A Detroit boy was shot in the face by his 9-year-old brother who had retrieved an unsecured gun from a 17-year-old brother’s room.
Police said that the 9-year-old took the gun to play with it when it discharged hitting the 4-year-old sibling’s cheek and shoulder.
The victim was hospitalized in serious condition. Two teenagers were arrested at the home on warrants unrelated to the shooting.
“Four-year-old – we’re talking about a baby,” said Assistant Police Chief Charles Fitzgerald.
“You can heal from this kind of scars, but you got the mental wounds as well that not only the older brother – when I say older, he’s just a child, he’s a little boy himself, pulling the trigger shooting his brother – and then the wounds that the brother is going to have.”
The 9-year-old boy told detectives that the 17-year-old sibling “showed him the gun before.”
The gun is registered to a person who is on probation and prohibited from owning a weapon, police said.
