 911 to report gunfire. Police said that when they arrived, they found blood on the ground at the front of the house, near the street.
Neighbors said someone in a van had scooped up the children and driven away. The children were taken to Greater Southeast Hospital in the District and later transported to Children's Hospital.
Cpl. Joe Merkel, a county police spokesman, said the boy was struck in the leg, the girl in the hip. Police did not release their names.
"Both are expected to survive, thankfully," Merkel said.
Neighbors said the children are siblings and are inseparable.
"You see one, you see the other," said Ruth Carrington, who lives a block from where the shooting occurred.
Merkel said investigators were interviewing witnesses.
A teenager who was at the house was taken in for questioning.
"We don't know her relationship to the children," Merkel said of the teenager. "She was pretty emotional and uncooperative, and that's why they got her out of there."
Police said it was unclear who the intended target of the gunfire may have been.
A 13-year-old girl was shot and killed in the same block in November 2001. Gloria Shamira Courtney was shot to death a day after being threatened by several teenage boys because she refused to give in to their sexual advances, friends and neighbors said at the time.
"They sit outside in their cars and smoke drugs," Robin Anderson, who lives in the 1800 block of Jarvis Avenue, said yesterday.
"I don't even let my kids up there," Anderson said.
"What happened today is not nothing new. I just hope they do something about it."
Staff writers Tim Craig and Simone Weichselbaum contributed to this report.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
:banghead: 